Soft Reboot: Seasteading

A Vehicle for Clean Slate Social Operating System


If for some reason, you finally decide that you want to try a change in your OS, will you do it haphazardly? Probably and advisably not, because you may run into many obstacles. You can lose your favorite applications, bookmarks, files and what not. Also you may want to try whether your prospective OS will have support for peripherals and whether it has alternative applications that can work with your hardware to achieve the goals of using the PC.

This is also the case when you want a massive social transformation. You cannot just campaign for a Charter Change to change the government etc. Furthermore, any delegate for ChaCha that will eventually be pushed in the forefront for the people will be working within the games played in the society. And these games put a person in a mode of self preservation and promotion under a dog eat dog system. A system that can't create a humanity qualified to multiply as the sands of the earth to propagate across the universe.



So if a candidate says: "Kayo ang Boss ko!", what he is truly saying is that he will try to remember the people when he gets in office. And that same office is a cog in a ladderized pyramid which may either topple him (including his family/groups' interests) or push it upwards towards a more elitist fulfilment.

The people electing a person is really elevating a mini-pyramid of interests within the larger pyramid of the government. It's like you marrying a person and later finding out a whole lot of kins you never knew which you have to go along with.

In the end, the wishes of electorate rarely are fulfilled because the power structure is preying on those of the lower layer of the pyramid, without which the pyramid cannot altogether be held up.

Sure, changes takes place - but the more they change, the more they stay the same. Well, unless a benevolent dictator rise up and then give the power back to the people, the happening of which is like winning a massive lotto.

In this case, seasteading is a way to birth a social system that can avoid running into all the obstacles of the current social operating system.

---------------
Do you have an idea of what a seasteading nation can become? Perhaps it's like the opportunity that you can make available to your child. And if you have a vista for idealism, you would not want your child to have the same mistakes you realized you must have avoided.

In the meantime, here are some fun endeavors that we can foresee for a young seasteading nation:

Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

Here are other write-ups on Seasteading which I scanned while looking for images for this blog. (I am getting these links as I write them. I have not thoroughly studied them. I prefer to work with only the sea-stead principle so I can have ideas of a real Peoples New World Order in a freer spirit):

* Steastead Institute Forum
* Applied Impossibilities
* Deep-water city-states
* Submersible Seastead with Human-Powered Commute
* Wealth of Creative Talent The Seastead Modern Architecture Design Contest
* Shimizu Modular Seastead Tower Concept
* The Seastead Modern Architecture Design Contest

Also make sure to look-up my Seastead Tech page.

Maybe one of the main obstacle of seasteading is the difficulty of raising the resources of building one (as well as security w/c in this case, I deem resolved by having a host country). If a party dominates the building up credit, that same party will impose it's will on the newly born nation (as usual). For this reason, it is preferable to involve openness and the volunteering people of all nations. It will make the endeavor a common golden parachute for humanity. Thereby, host country will have enormous international goodwill.

Financing is not impossible. Here are some floating systems already in the works:



Attracting Financing
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finance may be attracted by provision (on the buffer fringes, separate from the seastead population), isles for regional/international purposes like the following:

1) cabling and anchorage that will be for open underwater cable transport system. The submersible cable system will take advantage of buoyancy forces for transporting heavy cargo.

2) cargo terminal handling facilities on designated fringe isles related to no. 1 above

3) the strategic location of the seastead nation must give provision for future land bridges to connect the regions

4) sponsored open cities designated as a non-visa/non-duty commercial trade sub-isles similar to Hongkong. It will also be a storefront of materials derived inside the buffer zone such as:
- underwater-sourced minerals and other corrosion-free composite materials
- salt, agar-agar, seafood/fingerlings, hydrophonics farm implements, mahogany lumber etc.
- water related musical instruments and general tools
- water related transport systems and repairs
- deuterium batteries, lighting, liquid oxygen/hydrogen/CO2, pneumatic equipments
- modular home building designs, equipments, materials

5) isles for preservation/seeding, monitoring and sanctuary for certain marine species (like turtles, dolphins, dugongs etc.)

6) open oasis cities designated for resorts/leisure and health centers that specialize in alternative and holistic treatment/therapy using tropical herbs, sounds and frequency healing

7) Open alternative education/science isles that will be a showcase and venue of interchange for scientific discoveries which will be developed inside the buffer zone. It may involve such areas of interest as deuterium, underwater biosphere, plasma, light, sound and frequency sciences. Underwater robotics and space-applicable tech must be researched and then shared here. (The buildup of the seastead nation must at the outset take into account the modular and expandability requirements applicabe to space explorations).

8) If successful with harnessing energy from the sea, the seastead nation can be a seller of excess energy. These energies can be derived from deuterium, wind, waves, geothermal etc. Dingle's or Stan Meyer's design can be made successful here. Also the rising and lowering of sealevel can be an enormous source of energy.

9) Reality updates - media shows and subscriptions for web portals, online underwater web cams/ national sights cctv and online media portals.

10) Development/sharing of robotics, tools and survival capabilities that are geared toward space exploration aspirations of the human race. These capabilities will also be developed by underwater archeology/exploratory application activities.

11) Rescue missions for shipping incidents and other services that will cater to shipping lines.

12) Isles serving as stations or stop-over venues for Supercats, Seaplanes, winged hovercrafts etc.



Do you have any other ideas for the build-up? Please comment so I can include them here.

Next up, I will try to ideate on what systems, money and government can be for this seastead sister country of the Philippines. For now, I will name this nation as the "Federal Amilius Nation".

Subscribe, suggest and keep in touch.

.ciao

Seasteading - Virtual Social Operating System

Here



_____________________
This is the 3rd entry to the series, preceded by:

"Money and resources surely pivot coups/wars and thereby the birth of new governments.

...For humanities sake, we must find new ways for administration of human affairs free from such fundamental blemish. "
_____________________


The following pictures of 'Floating Ark' concept may be a starting point for Seasteading.












This can be enhanced by adding tubular posts anchored on the seabed, similar to the offshore oil rigs, for an underwater pyramidal support. The tubular posts can be used for further modular downward expansion of underwater facilities. It may also be functional for transporting robotic equipments for deep sea mining and for circulating the deep cold waters upwards for air-conditioning purposes.

















The above images and more, with the relevant explanations can be found here.


Seasteading may be most ideal for island nations like the Philippines giving a foresight for future interconnectedness of the land masses. I think these seasteading islets can be accommodated within Philippine territories and given broad country-like status for it's own government and money systems. That way, a new, multi-ethnic/multi-racial Atlantis-like sister-country can be born. And from there, the Philippine systems may derive a new vista for rebirth.

On the other hand, a planned-opolis like this, needs many land-based resources to start-up and will benefit from protection within the territory of an existing country.



Possibilities for the Philippines
--------------------------------------------



Like in the computer system, especially if the operating system experiences some hiccups, people have installed a way to operate an OS within the current OS. It is a soft way to venture in another paradigm, much like testing linux using 'vmware player' under a windows OS (or testing windows within linux using 'virtualbox').

As the world tends to collapse today, seasteading can even be a venue of testing and developing the technologies to conquer space. Think of the enormous space exploration expenditures. To live on the middle of the sea is a more logical step to conquering planetary terraforming challenges. The modular systems for biosphere building and generation of needed energy is exactly what will be needed if we are to have mini-civilizations or bases on more barren environments like that of Mars or the moon.

If the Philippines champions this endeavor, I can foresee that international and multi-national attention will be stirred. Interested parties will visit the country just for the utopic visions. And the country can be spared from involvement in the many brewing wars of today if the project involves intellectuals from any country. It may even be possible to settle the Spratly's dispute using the genes of a successful seasteading nation.

This endeavor will force mankind to view responsibility and sustainability in a different vista as required by:
- biosphere planning/implementation
- water management/natural desalination and waste management within the biosphere
- new food sources, delivery and transport system
- energy systems involving sea and air

As a venue for new money and government system testing, a soft human culture reboot without involving war can be achieved. In this start-up country, social hierarchies and elitism may be eliminated. If it is built without controlling indebtedness, many people will volunteer their efforts to this egalitarian start-up country. Scientists and inventors which were treated as social outcasts because of the inherent threat of their labors to the status quo will have a chance to apply their ideations. Think about the countless Stan Meyers, or Teslas that can arise. We have our own Daniel Dingle who might be persuaded to use his reputed water car systems for the energy generation of the sea steading nation. A hybrid transport using Dingle's watercar system coupled with aircar would be way too cool.

Already, there are various islets of ideations aside from Venus Project and Open money systems mentioned on the previous article. Connecting the dots may just be as interesting internationally and can be an alternative reality media must watch. Have a look at these additional perspectives floating around.

Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

Even corporations may populate the seastead nation with their functional prototype for showcase purposes. For example Hitachi solar air-condition technology, as seen below would be easy to infuse in the design of residences:






And what if the seasteading nation is just off the coast of Boracay or such tropical wonders? A water building resort will surely be a boon both to Boracay and the interests of a seastead nation.



I hope these get you warmed up for the next installment of this series.

Next up: Possible sources of wealth within the seastead nation.

Free Guestbook with Database

My brother asked me how he may be able to put a feature on his blog to allow guests to enter their details and have some form of database. So as I explored the way to do it, I thought that it will be a good feature for others' web site as well.

There are many free blog widgets/gadgets which are embeddable that one can find by simply googling "guestbook gadget", "embeddable guestbook" or such similar search word. Google has a site for their sponsored gadgets which you can view and then copy the embed code onto your blog. However, though simple, many of such gadgets are supported by banner ads, require membership to outside data company or may not generate data at all.

So for this endeavor, I decided that more personal control is required. Such feature is preferably without a need to go outside google (since this blog is hosted by the same).

The steps are:

1. Creating a google spreadsheet to serve as container of the guest-details and the capture form.

2. Have a google blog to serve as the gateway site where you can invite those casual surfers and guests to register. This is where the embed code of 1 above is used. Preferably you have to offer something worthwhile for their effort to provide their details.

3. Have a separate restricted site where those you have accepted can be invited or be given their access code via their email.

- - - -
Now let's explain the above three steps in more detail:


1. Google Spreadsheet

Google documents is available as a drop down menu under "More" on the google initial page.




Here's a tutorial to let you view how it's done. But for your purpose, you may have the following table headings: a) First Name b) Last Name c) Email Address d)Location. Please bear in mind in the following video, the tutor went directly to form, so he was limited to the data available in the wizard. For you, just enter the mentioned table headings a) to d) first on the spreadsheet. So when you click the form menu, such data will be available:



Copy the embed code provided by the form to a notepad document. You will paste that code in the body of your welcome/gateway page.


2. Google Blog
Here is one tutorial for setting a blog hosted by google. I find their blog, simple enough but full featured compared with others I have tried.

Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

Before we go to no. 3

Here's a picture of my sample google spreadsheet:



or go here to view it in real time. You may also notice that google automatically added a column for "Timestamp".

Here is the Guestbook as embedded (I tweaked the theme a bit - themes are available on the google doc form menu):



I accidentally deleted the "Last Name" from the "Form Menu", but for sample purposes, it may not matter. It points out also that you may add additional column to tag which valid e-mail address were already replied with.

Enter details on the above form and refresh the real time view of the google documents to see if data is forwarded accordingly.

Bear in mind that in your case, you can restrict viewing of the said spreadsheet so no one else can view the database captured.

Not all will fill 'em up with the right data. So you have to weed and trim your data spreadsheet container by deleting some irrelevant rows. Your reply to their email address is a security measure so that they will fill-in at least a valid e-mail address.


3. Restricted Site

For this purpose, there are several alternatives:

A. Creating a Google Group Site: On the google initial page, under the drop down menu "More" the . Google have templates which are for members of a group. Obviously, that will be limited to those who have valid email accounts. If you are logged in to your google account, you can access the google site.


I have tried one template - see it here. You can restrict it as follows:

These templates are pre-filled in a structure of several pages, the contents of which may be time-consuming to be populated or edited if you have few available materials or information to work with.

B. Host the restricted site on your computer (where you have all the controls):

Opera and Firefox have add-ons to let you share pages/files from your computer. I find that Opera Unite is simpler to manage/secure but if you want to have the flexibility of scripting, Firefox's "POW" is more programmable.

POW is available here. While, if you have a fairly recent version of Opera, the server is activated by an icon on the sides or bottom (resembling fan blades).

Another way to host your files and share it to the net is by downloading a limited version of "Badblue". Using this is very simple but there are some disabled features for the free version. I found a download page here.

C. Pay for a hosted restricted site. You may already have some of these corporate or personal sites for which you pay regularly and consequently let some admin take care of security. You can simply e-mail the locations of these sites and the related access codes.

D. KeepandShare, Rapidshare, Hotfile etc. You may also convert your documents into PDF format and upload them to free and paid file hosting services. You can download "PrimoPDF" which installs for you a printer that outputs whatever you print into PDF format. You can then upload these to the file hosting service and email the links to your bonafide guests. However, you won't have much control once they downloaded the files.

_____________

Sample of more simple guestbooks:
a. Slide
b. more here
c. the Google gadgets are here. But for guestbook, you have to search because a ton of all sorts are available there (not only guestbooks).



Notes:

- As the google form is created by their wizard, there seems to be no way to infuse in them some validations or scripted actions (for example, refusing to move to another field until a required field is filled up).

- I tried KeepandShare a little and they offer good services. There are email notifications when someone downloads your shared files. I have not tried Rapidshare and Hotfile, but I guess they are fairly common.


.ciao and have fun

Money and the Form of Government - Seasteading

_____________________
This is the second entry to the series, preceded by:

...The laws of the republic became not equal for all and neither do the government serve the majority of the people because they serve those who holds the major influence to their tenure.
_____________________

As can be gleaned from the earlier part, humanity was trapped in the Casino endeavor of the casino-chip makers which we know as money. How was it orchestrated?

Well, I wouldn't like to dig the historical details nor elaborate those I came across. Suffice it to say that even the general records available to humanity would not contain the secrets of how it was done. But in my analysis, it would have been pushed by the constant warring and divisions among humanity.

Wars were mostly how many countries came to be instituted. And the onset of governments would have been a perfect opportunity for big financiers to control the founding fathers. In more cases than we might have known, these entities could have financed both sides of a war via arms industry and money, so that the ruling elites of government started being indebted to them.



In the Philippine history, it is much like Aguinaldo who received outside financial backing to build his government elites. Sadly, his ranks of elites which were tending towards settlement with American forces and ilustrados, quieted possible resistance from other Filipino war leaders (Bonifacio, Luna et al). The eventual turn-over of Spain to American forces was a negotiated event and we might never know if the turn-over to Philippine forces could also have involved an off-the-books arrangement (though we can get a hint via the eventual policies and the political elites given control).

I heard from a radio commentator that Marcos once thought about establishing a money system to have been named "phoenix" supposedly to be backed by the Yamashita treasure. The said treasure have origins from many countries and included Vatican (from Nazi) horde. So it was to be kept secret for some time to elapse, before being legally claimed by Philippines under international laws. If that's the case, what we've seen on the surface would have been less messy than what it actually have been. (I remember the Cory administration digging the Fort Bonifacio for Yamashita gold - who could have ordered/convinced her to do it?).

It would surely be interesting if the modern day historians start to chronicle the funding angles of wars and in-fighting within ranks (remember CODE-NGO's PEACe Bonds - in the modern Philippine power shift).

Money and resources surely pivot coups/wars and thereby the birth of new governments. In fact, there are hints that so many wars were provoked by powers in the military industrial complex and banking groups, possibly to in-debt the fighting parties. A new government swimming in debt can be coerced to accept printing of it's money to be in a central institution of private bankers. The chip-makers of the Casino game it has been, in this global casino, isn't really supposed to lose. They can contract and expand money supply like a magnetic yoyo that grabs your jewelries at each return to them.




Exploring Solutions

For humanities sake, we must find new ways for administration of human affairs free from such fundamental blemish.

I have come across some ideations such as the Venus Project and open money project but I have not studied them. More recently, I encountered Seasteading and I think, with this I can build a scenario for my own ideations for this blog.

In the meantime here is what is "Seasteading" concept:






The above image is found at the pages of Prospect magazine.

In the next installment, I will propose ideas that may help not only in the Seasteading endeavor but also other exploratory human betterment initiatives (in the context of Philippine scenario).

.. ciao for now

_______
Addendum - here is a perspective from another person that I think is relevant to this topic and the earlier part of this series: