“Seasteading. Noun. The creation of permanent dwellings at sea, outside the territory claimed by any national government.” —Wiktionary
For thousands of years, man has been governed by dynasties, dictatorships, oligarchies, democracies, and variations on those themes, but all of those systems either produced sub-optimal results and/or eventually failed. Even modern constitutional democracies, which for a time looked like the end-game of human happiness, are beginning to look less stable and reliable than once believed, and could very well financially terminal by nature. Could there be as yet untried changes that would save democracy, or could there be entirely new and better forms of government not yet conceived? Milton Friedman’s grandson, Patri Friedman, thinks there could be. He founded the non-profit iSeasteading Institute to promote the creation of small sovereign countries at sea, the idea being that the associated innovation and experimentation of “start-up” nations would give rise to new ideas in how societies might be optimally organized. The Institute is promoted in these two videos. The first, Vote With Your Boat, is a three-minute introduction. The second, The Sea is a Harsh Mistress — Redux, is a 20-minute short film that “examines the business, engineering and political aspects of starting new societies on the high seas.”