The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Seasteading

Mark Twain: “Buy land. They’ve stopped making it.”
Seasteaders: “Production Resuming.”

SeasteadingDo you want to go back to the land without being under the sway of the federal government?  If so, the Seasteading Institute suggests you should instead go back to the water.  They envision intentional homesteading colonies constructed on floating platforms in international waters.  Out there on the sea frontier, you can do whatever you want since no nations' laws apply.

The nonprofit is founded by libertarians, and they bill seasteading as a method of testing out new political systems.  I can also see the appeal of building your own nation from an entirely nonpolitical point of view --- homesteaders everywhere wrestle with restrictive building codes that don't allow them to build strawbale houses or composting toilets.  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to choose environmentally sustainable options without jumping through months of hoops?

Mark's response was, "One word: pirates."  (Though the Seasteading Institute thinks that pirates wouldn't be a big deal.)  And, granted, I'm far too attached to my hills to leave the land for the sea.  Still, I thought you all might be interested.  After all, the first colony is planned to go live in 2015.

Meanwhile, check out our ebook about starting your own microbusiness.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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