I've been reading Sailing the Farm (1981), which is the origin of the word "seasteading", and wondering about the possibility of a significant cultural movement based around the idea. At least in this book, the plan wasn't for a floating city or anything like that. The idea was, instead, for people to live on boats; and not big, cruise-ship-style things, boats suitable for an individual and his immediate family, and fitted with sails and various solar-powered gadgetry to be as independent of the land as possible.
As I understand it, there were two reasons for this. The first was, if The Man (TM) became too oppressive wherever you happened to be, you could just leave and sail elsewhere. Taxes too high? Drug laws too strict? Find another city or country that's cooler. If enough people started doing this, the thinking went, it could even create competition between cities and countries for who could attract the most citizens.
Second, if Shit Hit the Fan - as in depression, peak oil, eco-catastrophe, nuclear war, whatever - you could just sail away from it, live at sea until things are more stable. The book was written in 1981, so memories of the oil shocks were still pretty fresh, and Ronald "Ray-Gun" Reagan had just been elected president.
Could this grow into a subcultural movement? The expense and difficulty of living on a boat is probably too great for it to get really big, but maybe you could get a few tens of thousands of young types to live on the waves, plus another few million who subscribe to the magazines but can't/won't actually head to sea. It's romantic, individualist, adventurous, eco-friendly, and flips the bird to The Man for screwing up the planet. I'm thinking of it as a sort of lefty-ish version of the survivalist movement. What do you think?
As I understand it, there were two reasons for this. The first was, if The Man (TM) became too oppressive wherever you happened to be, you could just leave and sail elsewhere. Taxes too high? Drug laws too strict? Find another city or country that's cooler. If enough people started doing this, the thinking went, it could even create competition between cities and countries for who could attract the most citizens.
Second, if Shit Hit the Fan - as in depression, peak oil, eco-catastrophe, nuclear war, whatever - you could just sail away from it, live at sea until things are more stable. The book was written in 1981, so memories of the oil shocks were still pretty fresh, and Ronald "Ray-Gun" Reagan had just been elected president.
Could this grow into a subcultural movement? The expense and difficulty of living on a boat is probably too great for it to get really big, but maybe you could get a few tens of thousands of young types to live on the waves, plus another few million who subscribe to the magazines but can't/won't actually head to sea. It's romantic, individualist, adventurous, eco-friendly, and flips the bird to The Man for screwing up the planet. I'm thinking of it as a sort of lefty-ish version of the survivalist movement. What do you think?