Sign me up. I’m joining legendary founder of PayPal and tech investor Peter Thiel on the high seas! (and cool to learn he’s a Libertarian). Great overview of Seasteading pros, cons, and challenges. This should resonate with startup founders and entrepreneurs. 

“The idea is to convert a cruise liner into an offshore “incubator” for small, high-tech start-ups and position it just outside American territorial waters off California. The attraction for the start-ups is that they would be able to hire foreign engineers and scientists without the hassle of getting work visas for them.”

I know it sounds crazy, but a sovereign government in the ocean or in space is going to happen within our lifetime! Kevin’s convinced me. It might be corporate-run, but that would be interesting…

“Given the huge costs and risks involved, perhaps the ideal builders of seasteads will not be small groups of innovators like the Blueseed team, but giant engineering firms such as Mitsubishi, India’s Tata group or Samsung of South Korea. Indeed, as Mr Keenan notes, the most viable political model for a seastead may not be a libertarian democracy but an enlightened corporate dictatorship.”

What do you think?

A great example of how the government ‘runs’ a company. Un-freaking believable.

For the record, I have no problem with any business restructuring or cutting costs however they see fit. But check out the backwards way the government goes about it, largely because of the massive bureaucracy and handcuffs they’ve chained themselves to. Having to run every change by Congress, a Congress afraid to do anything because next year is an election year, is a recipe for disaster.

For example, instead of immediately stopping Saturday mail delivery, which is pretty pointless and incredibly expensive, they bump first class mail to 2-3 days.

“The changes would provide short-term relief, but ultimately could prove counterproductive, pushing more of America’s business onto the Internet. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix’s DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.”

The USPS can’t eliminate Saturday delivery is because Congress has to approve the change. Whereas they can eliminate next day mail delivery without Congress’ involvement.

Image if the board of directors of private companies took literally years to approve major decisions. It would literally destroy our entire economy. But in Government, this is standard operating procedure.

Another question worth bringing up is why do we even need a USPS, especially if a private company would never deliver a letter for 45 cents anywhere in the country.

“In the event of a shutdown due to bankruptcy, private companies such as FedEx and UPS could handle a small portion of the material the post office moves, but they do not go everywhere. No business has shown interest in delivering letters everywhere in the country for a set rate of 44 cents or 45 cents for a first-class letter.”

So if no private company wants to “serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality.” why do we allow the Government to do this for us? Sounds like communism to me. I realize we’ve set a precedent in rural areas which may be hard to break, but this is slowing innovation. If sending a letter to bumfuck Alaska cost $15.00 instead of $0.45, you can bet companies and consumers would adopt online billing years sooner. And this is just one example!

When the government masks the true cost of doing business and hides behind billions of dollars of losses we all suffer, especially the innovators and entrepreneurs trying to drive progress.

Thanks Kevin for this gem!