Almost a year ago, I wrote about the newly-launched Seasteading Institute, which promises to break the cozy cartel of world governments by developing the technology required to found affordable autonomous communities on the open oceans. It’s an audacious plan, and I expressed some skepticism about whether it can be made to work. But the Institute, led by Patri Friedman, has made an impressive amount of progress in the last year. They’ve done preliminary engineering work on a small seastead design. They hosted a conference that was by all accounts well-attended. And they’ve generated an impressive amount of press coverage.
So I’m excited to see that Friedman will be giving a talk at Cato about his project on April 7. If I lived in DC, I’d definitely be there. I’m still not convinced Seasteading is the wave of the future, but I’m glad there are people giving it their best shot.
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