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The quest for interference freedom.

The quest for intereference freedom, is going on quite a while now. The more state entities, regulatory enties, private entities, city regulators, wrap any activity on the planet in politics, red taping, interference, delay, permit processes, lawyer interference, coding appliance, taxing, and similary hindering - the more surges the need for a "interference free ambient" - free trade zones, offshore banking, outsourcing,  are the strategies to balance and neutralize interference. But most business owners see this as an uphill battle that is basicly lost - more and more interference from more and more "entities" is to come, less and less space for entrepeneurs individuality, new ideas and out of the box projects, on the planet is to expect.

Main Thread interference freedom : http://concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56351996/business-and-third-party-interference-freedom/

As Peter Thiel puts it: “…In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms…” – Peter Thiel

“…there are no truly free places left in our world…” – Peter Thiel

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian

“Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent.” – Peter Thiel

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage-isnt-danger-other-rights-are

 

 

Visionaries who think it radical, unevitably come to the conclusion that there is only one way out of "redtaping hell" the "oceanic solution".

- read more here about oceanic subdue to nobody solutions: http://concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t58935854/subdue-to-nobody/

 

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Business Tycoons like Roman Abramovich show the way – they run global business empires from a yacht as headquarters, making their operations country independent, interference independent, free of ruling, taxing, and redtaping of any regulation entity, on the planet.

Going oceanic like Captain Nemo is the ultimate tool to asure interference freedom for an individual. Doing Business worldwide, staying outside of “jurisdiction” of anybody all the time. Moving from opportunity to opportunity on planetary scale. Mobilis in Mobili. (Captain Nemo’s Motto). From sea you can approch any important city on the planet and ask your local partners to take a 5 minute tender for a meeting in your floating headquarters.

 

Eventually all business ventures and business leaders will go for “interference freedom” and discover “going oceanic” as the best and most feasible solution available. Globalization requires mobility as a base condition, the ocean gives a maximum of mobility. Floating Headquarters are only the first wave, floating production facilties (LNG terminals, tourism ventures) are already in use, many more in plan (data centers, breweries) - eventually all business ventures will discover the benefits of a interference free floating space that can follow resources and customer demand around the globe, and avoid third party interference by floating out of jurisdiction.

 

SabMiller Floating Brewery Concept following resources and customers around the globe "mobilis in mobili" interference free and efficient ...

 

Nkossa Barge a oil production installed on a concrete honeycomb barge off the shore of Africa. The "mobile offshored oil industry asset" is interference free and can be moved to the next field when production runs dry.

 

A gas tanker is unloding liquid gas at the Adriatic LNG floating terminal (9 miles offshore). It is a floating regasification plant that transforms the supercold liquid into gas usable for urban gas networks of a energy hungry Europe. Out at sea the process is safe convenient, AND interference free. Adriatic LNG is a industrial plant mounted on a concrete honeycomb floating foundation.

 

What is true for large scale industry, also applies for the small business owner. You can not sell "stinky fish" from your garage (neighbour interference) but you can from a little barge a couple of meters offshore...

 

See more about how to get a foothold in oceanic business key technologies: here

 

Read more Captain Nemo Mobili in Mobilis :  http://concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t43942461/the-captain-nemo-float-out-seasteading/

Read more seasteading floating business headquarters:  http://www.seasteading.org/forum-list/topic/floating-business-headquaters-for-global-business-networks/

 

All business  needs a certain degree of freedom to prosper and it will therefore end up on the ocecan as the population grows, and business freedom on land becomes less and less feasible as everybody is standing on anybodies toes, is "concerned about the risk, the noise",  of industrial processes  trying to regulate anything but "applied residential behavior" out of existance,  it works  just like a "giant condo administration" hostile to business and industrial processes of all kind.

Entrepeneurship, business, invention, industrial development - in short the motor of progress - needs an "ambient of freedom" it can not grow in pre-coded "applied residential behavior" ambients.

The same is true for large scale industrial processes. They imply taking a certain risk within acceptable insurance quotes that you can not get in a City Center so moving the operation out on the ocean frequently is the only feasible solution.

What happens if silicon valley startups can not longer be performed in the celebrated "garage setup" because the condo administration forbids to use the garage for anything else than parking a car ? - neither Apple nor Google can happen any longer.

 

 

 

This is why inventions and new technology tend to be always part of a "non regulated new frontier" of some kind. Todays problem is that we are "running out of frontier" and "dull coding and regulation" is envolving and asfixing the very core and motor of development. The demographic development of our cities is pushing the sistem to a state of "sclerotic stagnation". Only the wide open spaces of the oceans can inject the much needed dose of frontier and freedom.

 

The personal safety question legal interference:

Part of this development is also the "personal safety question" in Russia the business ambient and ruling is so caotic and contradictory that a average business man like Abramovic inevitably breaks several laws per day that could bring him to jail at any moment. So being "out of reach" on a Yacht is a question of personal safety.  Surprisingly that is not only the case in Russia, it is also the case in the US.

Laws and redtaping and nanny state has become so abundant and chaotic that the average citicen commits 3 fellonies per day without noticing it ...

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842

All this makes "getting out of jurisdiction" a "matter of urgency and survival" for any outstanding individual and business venture - especial for those with powerful interest against them looking for means to get them a fall.  Abramovic is concient of his vulnerability and has bullet proof glass and rocket defense sistems on his Eclipse.

If the yacht could dive and disappear under the surface as Captain Nemos Yacht did - it would be even better.

The idea that only "criminal activity" could have an interest to "get out of jurisdiction" is pure propaganda of the proponents of the" big brother control state". The real problem is the other way round - good and normal citicens and their legitimate business activity becomes more and more interfered, red taped, and "coded out of existance".

We live in a world of "electronic control" nobody can oppose, and of harassment of interference entities of all kind, that are spitting out "redtaping code out of control".

The millions of pages of "ruling code" can entangle any citicen at any moment, especially if he is doing something "out of norm".

Basicly it has become a fact of life that "anything that is out of applied residential behavior" is "somehow forbidden".

This is the real problem we need to deal with.

Smart people (and billionairs are smart people) have a legitimate and natural right to look for a way out of that, it is just the practical implementation of the UN guaranteed universal right to "non interference".

 

 

Interesting facts to know in the perspective of "the quest for interference freedom in business":

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_bank

... Offshore banking constitutes a sizable portion of the international financial system.

Experts believe that as much as half the world's capital flows through offshore centers. (status 2014)

Money is already offshore, people, their homes and business centers (Yachts) are already following. So do Google data centers to avoid state interference in internet.

All this is not something that will happen in a world 100 years from now - this is happening in the world we are living in right now.

Things like the "corralito" in Argentina, state bail out of wreckless financial institutions, and political manipulation of fiat currencies, will not contribute to a "decrease in the legitime need for offshore banking "  to get private assets outside of "state jurisdictions" is a strategic protection need for everybody starting at workers pension funds and ending at billionairs asset protection strategy.

We can assume that the trend will not stop until all assets are outside of state jurisdiction and safe from political access altogether.

“Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent.” – Peter Thiel

Like in physics a force always creates a counter force. The business worlds counterforce to state interference is offshoring, globalization, mobility... there is no better physical matrix on the planet to provide that, than the ocean yachts are only the first generation of "floating headquarters" more and bigger things like independent floating cities (model Venice) are next to come.

In some way "going oceanic" is just the best way for "going global".

 

 

-- Edited by admin on Sunday 28th of September 2014 02:43:55 PM

-- Edited by admin on Wednesday 5th of April 2017 06:37:01 AM

-- Edited by admin on Friday 26th of October 2018 05:34:01 PM

The quest for oceanic resoures

Humanity is growing a billion per decade, even if the population would stabilize (politcal developments in China and India indicate contrary) the needs for resources and goods would still grow exponentially as poor people are trying to catch up with first world standards.

There is no chance to deal with human needs on the planet without taping on large scale into oceanic resouces. As a society we can not go to stagnation and "use less resources" if we stop to expand we start to perish in distribution conflicts that tear our society apart from within. So going for new frontiers with unlimited resources is "part of our human nature" what is next is oceanic resources  - to just name a few:

• Energy, oil, gas, wind, otec 

 

• Ocean Food. Ocean domestication, open ocean fish farming, drift cages.

 

• Mid ocean ridge minerals (more here)

 

• Oceanic genetic resouces  see Greg Venter and his Sourcer Expedition

 

So big business in all those fields is not only comming - it is going on as we speak.

Once the oceanic resources come to an end we need to colonize new worlds in space. There is no stopping to human expansion. The oceans might buy us just enough time (a couple of decades) to get our tecnology ready for the final frontier of space colonization. What we see today (global economy, internet, ...) is the first glimps of humanity becomming a "global civilisation" expanding at "warp speed".  We can not afford to not use 99% of the habitable planetary volume anymore. This is what ocean colonization is about - fortunes will be made on this new frontier.

 

 

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National Geographic (may 2014) featured a marvelous photo-essay about sea farming, announcing, “Aquaculture has expanded about 14-fold since 1980 … exceeding beef production clearly for the first time.” Read more: here

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Offshoring the megatrend of the century

We live in a world where half of all money is offshore already, tycoons like Abramovic and Branson are "offshoring" their private life and tax declarations, Google is offshoring data centers to get rid of state interference in their business, it can be easyly predicted that at the end all buisness all money all data, will be taken out of interference of politics and states and in one form or another be "offshored".

The final point of the "offshoring movement" is Captain Nemo, doing business worldwide from a yacht that governments and other interferers could not even spot and interfere if they wanted. Eclipse is still visible to everybody every time it goes for a port, it can still be boarded it can still be grounded by authorities in a port. Nautilus is already out of this dilemma - it can not be spotted, it can not be boarded, it can not be grounded in any reasonably possible and feasible operation. It converts the personal living space bubble of a individual into something that is private and off radar in the same way as a numbered offshore account gets money "off radar" and invisible.

The whole idea of offshoring has many times been discredited as a "safe haven for criminal activity" - but this is mere negative propaganda of the proponents of the nanny and big brother state. Privacy is a basic right and going off radar is just implementing your rights in the real world. It is not even new - the people who went to the new world as pioneers "offshored" their religion and business from interference in Europe. Today there is no land left to do that - for going off radar you best go oceanic technology makes it feasible.

You are here: why going oceanic is next big thing to come in business

More on the topic offshoring (in the sense of going out of jurisdiction)  megatrend of the century

"I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian."

Peter Thiel

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56239662/oceanic-concrete-sphere-habitat/

The Education of a Libertarian

Peter Thiel


I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”

But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.

As a Stanford undergraduate studying philosophy in the late 1980s, I naturally was drawn to the give-and-take of debate and the desire to bring about freedom through political means. I started a student newspaper to challenge the prevailing campus orthodoxies; we scored some limited victories, most notably in undoing speech codes instituted by the university. But in a broader sense we did not achieve all that much for all the effort expended. Much of it felt like trench warfare on the Western Front in World War I; there was a lot of carnage, but we did not move the center of the debate. In hindsight, we were preaching mainly to the choir — even if this had the important side benefit of convincing the choir’s members to continue singing for the rest of their lives.

As a young lawyer and trader in Manhattan in the 1990s, I began to understand why so many become disillusioned after college. The world appears too big a place. Rather than fight the relentless indifference of the universe, many of my saner peers retreated to tending their small gardens. The higher one’s IQ, the more pessimistic one became about free-market politics — capitalism simply is not that popular with the crowd. Among the smartest conservatives, this pessimism often manifested in heroic drinking; the smartest libertarians, by contrast, had fewer hang-ups about positive law and escaped not only to alcohol but beyond it.

As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a libertarian politics appear grim indeed. Exhibit A is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that the response to this crisis involves way more debt and leverage, and way more government. Those who have argued for free markets have been screaming into a hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any remaining hopes of politically minded libertarians. For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of the body politic has become a fool’s errand.

Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.”

The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom. Let me briefly speak to three such technological frontiers:

(1) Cyberspace. As an entrepreneur and investor, I have focused my efforts on the Internet. In the late 1990s, the founding vision of PayPal centered on the creation of a new world currency, free from all government control and dilution — the end of monetary sovereignty, as it were. In the 2000s, companies like Facebook create the space for new modes of dissent and new ways to form communities not bounded by historical nation-states. By starting a new Internet business, an entrepreneur may create a new world. The hope of the Internet is that these new worlds will impact and force change on the existing social and political order. The limitation of the Internet is that these new worlds are virtual and that any escape may be more imaginary than real. The open question, which will not be resolved for many years, centers on which of these accounts of the Internet proves true.

(2) Outer space. Because the vast reaches of outer space represent a limitless frontier, they also represent a limitless possibility for escape from world politics. But the final frontier still has a barrier to entry: Rocket technologies have seen only modest advances since the 1960s, so that outer space still remains almost impossibly far away. We must redouble the efforts to commercialize space, but we also must be realistic about the time horizons involved. The libertarian future of classic science fiction, à la Heinlein, will not happen before the second half of the 21st century.

(3) Seasteading. Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans. To my mind, the questions about whether people will live there (answer: enough will) are secondary to the questions about whether seasteading technology is imminent. From my vantage point, the technology involved is more tentative than the Internet, but much more realistic than space travel. We may have reached the stage at which it is economically feasible, or where it soon will be feasible. It is a realistic risk, and for this reason I eagerly support this initiative.

The future of technology is not pre-determined, and we must resist the temptation of technological utopianism — the notion that technology has a momentum or will of its own, that it will guarantee a more free future, and therefore that we can ignore the terrible arc of the political in our world.

A better metaphor is that we are in a deadly race between politics and technology. The future will be much better or much worse, but the question of the future remains very open indeed. We do not know exactly how close this race is, but I suspect that it may be very close, even down to the wire. Unlike the world of politics, in the world of technology the choices of individuals may still be paramount. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.

For this reason, all of us must wish Patri Friedman the very best in his extraordinary experiment.

 

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian

Personal Freedom

You could soon live in international waters, and enjoy the "freedom of the high seas." As the last unclaimed territory on the earth, the ocean will give you the ability to peacefully express yourself without the encyclopedia of laws and tangle of bureaucracies that are present on land. As a seasteader, you can start fresh and live with minimal regulation. Explore a revolutionary opportunity for civilization – a bold experiment with personal freedom.

Economic Opportunities

As Earth’s final frontier, the ocean offers radical possibilities for some of your boldest economic dreams. From harnessing the immense stores of energy and nutrients, to serving the global demand for financial, medical, and human services, seasteading will give to rise many 21st century fortunes. International waters offer you a more friendly regulatory environment, and allow for worldwide recruitment of entrepreneurs, investment capital, and top talent. The oceans are already the superhighway of trade – seastead real estate will be optimally located to tap into the bloodlines of a globalized planet.

Demonstrate a Better Way of Living

We see experimentation as the source of all progress. Many innovations - on numerous seasteads - will allow humanity to rapidly improve how we live together. As a resident of the first floating city, you will set the course for others to follow. In the coming decades hundreds of thousands of people will follow you to the sea to be a part of a global change based on personal choice, environmental responsibility, and economic opportunity. In three to five years, you could live in an ocean city far beyond anyone’s imagination. Together we can change the world.

Seasteading org - Floating City Project

Historical example:

 

A port city and society where no kings ruling applies and its social development see Port Royal.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Royal

It was a space where the influence sphere of the global powers (Spain and England at that time) was balanced in a way that it got "neutralized"....

 

Air view VENICE with bridge to the mainland. The interesting fact only a few hundred meters of water between Venice and the mainland made that the city took a completly diferent course of development compared to the rest of Europe for more than a millenium and a half. So must a seastead go out of EEZ ? - probably not. Venice still conserves a land connection and you can go in train from the mainland to the center of Venice. What counts is not distance from Land, it is Interference freedom and smart brokerage of the powers surrounding you - while dominating the seatrade. This is the model of success.

 

 

-- Edited by admin on Friday 26th of October 2018 05:32:36 PM

-- Edited by admin on Friday 26th of October 2018 06:27:44 PM

www.seasteading.org/forum-list/topic/matrix-printing-technology-in-seasteading/

Matrix printing technology also called contur crafting applied on low tech scale for building a floating module in Cartagena Colombia. The only difference it is not a sophisticated machine that puts the dots on the building it is a worker with a bucket full of fiber concrete who puts the dots with a kitchen spoon...

 

Work is cheap in South America and there is no need to replace workers to save costs. Anyhow this method keeps the potential of building anything, any shape, afloat, and in any size, consider it extreme modular building - every new dot of concrete is a new "module". This allows for building structures that never stop growing like the ramform...

It could start just like this pod - and finally grow to the size of a floating VENICE...

 

-- Edited by admin on Friday 26th of October 2018 05:36:38 PM

More about the historical background:
concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t57057056/ocean-colonization-enlightenment-industrial-revolution-front/

• Why going oceanic is next big thing to come in business
• Offshoring megatrend of the century
• Business and Interference Freedom
• Ocean Business Development Key Player Network
• Historical background enlightnment
• Ramform base in the high seas
• Oceanic concrete sphere habitat
• Venice business model

 

And more efforts to get "interference free business space" to come...

 

Somebody ought to tell Mark Zuckerberg the one about the crooked physicist, the transgender lawyer and the ex-secretary of state who tried to build a blimp-based Internet service...when Zuck was 11 years old.

Over the past 20 years, the idea of serving up broadband Internet from flying machines—blimps, drones, low-flying satellites—has made some really smart, successful people temporarily lose their minds. Today it's Facebook's Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Larry Page. They were preceded by an impressive list that includes Bill Gates, cell-phone pioneer Craig McCaw, Motorola family scion Chris Galvin and the late Alexander Haig, Ronald Reagan's zealous secretary of state.

It would be great if some super-smart people can make a sky-based Internet happen. But so far, they've only proved it can't be done.

At the end of March, Zuckerberg unveiled a new Facebook lab he will fill with aeronautics experts and space scientists. Their goal is to develop what Zuckerberg calls "connectivity aircraft" that can soar overhead and deliver Internet to people who live in remote places and have yet to discover the joy of cat videos.

To give the lab a jump start, Facebook bought a company called Ascenta, which is working on solar-powered drones that could be able to stay aloft for months. Pack the drones with broadband Internet gear, Facebook's thinking goes, and they could use radio waves to connect to devices on the ground with special antennae. If a user in, say, one of the poorest regions of India were to take a break from struggling to survive to "like" a Facebook post, the signal would go up to a drone, which would relay the data to other circling drones via laser beam, until the system could find a drone near a land tower that can receive the "like" and send it on to Facebook's data center in Prineville, Ore.

No part of this system works right now, but that's why Facebook is calling it a lab. Labs are where tech companies put things that don't work.

Google is also in this stratospheric race. Its version is called Project Loon, a name that suggests Google should at least get points for a sense of humor. Instead of Facebook's winged drone, Loon will rely on high-tech balloons—perhaps thousands of them floating in the stratosphere. They, too, would be able to get radio signals from the ground, and shoot the signals to each other until one balloon can beam the data packets down to a land tower.

Loon is part of Google X, which is Google's lab. That means Loon doesn't work yet either.

Google is running a Loon pilot program in New Zealand, which has 20 times more sheep than people. (Maybe Google Analytics picked up that sheep search to buy stuff from China on Ali-baaa-baaa.)

Given enough time, the brilliant people hired by Facebook and Google for these projects could probably develop a viable airborne Internet. But this circles back to why such efforts by other brilliant people failed at this game: Time killed them.

Any flying Internet system works on radio waves. Radio spectrum is fantastically difficult to get—a grinding, political, bureaucratic process made exponentially worse by trying to offer a sky-based international system.

Spectrum globally is governed by the International Telecommunication Union. "It takes several years to get through the ITU process," says Alex Haig, who worked alongside his father, Alexander, in the late 1990s as president of their Internet blimp company, called Sky Station. "The ITU requires massive studies. Then once approved, you have to get approvals on a national basis, in every country you're going to touch. If you get denied anywhere, you're screwed."


Add to that the problem of flyover rights. You can put a satellite anywhere you want, but operate a drone at 60,000 feet and you may have to deal with the military and civilian flight authorities in every nation you fly over.

No one can say how long it might take to get all the approvals just to turn on a sky-based Internet—because no one has ever gotten them.

And while the years tick by, as the technology gets developed and as approvals are sought, land-based wireless Internet technology, most of it using spectrum already approved for such things, keeps racing ahead, moving into unserved areas and offering ever-faster wireless Internet: 2G, 3G, 4G, public Wi-Fi.

So if past is any prologue, before a sky-based system can get deployed, it gets rendered obsolete and too expensive, and networks on terra firma expand enough to take a chunk of the customers the sky system had been counting on serving. At some point, the sky project faces reality and tells its rocket scientists to pack it in.

Microsoft's Gates fell into that quicksand. In 1994, McCaw, Gates's fellow Seattle-based billionaire, convinced Gates to join him in a project called Teledesic. The idea was to build a constellation of hundreds of low-orbit satellites to offer global broadband at a time when most people were connecting to the Internet on phone modems. Boeing invested $100 million. Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal put in $200 million. After years of delays because of technology and regulatory issues, Teledesic shriveled and disappeared.

Motorola, Qualcomm, and other international companies made plans in the late 1990s for global, sky-based networks. None offer Internet to the public today.

And then there was Haig's Sky Station, a concept that was closest to what Facebook and Google are now chasing. It drew in a group of personalities made for a Wes Anderson movie. Haig was the former general who declared he was in charge after Reagan got shot. Alfred Wong, a UCLA physicist who developed a "corona ion engine" to drive the blimps, wound up pleading guilty last year to defrauding the government. The regulatory lawyer who joined them was Martine Rothblatt, who previously went by Martin and fathered four kids. The company was driven by Alex Haig.

The system they developed had promise: One blimp at 65,000 feet above a city could have served all of the 1990s-level Internet traffic from the citizens below. A blimp could stay up for five years. But, as with the other schemes, time killed Sky Station. "We ended up licensing the technology to someone else and walked away," Alex Haig says. "Nothing's come of it."

Why do smart people chase this dream? Well, "connecting the world" is an idea that makes a techie's heart race. Two thirds of the planet can't connect to broadband, though more than 80 percent of the world can now at least connect via cell phone. On paper, a sky-based system seems like an ideal way to bring all of humanity onto the network.

Then, too, it would mean new customers for Google and Facebook, though I'm sure thoughts of getting Outer Mongolians to use Google Plus don't impinge in any way on the altruism behind Loon.

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/04/18/facebook-google-drones-balloons.html

Floating Farms

Thanks to rising sea levels and disappearing soil, agriculture's future might be all wet.

By Jesse Hirsch on March 19, 2014

On the roof of a million-dollar Honolulu penthouse, with dazzling views of the ocean beyond the city, an unlikely group of revolutionaries is eating octopus — and plotting to disrupt our future. There’s a patent attorney, a documentary filmmaker, several academics, a fish farmer and a former agriculture commissioner (the former governor sent his regrets). Most attendees are wearing bright floral shirts; nobody wears shoes. Scotch and wine keep the mood light in the face of a weighty agenda.

For this is the annual meeting of Blue Revolution Hawaii, a group of futurists who are working out how people can live — and farm — in the deep blue sea.

“What other frontier is monumentally significant to humanity?” asks Blue Revolution founder Pat Takahashi. “I’ll tell you: Nothing.”

If you ponder humanity’s prospects for the next 50 years, things can look a little bleak. Climate change is shrinking our coastlines. Unsustainable farm practices are depleting our soil. Billions of new mouths will need to be fed. In a world of swelling populations and dwindling farmland, some predict we’re running out of places to go — and to grow food. What’s to be done?

To the members of Blue Revolution Hawaii — and like-minded thinkers around the globe — the answer is patently obvious. More than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is water. Our future is on the ocean.


If you’ve never seen the $172 million Hollywood epic “Waterworld,” here’s a rough summary: It’s two hours of a web-footed Kevin Costner battling goons on Jet Skis. But underneath the bad acting and explosions, the film’s basic concept — mankind driven by necessity to live on the open ocean — bears an uncanny resemblance to the Blue Revolution vision.

It’s a vision both bizarre and idyllic: cities built on modified oil-drilling platforms or groups of old cruise ships, tethered together. Big translucent globes are submerged near the cities, teeming with farmed fish. Thirty-foot-wide pipes extend down to 3,000 feet, pumping up water to be desalinized. Humans drink the water, and use it to irrigate plants. Electricity is sustainable and virtually infinite, powered by seawater itself.

“It’s a shame that we always seem to wait for a tipping point, for things to get truly awful, before people take action,” says Bill Spencer, an advisor to Blue Revolution Hawaii.

Though few existing projects match Blue Revolution’s scope, there is a current vogue for living and growing on water. A New York design firm has been growing plants on man-made islands near Manhattan and Philadelphia. On the western coast of Vancouver, 14 floating greenhouses and a two-story house are tethered together on repurposed fish floats. In Thailand and the waterlogged Netherlands, movements are well underway to construct floating homes, greenhouses, hospitals and prisons. The Japanese architecture firm Shimizu (also known for their plans to put solar panels on the moon) has fantastical designs for floating “lily pad cities,” complete with artificial forests and skyscraper greenhouses. Even Lockheed Martin, the aerospace conglomerate, is getting into the action — by testing offshore energy solutions in the Pacific.

Besides Blue Revolution Hawaii, a venture called the Seasteading Institute is the most serious U.S. player in the ocean colonization movement. “[Seasteading] will catch on as people discover you can farm the ocean just like you can farm the land,” says Charlie Deist, research coordinator for the Seasteading Institute. “You can have a relatively pure version of homesteading.”

Based in the Bay Area, the group is suffused with the big talk and zeal of a startup, as well as some of the funding — PayPal founder Peter Thiel has given them well over $2 million. Their dreams are grandiose and ideologically driven; John Locke and the right to individual liberty feature large. The institute believes the first ocean settlements will exist by 2020, and has partnered with an upscale Dutch design firm to facilitate that vision.

Blue Revolution Hawaii is more motivated by science than politics, and the group has yet to attract a wealthy patron. But what it lacks in capital, it makes up in know-how. Blue Revolution’s brain trust includes experts in oceanic energy, mariculture (aquaculture as practiced in the ocean) and more traditional, land-based farming. This loosely aligned cluster of men believes that the building blocks already exist for a necessary transition to the ocean.

Uncharted Waters

Of all the questions raised by water-based living, the problem of power looms large: How will these communities turn on the lights? Blue Revolution’s answer centers on a 100 percent renewable energy source called ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC, pronounced oh-tek). Simply explained, the process uses heat from the ocean’s warm surface water to vaporize a refrigerant like ammonia. This vapor spins a turbine, driving a generator to produce electricity. The electricity is used to pull up frigid water from the deep ocean, which condenses the ammonia into liquid again. It’s a closed-cycle, perpetual loop, powering itself — and creating plenty of surplus energy.

Until recently, OTEC has been stymied by a lack of capital. Though the technology has been proven sound, big investors haven’t wanted to risk the up-front costs (on the scale of $1 billion) to set up an OTEC plant in the sea. That all changed this fall.

Lockheed Martin, which partnered with a company called Makai Ocean Engineering on prior OTEC experiments, will soon enter construction on a large OTEC plant off the coast of southern China. This plant will provide 10 MW of energy to a resort community; Duke Hartman of Makai is bowled over by the implications. “We think this project will show OTEC’s value to the world,” he says.

And OTEC’s value goes beyond the energy produced. At the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) — a coastal research facility where Blue Revolution members have worked and studied — 40-inch pipes stretch far into the ocean, pulling up seawater from 2,000 feet down. This icy water is then divvied between a variety of agricultural concerns. Private companies use it to breed kampachi fish, oysters, shrimp, lobsters and abalone. Another company uses the water to produce over 2 tons of edible sea vegetables each week. Desalinized water is bottled for multiple niche “deep-water” companies. The water has even been used in more traditional agriculture, growing wine grapes and strawberries on the NELHA property.

This deep ocean water (DOW), which makes up 90 percent of the ocean’s volume, is a natural byproduct of the OTEC process. It’s loaded with a rich, beneficial ****tail of phosphates, nitrates and silicates. DOW is highly pure, almost entirely free of surface water contaminants — it’s been out of contact with the surface for centuries. An “open-loop” OTEC system would vaporize and desalinate this precious water, making it ideal for drinking and irrigation.

OTEC could be a vital linchpin in sustainable deep-sea living. Rather than having to ship in mainland food, vegetables could be grown directly in the ocean. The same agricultural diversity seen at NELHA could be handily replicated on deep-sea structures.

Advances in deep-ocean mariculture — which has been referred to as “free-range fish farming” — also bear promise for ocean colonization. Spencer recently obtained permits for his deep-ocean fish-farming operation, Hawaii Oceanic Technology, Inc. He intends to use suspended underwater pens — mesh spheres that keep farmed fish in and predators out — to grow yellow-fin tuna in a 250-acre operation. Similar technology is already being deployed by other companies, though not on Spencer’s scale; his newly patented spheres are 55 meters in diameter, capable of producing 3,000 tons of fish.

Deep-ocean mariculture is not without its critics — Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, for one, fears that we’ve yet to assess its full environmental impact. But it has already proven to be vastly more sustainable than wild-caught fish, inland aquaculture and even conventional farming. Spencer says that to get cows to produce the same amount of meat as just one of his spheres, you’d need 16,000 acres of land, and more than a billion gallons of fresh water. “It just makes more sense to farm our protein in the open ocean,” he says.

Proof of Concept

Much like “Waterworld” (well-known for its crippling price tag), the biggest hurdle to ocean cities is the expense.

The Seasteading Institute drew up a feasibility study last year for a “semi-submersible, mini-modular platform.” It’s designed not unlike a deep-water oil-drilling operation, built to house 360 people. Estimated costs to build and tow it into the ocean would be almost a quarter of a billion dollars. The group is also exploring other, cheaper options, such as mooring a collection of old cruise ships. But even at its most affordable, Deist readily admits: “At this point the barriers to entry may be too high for most individuals.”

Blue Revolution Hawaii hopes to kick off deep-sea habitation with something called the Pacific International Ocean Station, in tropical waters at least 12 miles off Oahu. This massive, self-sustaining deep-ocean structure would be powered by OTEC, house a couple hundred people and pursue a robust slate of agriculture and research endeavors. Total cost: $1.5 billion.

It’s been suggested that Blue Revolution should start smaller, with incremental research projects that don’t require such massive up-front capital. But Takahashi thinks the only way to start the revolution is to go big. And investors are certainly showing some interest in our oceanic future. There’s Thiel, who’s aiming to launch an oceanic business incubator called Blueseed on a boat off the coast of California this fall. Walmart heiress Christy Walton has funded a venture capital fund called Cuna del Mar, which is pumping untold millions into deep-sea mariculture. And Google founder Eric Schmidt just spent $94 million to kit out an ocean research vessel called the Falkor.

“We need a billionaire investor,” Takahashi says. “How do you capture their interest? Not with some cautious research project, but with something huge, that ensures their legacy forever.”

In his less hopeful moments, Takahashi admits this outcome is far from guaranteed. Blue Revolution Hawaii started three years ago, and thus far hasn’t made much progress in bankrolling their hugely ambitious venture. And even if some wealthy patron takes the plunge, Blue Revolution’s plans remain speculative; there is no proof of concept. When asked if ocean cities are viable, Makai’s Hartman laughs. “We’re just engineers here. We’ll leave that kind of thing to the dreamers,” he says.

But despite some internal doubts, Blue Revolution’s meeting ends upbeat, with toasts to the ocean and general good cheer. Takahashi wraps things up with an emotional speech, saying this will be the legacy project of each man in the room. For theirs is an endeavor built of wonder, of pushing the bounds of mankind’s capabilities. In a hundred years, Takahashi says, people will be very thankful for the work they’ve done.

“There is no future but the ocean around us,” he says, glass raised high.

 

modernfarmer.com/2014/03/floating-farms/

-- Edited by admin on Monday 12th of May 2014 12:05:31 AM

Ocean Colonization, Picture Gallery, Concepts:

imulead.com/tolimared/concretesubmarine/picturegallery/concept/

interference freedom, economic freedom,

Economic freedom is the condition in which individuals can act with autonomy while in the pursuit of their economic livelihood and greater prosperity. Any discussion of economic freedom has at its heart reflection on the critical relationship between individuals and the government.

Economic freedom is an essential aspect of human liberty, without which a person’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness may be fundamentally compromised. As Friedrich Hayek once observed, “To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything.”2 Hayek’s keen insights on economic freedom are based on the moral truth that each person is, as a matter of natural right, a free and responsible being with inalienable dignity and fundamental liberties that righteous and effective political systems should regard as unassailable.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM

In an economically free society, each person controls the fruits of his or her own labor and initiative. Individuals are empowered—indeed, entitled—to pursue their dreams by means of their own free choice.

In an economically free society, individuals succeed or fail based on their individual effort and ability. The institutions of a free and open society do not discriminate either against or in favor of individuals based on their race, ethnic background, gender, class, family connections, or any other factor unrelated to individual merit. Government decision-making is characterized by openness, and the bright light of transparency, illuminating the shadows where discrimination might flourish, guarantees equal opportunity for all.

In an economically free society, the power of economic decision-making is widely dispersed, and the allocation of resources for production and consumption is on the basis of free and open competition so that every individual or firm gets a fair chance to succeed.

These three fundamental principles of economic freedom—empowerment of the individual, non-discrimination, and open competition—underpin every measurement and policy idea presented in the Index of Economic Freedom.

ECONOMIC FREEDOM: AUTONOMY, NOT ANARCHY

In general, state action or government control that interferes with individual autonomy limits economic freedom. The Index of Economic Freedom is not, however, a call for anarchy. The goal of economic freedom is not simply an absence of government coercion or constraint, but the creation and maintenance of a mutual sense of liberty for all. As individuals enjoy the blessings of economic freedom, they in turn have a responsibility to respect the economic rights and freedoms of others within the rule of law. Governments are instituted to ensure basic protections against the ravages of nature or the predations of one citizen over another so that positive economic rights such as property and contracts are given societal as well as individual defense against the destructive tendencies of others.

A comprehensive view of economic freedom encompasses all liberties and rights of production, distribution, or consumption of goods and services. The highest forms of economic freedom should provide an absolute right of property ownership; full freedom of movement for labor, capital, and goods; and an absolute absence of coercion or constraint of economic liberty beyond that which is necessary for the protection and maintenance of liberty itself. An economically free society encourages handling of economic decisions in a decentralized fashion. Individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they choose under the even-handed application of laws, with their economic freedoms at once both protected and respected by the state.

Some government action is necessary for the citizens of a nation to defend themselves, promote the peaceful evolution of civil society, and enjoy the fruits of their labor. For example, citizens are taxed to provide revenue for public safety, the protection of property, and for the common defense. There can also be other goods—what economists call “public goods”—that may be supplied more efficiently by government than through private means. Some public goods, such as the maintenance of a police force to protect property rights, a monetary authority to maintain a sound currency, and an impartial judiciary to enforce contracts among parties, are themselves vital ingredients of an economically free society. When government action rises beyond the minimal necessary level, however, it leads inevitably and quickly to the loss of freedom—and the first freedom affected is often economic freedom.3

Throughout history, governments have imposed a wide array of constraints on economic activity. Though sometimes imposed in the name of equality or some other noble societal purpose, such constraints are in reality most often imposed for the benefit of societal elites or special interests, and they come with a high cost to society as a whole. By substituting political judgments for those of the marketplace, government diverts entrepreneurial resources and energy from productive activities to rent-seeking, the quest for economically unearned benefits. The result is lower productivity, economic stagnation, and declining prosperity.

Government provision of goods and services beyond those that are clearly considered public goods imposes a separate constraint on economic activity as well, crowding out private-sector activity and usurping resources that might otherwise have been available for private investment or consumption. Constraining economic choice distorts and diminishes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services (including, of course, labor services). The wealth of a nation declines as a result.

http://www.heritage.org/index/book/chapter-7

Get a foothold in ocean colonization:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t49529137/oceanic-frontier-develpment-investment-foothold-in-ocean-col/

The Captain Nemo Lifestyle:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t43942461/the-captain-nemo-float-out-seasteading/

Why oceanic business is the next big thing to come:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

Ocean sphere fish farming:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t55433095/ocean-sphere-the-next-wave-of-sustainable-fish-farming/

Ocean colonization gallery:

imulead.com/tolimared/concretesubmarine/picturegallery/concept/

The Quest for Interference Freedom.
concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

The Quest for Mobility.
concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

The Quest for Oceanic Resources.
concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

The Quest for space on the Planet.
concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

vimeo.com/44464996

Neil Sims aquaculture in drift cages

Global oceanic investors on floating business headquarters subdue to no country and regulation:
www.seasteading.org/forum-list/topic/marine-business-will-lead-to-seasteading/page/8/

“Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent.” – Peter Thiel

“It is up to those in charge to empower their employees, not rule over them” – Richard Branson

Things are going to be much more “base democratic”, “less authoritarian”, much more “opt in/out” and less “obligation”, much more “multinational” and “multicultural” less “national” and “territorial” much less “tax” and more “voluntary contribution” much more “voluntary social agreement” than “legal obligation”. Much more “cooperation cluster” than “power structure”…all – “…ism things” speak, capitalism, communism, autoritarism, are trending to the “trash basket” of history. Their “base reason of existance” the “scale problem of human interaction” and the split “WE against THEM” is quickly eroded by modern technology allowing universal, frontierless, and uncontrolable communication…
Get a foothold in ocean colonization:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t49529137/oceanic-frontier-develpment-investment-foothold-in-ocean-col/

The Captain Nemo Lifestyle:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t43942461/the-captain-nemo-float-out-seasteading/

Why oceanic business is the next big thing to come:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

Ocean sphere fish farming:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t55433095/ocean-sphere-the-next-wave-of-sustainable-fish-farming/

Ocean colonization gallery:

imulead.com/tolimared/concretesubmarine/picturegallery/concept/

Exploring the business of freedom:

nautilusmaker.discoursehosting.net/t/oceanic-freedom-subdue-to-nobody/12

-- Edited by admin on Sunday 18th of January 2015 04:06:48 AM