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ummm, it didn't work very well in the not to distant future....
(CNN) -- A floating city off the coast of San Francisco may sound like science fiction, but it could be reality in the not-too-distant future.
The Seasteading Ins ute already has drawn up plans for the construction of a homestead on the Pacific Ocean.
One project engineer described the prototype as similar to a cruise ship, but from a distance the cities might look like oil-drilling platforms.
According to the plans, the floating cities would not only look different from their land-based counterparts, but they might operate differently, too.
Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who now works for the Seasteading Ins ute, said floating cities are the perfect places to experiment with new forms of government.
Some of the new political ideas the group is tossing around include legalizing marijuana and making intellectual property communal -- so that everyone would take ownership in art produced on the city at sea.
"The idea isn't just about getting away from rules or getting rid of rules. It's about a system that encourages experimentation with different political systems," he said.
Friedman said the floating city may be built in modular pieces so that city blocks and neighborhoods can be recombined to create new urban layouts.
The idea of building cities on the sea is not new, he said, but the Seasteading Ins ute has come closer to realizing the goal than others.
"A lot of people over the past hundred plus years have had this idea and even specifically building cities on the ocean to try out new forms of government," he said. "But they've pretty much been totally imagined and if they did try, they totally failed."
There are several unknowns about future attempts to create floating cities, said Christian Cermelli, an engineer and architect with Marine Innovation and Technology, based in San Francisco.
Cermelli, who is part of a team of designers creating a blueprint for the first seastead, said it's unclear if construction is possible -- or what it would cost.
Still, a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three years, he said.
Friedman said seasteads are loosely based on oil rigs, but with important modifications.
"We care more about sunlight and open space, so the specifications are different," he said. "Also, oil platforms are fixed in place. We think it's important to have more modular cities. So you would build a city out of buildings that can actually be separated and rearranged."
Cermelli said the ocean cities may use technology from suspension bridges "to expand the space at sea and basically get a roomier platform."
Friedman says the idea of seasteading has met a range of reactions.
"Some people think we're crazy. A lot of people think we're crazy," he said. "Some people think terrible things could happen, others think it would be great."
About 600 people have joined the Seasteading Ins ute.
Some of them, like Gayle Young, say the idea is exciting partly because it's so different.
"I love the idea because it's audacious. It's big," she said. "It's about pushing frontiers."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/09/f...ing/index.html
ummm, it didn't work very well in the not to distant future....
they already did this in dubai
Hmmm... I don't know that we can, or should, use the set from a Universal Studios Waterworld-themed stage show as an accurate predictor of the future.ummm, it didn't work very well in the not to distant future....
how exactly do they want to keep the floating cities from making everyone sea sick? the ocean is way too deep to just throw some pillars down to the ocean floor to stabilize them
the technological requirement for this sizzles the mind. and they ignore this and go right to experimental governments?
they are doing that in vietnam also...but a smaller leaf project
to tell you the truth i find it a waste of resources and money spent on such a project, what happens if the sea lvl rises? ur house which you bought is basically worth cause its underwater.....house and contents would also be expensive due to the risks....
no, the one in Dubai is actual soil that they dump in the water to create land.
what this article is talking about is floating cities in the pacific. not the same
This has been on the table for some time now. I think its going to be tough to get going. If they're planning on using US dollars to construct this island its going to be one road block after another.
might as well build a huge cruise liner....
Figure 10 million+ for an 800sf apartment sized unit and at least 10K a month to operate it. That's if you got another 1000 people to go in with you on the same deal.
Sounds like a cool idea, but seeing as one big storm could easily cause billions of dollars of damage, I don't see how it could be plausible.
It would be like New Orleans on steroids. Just waiting for the next big wave.
One could though easily power the thing using some kind of generating scheme from waves or currents.
I don't think it is quite as un-doable as some suggest.
As a science/engineering major and one who makes a living in the field I think you are substantially underestimating the difficulty.
Heh, I didn't say "easy", just "doable".
There are a number of billionaires on the planet with the wealth to do this. If it would give the Ron Paul s someplace to try their social experiment, I would kick some $$ in.
The arrogance of that statement absolutely astounds me. That is socialism in it's purest form. "Hey, you smart guys figure out how to build this thing and keep it running, but don't expect to be rewarded for it...you owe it to us to do the work while we deep thinkers are creating the new social order that benefits US."Some of the new political ideas the group is tossing around include legalizing marijuana and making intellectual property communal -- so that everyone would take ownership in art produced on the city at sea.
Escape from l.a.
Water World is a very underrated movie.
That "social experiment" you mock was what founded this country, genius. We could all try your pathetic socialist experi....oh wait never mind.
btw, microsoft has been talking about setting up an HQ for years off the pacific coast while using waves for energy.
Sorry, but when you try to take an exact government model that worked for an agrarian nation of 2 million rural farm dwellers (well, not counting the slaves) in the 1700s and apply that to a post-industrial contintent-spanning civilization of city-dwellers in the 2000's, that is indeed a social experiment.That "social experiment" you mock was what founded this country, genius. We could all try your pathetic socialist experi....oh wait never mind.
Ron Paul and many of his supporters seems to be under the impression that nothing has changed in the USA in the last 250 years. But that is for the political forum...
Namor says what?
Screw living on the ocean. People already live in house boats, like that little girl that got her head bit off by a croc.
I want scientists to focus on finding a way to make cities that float in the sky. All we need is a sky continent and an underworld. We've already got a desert continent, jungle islands, ice continent.
What else do we need?
what recession?
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