The Ark For Different Reasons

(Ajax's Spear) #21

Ok, well I’m not talking about the Ark, as in the Brink Ark. I’m talking about seasteading in general, which is not necessarily either anarchic, democratic, dictatorial, whichever. The idea is that your living quarters are modular, so you’re able to join an existing community where you like the laws and the level of government. Obviously the most well-liked systems are going to be the most popular, and likely the most successful. So it’s not really a matter of the government of a locality changing every month. It’s more of a “This is what we have here. If you don’t like you can leave,” type deal. So if, for whatever reason, you’re living with a community that suddenly somehow decides it’s going to be governed under the principles of communism, for example, and you don’t care for that, you detach your houseboat from the community and head off for one that you find more appealing.

Of course defense is going to be an issue, and I’m sure most communities would focus on having at least some kind of gendarme to defend the homefront. There’s not really much incentive to conquer and rule a community where everyone is able to leave, though, and the only real reason to wage a siege on such a community would be for looting. Pirates would probably be a bigger concern than state Navies, and obviously it would be much easier for a citizen army to defend against pirates than advanced military powers.

“I have nothing against people living the way they want to, and I think that option is actually available to most people living in most democratic countries already.”

eh… not really. You’d have to explain that one further to me.

(tokamak) #22

It’s not that the seas rise, coastal areas might experience a few problems but global warming is mostly about the land becoming less habitable, soil erosion, floods, droughts and ruined harvests, all of which causes scarcity that cities on the sea need to deal with as well.

The Ark is just a prototype for the elite, just like more and more rich people want huge yachts or even build a floating villa, they want to escape the common folks. It’s symbolic more than anything.

(Ajax's Spear) #23

Are we talking about seasteading or Brink’s fiction? I’m talking about seasteading.

(tokamak) #24

Yeah I’m sceptical of that. The Ark is virtually an exhibition centre.

(Ajax's Spear) #25

Well yeah, it’s pretty much farcical at this point. There is a very real movement for it, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were small floating cities by 2050.

(Nail) #26

there’s lots of houseboat communities on the west coast

(Ajax's Spear) #27

They still stay pretty close to port though, no?

(Nail) #28

some would need to be towed, but lots are self propelled, got to stick pretty close to shore line when moving I would think. Some of them are huge.

here is a couple pics

here’s one to get you started, if you got lots of money

http://www.seattlebydesign.com/sbd/index.php?album=Houseboat-08

(Herandar) #29

I was not referring to the fictional Ark either, I was just using the short word to describe a concept that everyone here is familiar with, namely the floating city.

Based on your response, it appears that you are discussing a far more hypothetical future, where there are a number of cities floating on the open seas. I am far more concerned with the more immediate possibility of a single floating city. The Seasteading Institute was supposed to launch a prototype last year.

Obviously this whole venture is not going to go according to the extremely optimistic plan. The designs I see, while modular, are not modular down to the level of individual dwellings. This is going to be another playground (and possibly a tax haven) for the rich, who will be the only ones able to move out to any of the floating cities.

And that would make ransom a pretty nice incentive for attacking them.