Seasteading Today with Joe Quirk

Our first podcast for our new Business Membership Program features Mason, Founder of Atlas Island. To learn more about the Business Membership Program, visit: https://www.seasteading.org/business-membership/ Key Points: Atlas Island: A 3-year journey in community building and lessons learned Challenges in uniting independent-minded anarcho-capitalists Bridging the gap between online engagement and real-world action The pragmatic approach to building floating communities on the ocean Highlights: Atlas Island's focus on broad strokes rather than minute details The "maximal liberty, minimal effort" philosophy Importance of patience in community development Maintaining founding principles while adapting to reality Step-by-step approach to societal innovation Core belief: The right to be left alone if leaving others alone Moving from forced debate to "voting with your boat" Quotes: "Building something new takes longer than you expect." "You have the right to be left alone as long as you leave other people alone." Takeaways: The challenges of uniting individualists for a common cause Balancing idealism with pragmatism in community building The importance of flexibility and patience in long-term projects Connect with Atlas Island: Telegram:  http://t.me/AtlasIsland Website: http://atlasisland.org/ (This episode description was partially written by Claude AI.)

Seasteading Socials are on Summer Break, but you can let us know what topics to present when we come back!

Elliot Roth, Founder of Spira, Inc, is developing algae to make changes to our global supply chain. Elliot first discovered the nutritional benefits of algae when he was short on cash and looked up how NASA feeds their astronauts. With his background in bioengineering and genetics, his need for easy protein grew into a desire to revolutionize the global supply chain to be less extractive, and grow resources from biological organisms. We talk about building toward a utopian vision of the future. For Elliot, that vision includes localizing the supply chain to reclaim the means of production. We also talk about how the algae blooms and sargassum, which are currently huge problems in Florida, could be resources  to treat wastewater and also provide materials for food or to plastics or rubber. Links Super Slime Me Diet, support Elliot's experiment and track his progress here. Eating like a Seasteader Video Series Elliot's DIY Guide for biohacking Get your sample pack of algae pigments from Spira, Inc. Ecotopia Book Club

Colin Lennox, CEO of Settling Seas, a subsidiary of EcoIslands LLC,  joins us to talk about using biological processes for breaking down waste to produce fresh drinking water and reclaim resources on the high seas. Settling Seas' wetlands-in-a-box, called Self-Organizing Wetland Bioreactors (SOWBs) function as the ecological hub for seasteads of any size.  They up-cycle human, food, and crop waste in saline and/or sweetwater wetland reactors, capturing precious iron, manganese, nitrogen, and methane for aquaponics, energy, and other in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).  Unlike on land where nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the limiting nutrients to plant growth, ocean ecosystems are limited by the lack of metals.  The SOWBs are essentially the keystone to ocean permaculture, capturing and concentrating scarce resources into a permanent living, mobile ecosystem. Join us as we talk about how seasteads may clean the surrounding waters, taking lessons from Colin's experience working with mushroom farm wastewater cycling and coal mining reclamation. Audio editing by Lyka Sherylle Mae Rambac. Links Phillips Wastewater Treatment Process Diagram Colin's presentation on Wetland Cycling from February 2022 EcoIslands, LLC draw.io - free tool for planning out your water system

Brendon Traxler, founder of Atlantis Sea Colony (ASC) gives us an update in this episode of the podcast, recorded from our March 2023 Seasteading Social. Brendon explains their strategy for using a shipping container as the base structure for their underwater habitat design and their plan to use a rock quarry to test out the prototype. We talk about how to keep focus on accomplishing a goal over many years, keeping hope alive. Later in the conversation, we are joined by Pete Abrams of Plasticrete to talk about "floating over fighting” and his project using plastic to build floating structures. Thank you to Lyka Sherylle Mae Rambac for audio editing Links: ASC Discord server ASC YouTube Biomedical engineer and U.S. Navy veteran spends 100 days underwater 

On February 4, 2023, we hosted a Seasteading Social about Micronations in our Discord channel with guest speakers were Taz Riot, founder of Freeport, and Jan Spiekermann, co-founder of Ethos Island. **The speakers represent their own views and not the views of The Seasteading Institute.** Taz Riot formed Freeport in 2016 and followed international procedure to announce it to the UN. Freeport helped provide humanitarian aid to Sierra Leone during an Ebola virus outbreak, working with NGOs is a way to be recognized as a micronation by the UN.  Jan Spiekermann holds the title of Knight of the Order of the Melting Mountain, Grand Duchy of Flandrensis. Flandrensis is an environmental nonprofit organization that uses micronationalism to raise awareness for climate change and Antarctica. Micronations have some autonomy but not necessarily sovereignty. They build parallel structures to existing nations. Micronations can have varying recognition from the UN. Microstate or city state is the name for something like a micronation that does have recognition from the UN. The guests and participants talk about the strategy of forming a micronation for seasteads, Rose Island, and Sealand. Audio editing by Lyka Sherylle Mae Rambac.

Season 5 of the Seasteading Today Podcast will be a little different. Our monthly Seasteading Social events have been hosted on Zoom and posted on YouTube for a couple years. Each Social featuresh a guest speaker to talk about their work that is related to seasteading. This year, we moved those events to the TSI Discord Server and are recording them for this podcast. Unfortunately, the audio quality of these first two episodes is a little rough, but the conversations are inspiring, so I hope you'll enjoy them anyway! Future episodes will have much cleaner audio. In January 2023, we talked with Ben Silone, CEO and Co-founder of Arktide, about the Domestead project. Why is Puerto Rico an ideal place to start a Seastead company?  Why did they change the design from a single-family structure to a 100-meter dome?  We take questions from the audience. Ben explains how minerals available in seawater can potentially be used in 3D printing. Ben invites seasteaders to move to Puerto Rico to help with supervising and publicizing the build of their platform. Ben's goal is to allow a group of 10 people to be able to buy a platform. See pictures of the Arktide design on the # Arktide channel of our Discord server. Audio editing by Jie Flowers. Join our next Seasteading Social event at seasteading.org/events.  Mentions Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Atlas Island, another one of our Active Projects aquaculture

For our new season of the Seasteading Today Podcast, we are doing something a little different. We have been hosting monthly Seasteading Social events for a couple years with a guest speaker to talk about their work that is related to seasteading. This year, we moved those events to the TSI Discord Server and are recording them for this podcast. Unfortunately, the audio quality of these first two episodes is a little rough, but the conversations are inspiring, so I hope you'll enjoy them anyway! Future episodes will have much cleaner audio. In January of 2023, we talked with Mitchell Suchner, founder of ArkPad, about building structures in the Philippines and their business strategy. Mitchell explains that the design for their structure has completely changed, to honor his commitment to build modular structures that can be used as legos. He has also split ArkPad from ArkTide and set up shop in the Philippines because of the availability of workers and Freeports, a lot of tourism. They will start with marketing the ArkPad structures to hotels and resorts near shallow water. ArkPad is also using blockchain technology to finance the building of ArkPad structures. Mitchell explains his passion for using blockchain to decentralize power and ownership to allow more people to invest in floating real estate. See pictures of the ArkPad design on the #ArkPad channel of our Discord server. Audio editing by Lyka Sherylle Mae Rambac. Links: Season 4 podcast episode featuring Mitchell Suchner: Comprehensive Seasteading with Arktide Visit the ArkPad website

Arktide is building seastead platforms and governance platforms.

Seasteading Today host interviews the founders of Ethos Island, Wil Otey and Jan Spiekermann in this episode.

Cameron Newland is building a pre-stead in the Northern Arizona desert, called Camp Liberty, and he is inviting seasteading enthusiasts to come and build homes in the desert with technology that can be used on the ocean.

A lot has changed since our podcast interview with Grant Romundt, CEO of Ocean Builders. In this interview with Connor Firmender, the Director of Business Development for Ocean Builders, we talk about the growing pains startups go through and preparing for the next phase of Ocean Builders. Connor went to school for marine biology but learned science wasn't the path for him. Instead he pivoted to help create the entrepreneurship program at his college. His alma mater now has an accelerator program that he helped build. Connor loves the opportunity to create something new and solve problems. He says that working for Ocean Builders is the most fulfilling experience of his life. He gets to wear his entrepreneur hat by helping develop projects in the Ocean Builders Incubator and his marine explorer hat by sailing and scuba diving to scope out potential locations for Pods. There's a whole ecosystem of technology services and products to support offshore style of living to be developed. There are a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities in the ocean tech space. Launch event August 22 Connor is helping to plan the Ocean Builders global event to launch the EcoPod and SeaPod models, which will be in the water for the event on August 22. They will release the pricing, offer rentals, and payment plans to purchase EcoPods and SeaPods.  To be included in the August 22 Launch Event, subscribe here. Ocean Builders is entering a new stage in the life cycle of a startup. They're moving from a point of R&D to selling a product to customers. They're transitioning from 3D renders to photographs of real life footage. Subscribe on Android Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Episode 15 of the Seasteading Today podcast features Brendon Traxler, founder of Atlantis Sea Colony. He is building a prototype for an underwater habitat.

Award-winning interior designer Morgan Ræ joins Seasteading Today host Carly Jackson to talk about designing interiors for floating structures.

Episode 13 of the Seasteading Today podcast features Mason Leschnya and Ryota Sekina, founders of Atlas Island.

Subscribe now to the Seasteading Today podcast and don't miss an episode of Season 4 on Aquapreneurs!

Michael Eliot is the founder of Ventive Floathouse. He is working on a ⅛ scale prototype of his uniquely designed floating home.

Freedom Haven is an open-design, freedom-based seasteading micronation founded by Tony Olsen.  Tony was inspired to launch Freedom Haven while researching the Tiny Home movement and using shipping containers to build new kinds of homes. He started planning a crowd-funding project to build a seastead micronation on a structure modeled after a container ship. You can connect with Tony’s team on Facebook, nearly 300 people interested in building seasteads at Creating a Libertarian Seasteading Micronation. He describes some of the decision-making processes for a dispersed group of visionaries, tackling design problems and the rules they want to have in place for their micronation. Freedom Haven has a Constitution and Tony explains why it was important to establish the laws and rules for their community before it has been physically built. They wanted to avoid a “might makes right” tradition. They had discussions on what constitutes force and how much control each individual in the seastead will have. Tony explains why one of the goals for Freedom Haven is to eventually qualify as a state under the Montevideo Convention. Requirements include: The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:a permanent population;a defined territory;government; andcapacity to enter into relations with the other states. They plan to sell living space at $316/square-foot paid as a 5-year lease. Tony mentions plans to take a scale model of his platform to Ephermerisle in 2021. Please subscribe on Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Android | Google | YouTube | RSS For feedback and questions, email podcast@seasteading.org

Nathalie Mezza-Garcia is a complexity scientist and founder and CEO of Seaphia, a consulting firm for floating architecture projects. She is also the former Seavangelesse for Blue Frontiers and their Floating Island Project in French Polynesia. She recently launched the Journal of Special Jurisdictions offering a balanced analysis of ideas around new governance structures. In this episode, Nathalie explains how she came to study seasteading after thinking about human societies as complex systems and concluding that current governance systems are failing to do what they’re supposed to do. She explains that in order to improve the way decisions get made in complex human societies, we must change our perspective, and seasteading provides the flexibility to do that. Nathalie shares the lessons she learned from her experience as the international spokesperson for the Floating Island Project in French Polynesia. She talks about the importance of forming relationships with the local residents and policy makers. One of her guiding principles for Seaphia is to build strong relationships with local residents, institutions and governments.  She advises seasteaders to do thorough research of the partners who get involved in seasteading companies, just like dating someone before deciding to marry that person. Nathalie explains that it’s easy to find locations where it is technically possible to place a seastead platform, but the complicated part is finding a location where the local partners are enthusiastic about your project. Seaphia is a consulting service to do market testing for potential seastead projects. They determine how a seasteading business can get to a point that serves the local community as well as business investors. She recommends working with local governments and existing institutions, not working against them.  Recommendations: Nathalie said her favorite project in the U.S. is Alta Sea which focuses on business around floating technologies. She also has published the Journal of Special Jurisdictions with the Center for Competitive Governance.The Startup Societies Foundation held a virtual summit and are releasing videos from that summit on their YouTube channel You can contact Nathalie Mezza-Garcia at nathalie@seaphia.blue. Please subscribe on Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Android | Google | YouTube | RSS For feedback and questions, email podcast@seasteading.org

Grant Romundt is the CEO of Ocean Builders, the company that built the first affordable, single-family seastead off the coast of Thailand. You can follow the story of the couple, Chad and Nadia, who lived on the first seastead home, in our documentary series called The First Seasteaders. Ocean Builders is now building their new floating home design, the SeaPod, in Panama. This interview took place at the Anarchapulco conference. Grant talks about Freedom Ship, a project to build a mile-long ship. Ocean Builders is planning to re-open their Incubator once travel restrictions are lifted. You can sign up on their website. Grant also talks about Panama’s Friendly Nations VISA: “As a response to the growing popularity of Panama among expats and digital nomads, the Panamanian government launched the Panama-Friendly Nations Visa program in 2012 to expedite the immigration process leading to citizenship and attract foreign investment to the country.”- How To Get A Panama Friendly Nations Visa Grant says in this interview that he’s designing something that he wants to live in. Pictured above is a rendering of the luxurious bathroom in Ocean Builders' SeaPod. Contact Grant at info@oceanbuilders.com. Please subscribe on Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Android | Google | YouTube | RSS For feedback and questions, email podcast@seasteading.org

Commander Dale Brown of Threat Management Centers in Detroit began training people on Detroit’s east side to protect their families and businesses from violent drug gangs in 1994. His organization specializes in nonviolent strategies and tactics designed to create a nonviolent outcome. This interview was recorded in February of 2020, before the death of George Floyd in police custody ignited protests around the nation. You can listen to Dale Brown comment on the culture of policing on the The Liam McCollum Show, “Ep. 23 Commander Dale Brown on His Private and Non-Violent Solution to Reduce Violent Crime” In this interview Dale Brown explains how his training system incorporates psychology, law, and tactics to create non-adversarial interactions to produce nonviolent outcomes. He has trained his private security teams, members of the public and police officers.  Our natural instincts are to use violence when we feel fear, so Dale teaches his clients to understand body language and psychology to overcome fear to de-escalate a situation. Brown applies experience managing security in private communities and Michigan marinas to explain how to identify threats to safety in a seasteading community. He recommends that we manage threats to safety and comfort (like fear of water and noise level expectations), and then create a community culture that embodies the overall objective of the community. He answers the common questions like, how to protect seasteads from pirates? How do you make sure each seastead home is as safe as possible? He describes how a seasteading community can create multiple levels of protection. Check out Detroit Management Center on YouTube, to watch police testimonials on using their methods to prevent injuring someone. Please subscribe on Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Android | Google | YouTube | RSS For feedback and questions, email podcast@seasteading.org

Dr. Mary Ruwart is a research scientist, ethicist, and a libertarian author and activist. She has a Ph.D. in Biophysics and worked as a senior research scientist developing new therapies for a variety of diseases. She serves as Chair for Liberty International and Secretary of the Foundation for a Free Society. She is the author of Healing our World and Death by Regulation. Visit her website: www.ruwart.com. Dr. Ruwart worked for the Upjohn Company, researching medicine and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Her book, Death by Regulation, explains how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has harmed Americans by adding regulations to drug approval, though safety and effectiveness in drugs has not improved. She has calculated that the FDA has shaved five years off the lives of Americans. The cost of FDA approval rises every year, making it harder for drug companies to research new treatments. Dr. Ruwart explains why the marketplace was an effective system for eliminating drugs that were not effective before the FDA dramatically increased their influence in the 1960s. The FDA has shifted the medical paradigm from prevention to treatment, and away from more nutritional or holistic methods. We also discuss potential medical businesses for seasteads, for example, offering third-party testing for new drugs, medical tourism, and treatments that are approved in countries other than the United States, like adult stem-cell treatment. Dr. Ruwart also explains how the FDA prohibited the development of COVID-19 tests, delaying the response to the pandemic in the U.S. Watch an April 25, 2020 Webinar, Dr. Mary J Ruwart: Healthcare vs Pandemics, hosted by Students for Liberty. As an Amazon Associate The Seasteading Institute earns from qualifying purchases. This episode of the Seasteading Today podcast is sponsored by Atlantis Sea Colony. The purpose of Atlantis Sea Colony is to bring the undersea world to the masses, through hotels, habitats, private homes, and industrial and corporate facilities. A big thank you to Brendon Traxler and Adam Jewell of the Atlantis Sea Colony for supporting this podcast and for having me on their podcast, which is called Colonize the Ocean. You can listen to the Colonize the Ocean podcast on Spotify and YouTube. To learn more about Atlantis Sea Colony, visit atlantisseacolony.com. If you would like to sponsor a future episode of the Seasteading Today podcast, visit: give.seasteading.org/podcastsponsor Please subscribe on Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Android | Google | YouTube | RSS For feedback and questions, email podcast@seasteading.org

The biggest problem is inept, incompetent, dysfunctional government. It’s the least innovative industry in the entire world and the result of that is mass poverty.

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) uses the temperature difference between cooler deep water and warmer surface-level water to run a heat engine to produce useful work, usually in the form of electricity. Fresh water is a byproduct of this process.

Neil Sims and his colleagues at Kampachi Farms are refining methods for producing sustainable, scalable, and (most importantly) delicious fish. Sims believes that the best way to improve the environment is to use market tools; to provide economic incentives to achieve the ecological imperatives. Sims began as a fisheries biologist, managing commercial fisheries and workingRead more

Agriculture on land may not be able to keep up with the demand for food. We need alternative choices of food and animal feed. The solution can be found in cultivating seaweed.

Karina Czapiewska is one of the founders of Blue 21, which designs, engineers and implements floating architecture. Their goal is to create floating cities that have a positive impact on the surrounding ecology.

Joe Quirk discusses progress in the seasteading movement in season 2, episode 1 of the Seasteading Today podcast.

From 2015-2017, The Seasteading Institute published ten episodes of the Seasteading Today podcast with Joe Quirk introducing the seasteading community to the engineers, designers and activists who were actively working to make seasteading happen. In a couple weeks, we will start releasing “season 2” of the Seasteading Today podcast with your new host, Carly Jackson.Read more

Is the Startup Societies movement “the most Progressive movement on the planet“? It is if Progressivism’s moral imperative is to eliminate poverty on earth. Michael Strong, humanitarian author and education entrepreneur, explains to Joe Quirk why he served on the original Seasteading Institute Board of Directors to accelerate the means by which people create abundance.Read more

I wouldn’t understand the power of seasteading if I didn’t understand the power of Special Economic Zones. What are those? Let’s ask the expert. Lotta Moberg has written several academic papers on Special Economic Zones, as well as this essay in The Daily Caller I mention in our conversation. She recently published an applauded book, The Political Economy of SpecialRead more

My controversial interview with the Sustainable Communities Summit is now free. Host Alan James allowed me to talk at length about the entrepreneurs who plan to show the world how to think beyond sustainability – and beyond politics itself. I succeeded in blowing Alan’s mind. You’ll notice several times when I stop talking, he catches his breath for a moment, andRead more