City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away

R.A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Sun Aug 2 12:26:43 PDT 2009


Well, if CNN says it, it must be true then.


Remember Patri, nothing says "we don' need no steenkin' experimental  
politics" like a surface-to-surface missile...

"Whoops. It sunk. Sorry about that. Everybody okay over there? Need  
any help?"


Cheers,
RAH
Remember, boys and girls, if they know who (or where...) you are, they  
can take your stuff...

--------


<http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=City+floating++on+the+sea+could+be+just+3+years+away+-+CNN.com&expire=-1&urlID=34646819&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fedition.cnn.com%2F2009%2FTECH%2F03%2F09%2Ffloating.cities.seasteading%2Findex.html&partnerID=212106 
 >

CNN


City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away

By Shelby Erdman
CNN

(CNN) -- A floating city off the coast of San Francisco may sound like  
science fiction, but it could be reality in the not-too-distant future.

The Seasteading Institute already has drawn up plans for the  
construction of a homestead on the Pacific Ocean.

One project engineer described the prototype as similar to a cruise  
ship, but from a distance the cities might look like oil-drilling  
platforms.

According to the plans, the floating cities would not only look  
different from their land-based counterparts, but they might operate  
differently, too.
Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who now works for the  
Seasteading Institute, said floating cities are the perfect places to  
experiment with new forms of government.

Some of the new political ideas the group is tossing around include  
legalizing marijuana and making intellectual property communal -- so  
that everyone would take ownership in art produced on the city at sea.

"The idea isn't just about getting away from rules or getting rid of  
rules. It's about a system that encourages experimentation with  
different political systems," he said.

Friedman said the floating city may be built in modular pieces so that  
city blocks and neighborhoods can be recombined to create new urban  
layouts.
The idea of building cities on the sea is not new, he said, but the  
Seasteading Institute has come closer to realizing the goal than others.

"A lot of people over the past hundred plus years have had this idea  
and even specifically building cities on the ocean to try out new  
forms of government," he said. "But they've pretty much been totally  
imagined and if they did try, they totally failed."

There are several unknowns about future attempts to create floating  
cities, said Christian Cermelli, an engineer and architect with Marine  
Innovation and Technology, based in San Francisco.

Cermelli, who is part of a team of designers creating a blueprint for  
the first seastead, said it's unclear if construction is possible --  
or what it would cost.

Still, a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three  
years, he said.

Friedman said seasteads are loosely based on oil rigs, but with  
important modifications.

"We care more about sunlight and open space, so the specifications are  
different," he said. "Also, oil platforms are fixed in place. We think  
it's important to have more modular cities. So you would build a city  
out of buildings that can actually be separated and rearranged."

Cermelli said the ocean cities may use technology from suspension  
bridges "to expand the space at sea and basically get a roomier  
platform."
Friedman says the idea of seasteading has met a range of reactions.

"Some people think we're crazy. A lot of people think we're crazy," he  
said. "Some people think terrible things could happen, others think it  
would be great."

About 600 people have joined the Seasteading Institute.

Some of them, like Gayle Young, say the idea is exciting partly  
because it's so different.

"I love the idea because it's audacious. It's big," she said. "It's  
about pushing frontiers."





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