A story on Drudge is where I first heard of the term, which is the concept of living in a floating self-contained city. The non-profit group, Seasteading Intitute, based in San Francisco has been floating (forgive the pun) the idea since their formation in 2008. Funded by some sort of virtual currency they have gotten the blessing of the French Polynesia to use a portion of their coastal area to test and build the first floating island city.
People since the dawn of man have been dreaming of such a utopia… seems now that we have an over abundance of billionaires who lean to the far left and have swallowed the climate change pill a serious attempt at creating just such a country/society seems to be possible.
However, I see several problems with such a closed society no matter where it’s located. First off you have to set up a government and a set of governing rules. If you have nothing but like minded liberals I can imagine that you’ll have a society that sees no problem with the government taking everything from you in exchange for providing for your every need.
The first problem starts with the fact that there would only be utilities, services and food production for so many people, so I’m sure there would need to be strict population controls in place… after all the major problem they are fixing is the problem of overpopulation on planet Earth. Maybe the initial residents will all be giddy over the society they have created… however once you get into the second and third generations you are bound to have residents that aren’t so like thinking and want to change things. Which brings me to the second problem; does the government expel anyone with opposing ideals? Seems to me it would be the only way to keep the government in control and maintain this mindless utopia that has been created. Corruption in the governing body is inevitable, which leads to numerous conflicts between the population and those wielding the power.
So what are they really trying to create; a floating city where a handful of people are in control of the well being and production of those living there. Sounds an awful lot like a self inflicted prison to me.