[andrewflnr]

I think you'll need several of them linked together before you get any useful testbed for government. Most systems of government can work at small scale. They don't break until you get lots of people. The whole thing should also wind up being more stable socially.

I really like the idea of ocean-going governmental experiments. Let's have socialist experiments and parecon experiments while we're at it. They really need to be sovereign, or they're just big cruise ships. They need to have complete ownership of the platforms, which almost means they need to be donated.

Obviously sinking is a big risk. Make sure there are well-drilled emergency procedures, and that the links between platforms are such that one sinking will not bring down any others. And keep lifeboats and dual citizenship, so if it goes south you'll have somewhere to go when they pick you out of the ocean.

I suspect that even if the first few iterations of this idea suck and/or are used for crass commercial purposes, it will likely get ironed out eventually. I think seagoing countries could be an important part of the future someday.

[glenra]

>Most systems of government can work at small scale.

That's part of the idea. Existing governments are too big and stodgy, too slow to change. This is like having a "startup sector" for the governing industry, a place where new ideas can be tried out. If it works, people who want to live under the new rules will have a place to go. If the new ideas work extremely well, the old land-based governments will eventually adopt some of them too.

> They really need to be sovereign, or they're just big cruise ships.

The first ones will likely be flagged vessels, as cruise ships are. (There's still a lot of room for jurisdictional arbitrage - you can pick the nation that gives you the most freedom with respect to whatever metrics you care about.)

[endtime]

>I think you'll need several of them linked together before you get any useful testbed for government. Most systems of government can work at small scale. They don't break until you get lots of people. The whole thing should also wind up being more stable socially.

Agreed.

>They really need to be sovereign, or they're just big cruise ships. They need to have complete ownership of the platforms, which almost means they need to be donated.

No it doesn't. They can be sold, either as real estate or to groups of people who want to administrate them.

>Obviously sinking is a big risk. Make sure there are well-drilled emergency procedures, and that the links between platforms are such that one sinking will not bring down any others. And keep lifeboats and dual citizenship, so if it goes south you'll have somewhere to go when they pick you out of the ocean.

Obviously the people moving there should educate themselves on whether the platforms are resilient to turbulent weather. They can bring their own safety equipment (lifeboats, etc.) or perhaps the owner/seller of the platform will include it as part of the rental/sale arrangement. These aren't hard problems to solve without some kind of centralized paternalist entity. Maintaining dual citizenship seems like it could be a good idea - potentially high benefit (if it doesn't work out or you don't like it) for low cost (unless your country requires you to pay income tax on money not earned there).

[andrewflnr]

I guess the new government will need som starting funding anyway, and buying platforms may as well be part of the startup expenses. And yes, citizen self-education will be very important.