Tie all the abandoned ships together and turn them into a floating city where the only law is the law of the sea. I mean, we're aiming for full on dystopia aren't we?
Most recent discussion of the Great Bitter Lake Association (googling seems to indicate it'd been posted on HN before - but the Ever Given's grounding made it relevant again)
You might be interested in the story of Radio Caroline, back in the '60s the BBC had a state monopoly on British radio and it was very stuffy and conservative. To get around this people used to set up AM transmitters and studios on ships just outside of UK territorial waters and transmitted from beyond the jurisdiction of the government. There were quite a few of these but Radio Caroline was the first and longest-lived - they lasted up to 1990 when the British government gave itself the power to raid radio ships in international waters (!) but it eventually returned with a license and is still around today.
While it wasn't exactly a dystopian floating city (quite the opposite, it was dedicated people who wanted to be there) it's still really interesting from lots of points of view I think.
Me too! One of my top-five records of all time. I was able to grab a pressing that had the original guitar version of "Radio Silence" - although I can appreciate the version that eventually ended up on later pressings I enjoy the guitar one so much more. I also saw him perform live in Baltimore pre-pandemic.
Reminds me of Radio Ceylon Hindi. All India Radio refused to play music that people actually wanted to listen to and it had a monopoly. Radio Ceylon filled the need and made millions from advertisements.
"Friedman and Gramlich noted that according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country's Exclusive Economic Zone extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from shore. Beyond that boundary lie the high seas, which are not subject to the laws of any sovereign state other than the flag under which a ship sails. They proposed that a seastead could take advantage of the absence of laws and regulations outside the sovereignty of nations to experiment with new governance systems, and allow the citizens of existing governments to exit more easily"
"The project picked up mainstream exposure after PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel donated $500,000 in initial seed capital[4] (followed by subsequent contributions). He also spoke out on behalf of its viability in his essay "The Education of a Libertarian""
Patri Friedman is described as a former Google employee, a transhumanist and rationalist, and a very good poker player.
"Since attending the Burning Man festival in 2000, Friedman imagined creating a water festival called Ephemerisle as a Seasteading experiment and Temporary Autonomous Zone. Through The Seasteading Institute, Friedman was able to start the Ephemerisle festival in 2009, aided by TSI's James Hogan as event organizer and Chicken John Rinaldi as chief builder."
It doesn't really interest me, but I guess it does make a lot more sense than Mars colonies?
"Women on Waves (WoW) is a Dutch pro-choice nongovernmental organization (NGO) created in 1999 by Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts, in order to bring reproductive health services, particularly non-surgical abortion services and education, to women in countries with restrictive abortion laws.[1] Other services offered by WoW include contraception, individual reproductive counseling, workshops, and education about unwanted pregnancy."
