Came across this today, rather interesting idea. It’s something that various authors have kicked around in one form or another for a couple of decades, but no serious steps have been taken towards it. No government in the world can claim power over the seas, it’s just too large to claim control over anything outside of coastal waters.

It’s also worth noting that there hasn’t been a major battle in the sea since WW2, excluding the Faulkland Islands Conflict.

“We believe that current political systems are outdated and work poorly, for two reasons. One is the lack of a frontier - a place to go try out new forms of government (like the crazy new “democracy” which sprung up in far-off America). The other is the lack of mobility on land that happens because people are tied to buildings and buildings are fixed in place, which makes it hard to change states or countries, let alone pioneer. Seasteading fixes both of these.

It opens the oceans as a new frontier for pioneering, a frontier with a fundamentally different quality - fluidity - that lets entire cities be rearranged and reshaped constantly. If you don’t like your government, you can literally “Vote with your house” by detaching your seastead and sailing off to another city. In the long run, this will turn the oceans into a laboratory for innovation in social and political systems. No specific ideology is necessary: Seasteads will empower people with a wide variety of beliefs to self-govern and serve as examples (good and bad) for other societies.”

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Coaststead. TSI has designed and patented a resort and office park for international waters off the coast of California, as described on the Engineering page. Services like medical procedures can be done there at a fraction of the price they cost in the USA. People already go to India for medical procedures - why not just take a ferry an hour out of a major city? Once the business concept is proved with an initial platform, Coaststeads could blossom around the world, eventually leading to deep-ocean seastead communities. In order for entrepreneurs to obtain funding for a Coaststead, they may first need to prove their business model using a retrofitted ship.

Ephemerisle: In the summer of 2009, we are holding a festival of self-government on the water in the SF Bay. Eventually it will move to international waters. Since (unlike most festivals) we don’t need to vacate so that someone else can use the space, over time, Ephemerisles could grow in physical size, duration, and frequency until one was going year-round.

Single-Family Seastead: TSI is currently designing a single-family seastead, much like a live-aboard boat, but more spacious and comfortable (design requirements). Over time, these could become common second (and first) homes in which people gathered in flotillas for festivals like Ephemerisle, or to visit larger seastead marina hubs which eventually would grow into permanent cities.
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http://seasteading.org/book_beta/full_book_beta.html