Here's what Joe Quirk (the guy in the video, the author by the same name, and Seasteading's Director of Communications) told us when we talked to him about the project last week:

"I've come to define expert as anyone who can explain to me in great detail why some solution will never work 6 months before some group I never heard about makes the solution work. The network of minds working on a problem is far better at finding solutions than one mind researching the problem."

Please don't think I'm being cheeky with this reply. Not at all. I believe your responses are smart and ...only natural. But Seasteading is putting in years of research and testing before its model hits the waves. There are no guarantees except one: not to try would be an utter waste of potential resources. Algae farms convert greenhouse gasses to food we can eat; food people can turn into their own farms & businesses. And that's just one aspect of what this project can do.

We need it. We can't afford to be overly cautious. Whatever the risks are; we have to find the solutions.

I think you're right. What does Silicon Valley say? "Fail early, fail often, and fail forward." Rapid iteration is an intentional recipe, and feedback is built into the design. People freak out every time there's a bug in the latest iOS update, but if Apple waited until there were no bugs, it would take years for a release. WE help them figure out the best designs faster and faster.

The folks at Seasteading are calling themselves 'aquapreneurs.' I take this to mean they expect to fail sometimes, and to learn extremely valuable lessons each time they do. I'm sure they're open to critique; most thoughtful people I know are.

It's only the fate of the world at stake, so you know ... Early and often and forward.

Hi Grendel. I'm not sure about pirates. At first I laughed (thought you were joking), and then I realized this is actually a good question. Seasteading is spending a lot of time, energy, and probably investor dollars on smart research so I imagine they're thinking hard about security designs too—hopefully ones that will be uninvasive to the people who live there.

You asked: "Will they really be able to generate all the energy they need just from solar power?" I understand your skepticism, especially given that the technology and public sentiment haven't entirely caught up. In the past, solar power cost a lot to convert relative to the rewards. Those panels we all picture were expensive to buy and far too big; but the technology is rapidly changing. Very.

Consider this: the sun blasts the planet with more energy in one hour than humanity consumes in a year.

Amazing, right? If we were able to put researchers and scientists in a place completely outside of the territory of bogged down governments and bureaucracies so they could actually make rapid progress on work they know is possible, things could happen. Developing nations could catch up. The oceans could provide power to the entire world. National and corporate conflicts over fossil fuels would become a thing of the past.

I believe that's what Seasteading is about. Another thing they are about is creating new forms of non-traditional governance that are NOT bureaucratic in nature. That's a big part of what captures my interest in them.

A few years ago I sat next to a baby on a plane. She reached for my tablet and began swiping right to left—an infant. I looked around and all the babies were swiping. For all I knew, they were e-filing their own taxes.

If AI are as cute and adaptive (and emotionally unstable) as babies, we are in trouble. Otherwise, I hope I'm alive to see the machines our babies create.

The research on collective intelligence and other information in systems thinking (especially the work of Peter Senge, MIT senior researcher) has been such an incredible discovery for me.

CollectiveImpactforum.org - another great discover

What if by pitting ourselves against future machines, potentially greater in intelligence and discipline and will; what if by imagining our story could somehow be overwritten; what if by hoping for an everlasting legacy (or life), we miss a greater story, and a more essential truth?

Does "synthetic" or "artificial" have any real meaning? I figure there's no out-of-this-world, no matter how out-of-this-world. Technically speaking. We have progressively separated ourselves from nature and this is its continuation.

It took us quite a long time to evolve the value systems we have today (however feeble they can be), but technology is advancing at an exponential rate. We only recognize local, linear advancement. Peter Diamandis (Singularity University) explains it this way: you can imagine yourself walking 30 steps or 30 meters ahead (linear), but 30 exponential meters gets you 26 times around the planet.

When we think of AI advancing, we can kind of imagine cognition that is well beyond our current capacity (maybe IBM's Watson ), but I think that's a fairly flat formulation. Any sufficiently advanced AI would need to be social in order to fit the description. That means it would need to be PRO-social, i.e., have emotions. Why wouldn't it be more human than we are? Us-plus?

I could argue that we're collectively evolving; it's possible AI is just what's next on the wacky roadmap that began at atom and moved (very roughly, skipping steps) to molecule to single celled life to fish to bird to mammal to primate to us ---> ?.

We're just a chapter.

- julie