The Great Meteor Seamount caper
Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 2:28 pm
Bear with me my droogies for I bring new thoughts. Sit back and attend while I introduce you to the Great Meteor Seamount.
The key thing to note is that it's in the Atlantic, it's a flat-topped hill and most of its summit is 250 to 500 meters below the waves. The surrounding Atlantic is around three miles deep so it's quite a big hill. That flat bit on top is - wait for it - 50 km x 28 km (1465 km²). That's 1500 square kilometers of real estate over which nobody to date even claims sovereignty.
What we here at ForumGarden will do is this. We chip in enough apiece to form a development company which we jointly own. We then raise market capital by selling 10% exchangeable non-voting options on apartments and citizenship in the Republic of Seamount and with that capital we build a permanent caisson around the perimeter and pump the entire seamount plateau dry. If we aim for a national population of 100 million at $5,000 a head, we can have construction crews building high-rise residential units within ten years. That sort of money's easily come by - I'd point out to doubters that the 2003 Iraq War cost three times as much and produced far less of a return for its investors.
What we, the ForumGarden Membership, end up with is one very large capital city surrounded by half-kilometer sea-defence walls, a permanently inexhaustible supply of drinking water and food, and an Unaligned seat at the United Nations. Not even Bill Gates has one of those as far as I'm aware. I suggest we form a ruling Senate body with a class system based on wealth, privilege and descent from the Founding Procreators, to whit, ourselves.
The key thing to note is that it's in the Atlantic, it's a flat-topped hill and most of its summit is 250 to 500 meters below the waves. The surrounding Atlantic is around three miles deep so it's quite a big hill. That flat bit on top is - wait for it - 50 km x 28 km (1465 km²). That's 1500 square kilometers of real estate over which nobody to date even claims sovereignty.
What we here at ForumGarden will do is this. We chip in enough apiece to form a development company which we jointly own. We then raise market capital by selling 10% exchangeable non-voting options on apartments and citizenship in the Republic of Seamount and with that capital we build a permanent caisson around the perimeter and pump the entire seamount plateau dry. If we aim for a national population of 100 million at $5,000 a head, we can have construction crews building high-rise residential units within ten years. That sort of money's easily come by - I'd point out to doubters that the 2003 Iraq War cost three times as much and produced far less of a return for its investors.
What we, the ForumGarden Membership, end up with is one very large capital city surrounded by half-kilometer sea-defence walls, a permanently inexhaustible supply of drinking water and food, and an Unaligned seat at the United Nations. Not even Bill Gates has one of those as far as I'm aware. I suggest we form a ruling Senate body with a class system based on wealth, privilege and descent from the Founding Procreators, to whit, ourselves.