Off On A Sunday Tangent: Seasteading, Switching Governments, and Boats

I’m a big fan of Seasteading. I think it’s a phenomenal idea and I’ve been following it for a while now. In fact, I’d be going to the First Annual Seasteading Conference on October 10th if I didn’t live on the east coast. It’s starting to take off. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, recently donated $500,000 dollars to the Seasteading Institute, so hopefully, they’re really going to start making an impact. What sort of impact? Well…

The high cost of switching governments is what gives the state it’s power to do bad things. If you decrease that cost, governments will be more swayed by the market. To put it more simply, let’s say everyone lived in RVs, spoke the same language, and crossing the border was easy. Then let’s say the US government starts a spying program on all it’s citizens, and taxes them an extra 10% of their income to pay for it. The next day, a huge number of US citizens would leave for Mexico and Canada.

When the cost of “switching governments” is low (much like when the cost of switching companies, like cell phone providers, auto insurance, etc is low), then governments could never get away with the nonsense they do now. The market would keep them in check. Seasteading can help in that regard since it creates floating mini-governments at sea, and you can unhook and leave if you’re unhappy with that particular floating city. Because of that competition and the ease of leaving, the governments that make the most amount of people happy will thrive. Other floating cities will embrace the methods that are attracting the most people, and all the floating cities will soon be quite efficient and well-run.

The hope is that those methods that evolved at sea via the free market will spill over onto the traditional land-based governments. Even if they don’t, eventually (over years) so many people will move to sea because of the better quality of life, that the land governments will have to follow suit.

What does all this have to do with RideLust?
Boats.

I’m looking forward to living at sea one day, but I really love cars and motorcycles and high-speed movement. I’ll miss those, so I need to find a nautical replacement. Sailboats are fantastic, you get to wear a captains hat and pretend you’re a pirate, but really, I need speed. I need powerboats.

The thing is, I don’t know jack about boats. This is where I need you, RideLust-ers. Give me some quality boat info in the comments. Do my job for me. Please.

Remember, the First Annual Seasteading Conference is happening October 10th. Be there or be square.

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