Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) said “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” While the truth may eventually work its way into the light of day, it can be indefinitely stonewalled and delayed; unfortunately, humans don’t have forever to discover the truth. Half-baked ideas by unbalanced individuals who happen to be in power can stymie experimentation.
As humanity struggles to meet the challenges of the 21st century and humans realize what is at stake, engineers, scientists and thinkers of all types cast about, seeking to conceive of and conceptualize workable and practicable solutions. Some sound crazy, some are boondoggles, some are gestating, and some may just work. If we don’t try and experiment, we will never know.
Larry Page Touts Risk Taking, Acceleration & Thinking Outside The Box
In May, 2013, Larry Page, the well-grounded co-founder and CEO of Google, at Google’s I/O event spoke of the need for greater experimentation, risk-taking and innovation, but noted the barriers sometimes standing in the way:
“There’s many, many exciting and important things you could do that you just can’t do ’cause they’re illegal or they’re not allowed by regulation. And that makes sense, we don’t want our world to change too fast. But maybe we should set aside some small part of the world … I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out: What is the effect on society? What’s the effect on people? Without having to deploy it into the normal world. And people who like those kinds of things can go there and experience that.”
Hong Kong & Singapore As Models: Chirps & Then A Chorus
The Seasteading Institute is one such organization looking to overturn millennia of human society based on land. The idea is to deploy hundreds or even thousands of Hong Kong size floating cities where the Institute believes human society will flourish, be different, test new ideas, live in better balance with nature and potentially pull millions out of poverty.
The examples of Hong Kong, Singapore and other cities that have thrown off the regressive yoke of stale politics of larger societies around them are examples of how major changes can lead to thriving human experiments.
Another Wright Brothers To Neil Armstrong Challenge
According to the Seasteading Institute it was 66 years from the Wright brothers first flight to Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. They believe that with the right focus, commitment and resources human civilization can improve through massive seasteading.
A New World To Reinvigorate The Old
The Seasteading Institute has sponsored a number of architectural design competitions for floating cities. As is to be expected there have been a lot of creative designs but the ultimate success of these types of structures will depend on how well people live on them, the costs and whether or not this Utopian vision can become reality.
