I think this is impossible. In democracies where everyone has a vote, the majority tends to vote in politicians that promise more 'social services'. That's a euphemism for using the government's monopoly of the use of to take money/time/effort from some groups and divert it into inefficient policies like the war on drugs, war on terrorism, war on poverty, etc.
This is one reason that in the US's early history, only land owners were allowed to vote.
I believe that part of the idea behind sea-steading is to extend the concept of freedom of association to one's residence, real-estate, and business, literally enabling you to pick up stakes and move at any time you feel your environment has grown hostile to your way of life.
Granted this faces the same issues that any other utopian social movement has faced in the past (reaching critical mass, working out the kinks in a new legal, political, and economic system, avoiding tyranny etc.) but at least it has an escape hatch built in.
If someone can figure out how to make these vessels as fool proof as a car (reasonably hard to ruin, owner operable, easily stocked with energy, affordable) they'll have no shortage of disgruntled citizens waiting to try one out.
If someone can figure out how to make these vessels as fool proof as a car (reasonably hard to ruin, owner operable, easily stocked with energy, affordable) they'll have no shortage of disgruntled citizens waiting to try one out.
You mean... mobile homes. John Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley, was very positive about the motorhome's possibilities. But we know how that dream turned out.
... a multi-billion dollar per annum industry and beloved recreational past time?
I do agree that prognostication is very rarely correct but the uses for the technologies in question go far beyond the political pipedreams of the seasteading society. If you could produce something equivalent to an RV for the sea you would absolutely have a market but with the major difference that the upper size limit on floating vessels is several orders of magnitude larger than that on land based vehicles.
There is already incentive to use structures like this in cities limited by waterfront. Their uses recreationally as a summer home are extremely evident if you've ever seen a lake filled with houseboats [1], floating data centres [2] also come to mind as well as those barges that Google built.
The biggest issue would be transportation to and from the mainland or between these structures but if they can be joined together at sea this problem quickly disappears as the number of connected structures increases.
Beyond that, there is still the very real possibility that this could open up the last and widest frontier on Earth and we'll have gone from prairie schooners to seasteads.
Also, with the increasing mobility afforded by a cell connection for phone and internet, there is a growing movement in the same vein as the original dreams for the future of the motorhome [3] I'd expect a seastead to more closely resemble a tiny house than an RV i.e. more house than vehicle, since people want to live in a house not a boat.
I doubt the majority of the US population is rearing to move out to sea, but you heard about liberland right? They received 160,000 applications in a matter of days. I'd say there's a market for this, and it'll grow if the pioneers are successful.
