Slog Bog

Hey guys, how's it going? How was it a going? Um, so what I would like to talk to today is an idea that I must must I must express that in this moment in time my keen interest in this topic is not disassociated from utopianism. The term and the concept is called seasteading and at this present moment I'm excited about it because I am under the illusion the of the utopian fallacy. I think that I believe right now at this point um this juncture that seasteading provides a solution to a lot of the world's problems. But in truth, it probably does not. The amount of arable land is finite as is the amount of unarable land. Most of the usable land on planet Earth as of today uh March 29th, 2026, most of the land I would argue 100% of it is laid claim to by some political entity. In other words, all of planet Earth all of the land on planet Earth is colonized by humans with their own each one with their own particular political administration and ideologies. Further, the oceans are partially conquered or colonized. Each terrestrial country um that is coastal probably lays claim to some belt of water. But if you were to sail past that belt of water, you would enter what is called international waters. Let's see how much the percentage of international like let's see the area Let's check what the total area of is of um international waters. Okay, so the convention on the high seas was used as a foundation for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed in 1982 which recognized exclusive economic zones extending 200 nautical miles from the baseline where coastal states have sovereign rights to the water to the water column and seafloor as well as the natural resources found there. The high seas, which is what is what extends beyond that border, uh make up 50% of the surface area of the planet and cover over 2/3 of the ocean, okay? That's a lot of unclaimed land. And I think at the heart of this idea, or let's say this again, at the heart of seasteading is that that unclaimed uh water area should be claimed and can be claimed today using today's modern like available modern technologies. So, what is seasteading? Let's get to the heart of it. So, seasteading is the creation of permanent dwellings in international waters. So-called seasteads that are independent of established governments. So, it's this idea of colonizing um or personally colonizing uh the the international waters. No structure on the high seas has yet been created and recognized as a sovereign state. Proposed structures have included modified cruise ships, refitted oil platforms, and custom built floating islands. Let's have a look at this cool picture. So, this is a picture. Um it's some sort of rendering of something that is um there's something liminal about it or just strange the way uh yeah, I don't understand what's going on, but it's it's I don't know. I have a lot of emotions when I see this. Um modern. I like that there's plants. It's like cool to me that we would create a man-made artificial island that has all these plants on it and like biology. Um But, I find exciting by this is that I mean, people are always like uh white guys Yeah, this is coming off wrong, but you know, there's this massive problem that seems to exist. Um and the problem is the colonizer versus the colonized. The story of the United States, you know, it's a it's a story of um people that had reli- you know, religious pros- persecutions, right? Yeah, it was the pilgrims were English settlers who traveled to North America on the Mayflower. They came to this land. People were living on that land, Native Americans. Um but, that did not stop them from building the small colonies and, you know, cultivating the land and living there. You know, fast forward it to 2026. We're talking That was in 1614. Now, it's, you know, 2026 and there there there was many clashes between those native populations. Other Other examples of this are, you know, South Africans in South Africa or more more recent, the establishment of the Jewish state and the influx of many many Jewish, you know, Jews from Europe into what was British Mandate Palestine and the the conflicts there that that are echoing to this day. So, this this alternative idea of seasteading stands in this strange middle ground because you it would be an act of colonization, you know, people just moving out into some international part of the ocean and living there. But, it's not coming on the expense of a human population that's living there. It's not even coming on the expense of of a native, you know, like terrestrial fauna that you have there. You're literally, you know, staking a claim to a to a volume of salt water and that's kind of exciting because populations are growing and as, you know, the sprawl of human settlement is to the detriment of the ecosystem. I mean, I've heard it argued by none other than David, what's his name again? I've heard it Yeah, so it's the name David David Attenborough. I've heard it argued by none other than David Attenborough that a good future of humanity is one humans are living mega structures such that they are, you know, highly dense, highly on a highly high density location. So, having very concentrated human centers rather than sprawl. Why? Because the more dense human settlement becomes, the more the more land can just do its thing, you know, and and be natural and go and you have the take the natural course of evolution. And I guess a step further of on this idea, this vision of a future Earth is let's just abandon land to all all together. Let's just Let's Let's together as humans move on to these marine-based artificial lands and let Earth Let terrestrial Earth just take its course and and heal. I kind of like that. So, that's one. So, there's there's a I think there might be an ecosystem or sorry, there might be like an ecological argument that we have to be have had here. But, these are artificially constructed. So, on balance, I don't know if it's if it if you're get if you're if you're really interested in, you know, the sort of carbon footprint of of of a artificial megastructure type seastead. I don't know if that's on on balance healthier than just, you know, building a high-rise on on on terrestrial Earth. I don't know. That that that would need you need to have a scrupulous look at the engineering plans. But, I think the the other side of the argument of just abandoning, you know, not having an actual footprint on terrestrial Earth rather than having a footprint on some sort of volume of international water, that's an argument. So, you're you're you're for sure not going to be influencing or, you know, hurting Earth, scarring Earth, if you will, if you are choosing to live on a seastead. So, that's one. And two is that I think it it it could allow for a kind of a new age, essentially a new age of unbound countries, personalized countries. Like Let's take a liberal, you know, the liberal idea to its kind of logical conclusion. Man is so free that he can literally start his own country and start his own little community dependent of of like terrestrial land. Very exciting to me. But, of course, you're living in the middle of international waters. You don't have access to oil. You don't have access to timber or concrete or any resources other than other than what's directly underneath you in the water column, which could be kilometers, who knows? So, you're There's a resource constraint on a seastead like this and it would have to participate to some extent, at least in the beginning in the founding, with terrestrial Earth to to make sure it has the resources to create the seastead. But, once you have this hypothetical seastead going, you could have like a a completely independent uh entity that's really not bound by um you know, the constraints that terrestrial countries have. Um and if this country doesn't pose a threat uh and isn't trying to um you know, be imperialist and and exert influence outside of its the borders of its seastead, then uh why cause it harm? I don't see why a countries would have cause it harm. It's an exciting idea. It's not utopian, but it's exciting. I don't think it's the end-all, be-all, but it's something uh that I would not be surprised that would happen in 10,000 years down the line or 1,000 years down the line when when there's perhaps a very large population um that would be a way to mitigate and spread sort of give give more room for for people to live.