/sci/ - Science & Math

>>If we can put people underwater it'l help overcrowding.

As much as I love the idea I don't buy this. Unless Chamberland's innovation really is some cheap way to produce air underwater, it will remain more economical to build "seasteads" (pictured) than to house people below the surface.

Not that I don't have some confidence in the guy, I just won't get excited over the prospect until I know what he's got up his sleeve. It must be pretty compelling to raise that kind of funding.

>>1957917

>>If we colonize the ocean then we wouldn't be facing overpopulation at such a fast rate as today.

As much as I'm pro-colonization of the sea, it won't be for most people. It makes more financial sense to put those displaced by coastal flooding up in "seasteads": Oceanic surface communities built using the same methods as current oil rigs.

The only people who will live and work undersea will be those who have to be there in order to do their jobs. Scientists, soldiers, miners and farmers, almost exclusively.

Pictured: a seastead.

So every time I turn around there's some guy on /sci/ riling everyone up about how he wants to create technocracy in Tazmania.

Well I saw an interesting documentary tonight called "How to Start Your Own Country" that featured as one of the talking heads, one of my favourite scientists Dean Kamen.

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2010/08/tiff-2010-how-to-start-your-own-country-is-disturbingly-familiar..
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Anyway, one of the segments featured something called 'Seasteading' which to me seems a helluvalot easier than settling on an already established piece of territory.

thoughts?

/pic related.

>>1923139

>>bad idea. dumb idea. harmful idea.

I expect to hear this a lot.

>>how do you plan on getting electricity to these things.

See: >>1922970

>>how do you plan on getting people to go to their jobs in the city everyday from these things.

Initially they'll be in shallow water and used as vacation homes. By the time there are whole communities of them, opportunists will create a local undersea economy and people can both live and work without ever surfacing.

>>wheres the septic tank, wheres the clean water.

Waste is handled via composting toilet, which assists in fertilizing the algae and wheatgrass aquaculture.

>>what you want to do is pollute the last refuge of life. the ocean. for the sake of realty.

Quite the opposite. Undersea habitats become artificial coral reefs at such a quick pace that aquanauts must continually scrape off new growth. It's why we deliberately sink decommissioned ships. Coral fucking loves growing on them for whatever reason and they have a tremendously beneficial effect on the reef ecosystem.

>>it's not. cost. effective.

Compared to what? An inland house? At $150,000?

>>maybe when every list little bit of land in the world has been gobbled up, people will be forced.

Actually you're right about this. Overpopulation is not why people will live undersea. It's not even a pressing problem in developed nations. And if it were people would sooner live on seasteads, like the one in the photo.

No, people will live underwater because of cheap access to the coast (and the coastal lifestyle) access to food that would otherwise be reserved for the very wealthy, and for the natural beauty. They will do it because it's a way to have a home that impresses others while costing a fraction of an inland home that would offer comparable status. People will live in the sea for lots of reasons, but lack of land is not one of them.