The pervasive tone around seasteading is one of governance fatigue, and the political stance accompanying the whole project is strictly libertarian. Libertarianism, while alive and well in the blogosphere, has yet to make the transition into mainstream politics. Starting from the core principles of radical individualism and limited government, libertarians stress that their credo is "freedom from" rather than "freedom to", and the drive to offshore development is as much a move away from governmental influence as it is a problem-solving residential innovation.

Building seasteads is just the first challenge. Although SI has found no legal objections to its project, what legal jurisdiction would seasteads be subject to, and would some of them feature state-of-the-art gallows? How would these floating utopias deal with crime, drugs, firearms and all the other flies in the land-based ointment?

Critics claim that seasteads will quickly become a new playground for the rich, that familiar alpha behaviour will dominate and the same patterns of exploitation and corruption emerge as exist in more orthodox cities on terra firma, albeit against the backdrop of an attractive ocean view.

Of course, seasteading may save mankind from itself, but it isn't difficult to see these blueprints coming to life as a sort of hi-tech Legoland for the super-rich. The SI predicts millions of residents by 2050, but will sea-steads simply become this century's gated communities?

Only the historians of the future will be able to judge whether seasteading changes planetary demographics for the better, or becomes an expensive hybrid of millionaire's row and Celebrity Big Brother.