Seasteading: DOA?

It’s not gonna be like this for hundreds of years.

For a few years now, there have been quite a few vocal proponents of seasteading — establishing colonies of people that live on the sea or in it. There is a foundation dedicated to the advancement of seasteading, backed by Peter Thiel of Paypal. There have been countless books and articles written about seasteading. And there have been hamfisted attempts at “seasteading” that ended with local governments confiscating the vessels and seasteaders running back to where they came from with tails tucked firmly between their legs.

So why hasn’t it taken off?

There’s actually a pretty reasonable explanation. It’s because the only people calling it seasteading are rich people, and the only people who actually live on boats are people doing it out of necessity. People have lived on the sea for thousands of years, and just because Peter Thiel comes along and wants to call it something different doesn’t mean that it never happened before.

To be sure, though — living far out in the ocean would take significant resources. But the average person can buy a boat and anchor it out somewhere for free for next to nothing. If it’s a sailboat, there’s minimal fuel costs. And all across the Bay Area, there are people living aboard boats. (Full disclosure: I live on a sailboat at San Francisco’s only liveaboard marina). There is a healthy community of people living on boats in…