Have been building this for a while now - it's not public-public until more ready, but would like feedback on the ideas: http://project-entropy.com/

We're experimentally creating a sort of small decentralised country aboard an as-big-as-possible-catamaran where anyone can be a citizen, with shared control, ownership and governance, directed at making things better rather than making a profit.

so how exactly would one go about visiting the hackspace/boat?

I'm setting it up some any token holder can suggest a destination for the boat to sail to, which works like any other proposal (Action) except that it is tagged. The route based on the voted Actions will be publicly available so everyone can see generally where Entropy is and where it's going.

To manage people coming aboard, I was thinking we could send out 'Come Aboard' tokens to everyone who has at least one citizenship token, and invite people to book time aboard that way.

Also I like the idea of when visiting larger population centres, just staying there and running a mixture of hackspace events and talks - like a mini floating blockchain hackspace festival

It's quite possible to sail across the worlds oceans on a terrifyingly small boat, but for there to be enough room to host citizens, have some incubator type blockchain startups and put on meaningful events the plan is for a 50-70 foot catamaran - something like:

Or similar to CoBoats efforts: coboat.org

The simplest funding model I can get to work is:

• plan the project for 3 years
• estimate the total cost to keep flying ( say: $800,000, or 3880 eth )
• have a set token cost of 1 = 1eth, maybe also doing a ramped up pegging thing that DAO did
• this means we need 4,000 citizens, each paying 1 th, spread over 3 years, with most early on
• 1,095 days over 3 years * boat can safely hold 12 people all the time = 13,140 available overnight slots for people to be aboard - 25% for downtime, events etc = 9,855 nights
• This means everyone who holds a token gets at least a 2 night trip aboard, if everyone turns up

other stuff:

• the sail area is going to be huge, it'd be cool to have Citizen's names up there
• some of the citizen space could be set aside for a low cost incubator: cost offset with equity in whatever is hatched aboard to keep the project alive > 3 years
• selling extra tokens back for merch
• piracy

I think this is really cool, but you're going to need to have someone that actually knows how to run the boat there all the time... right? How how do they get paid? Can the DAO decide on the captain?

Yeah we're planning an elected inner circle, who both act as a buffer to dangerous proposals and take charge of the safety of the ship and everyone aboard. Actually one of the things that became clear is that long stretches of no internet is dangerous for a DAO, if everyone is inside the blackout

We could indeed sell it if it came to that, but I like the idea of it growing into a fleet.

Maybe this is through incubating projects onboard in exchange for equity, maybe this is just turnover of citizens, maybe we could add a 'lifespan' to the tokens, they expire after 3 years and the whole process can continue.

I hate to rain on a parade, but one thing is that the relationship between boats is a lot more libertarian than the relationship between the crew of one boat. Even Plato uses the example of the ship at sea to argue for his idea of the geek dictator ("philosopher king").
The crew are literally "all in the same boat" and so there isn't really much room for disagreement. Historically, western culture has decided that the best way to run a boat is under the command of a single captian, and not many people have argued with this. I wouldn't be surprised if it's impossible to ensure the boat without a designated captian. I think this will create a tension that you'll have to work around, at least.

On the other hand, if this was a flotilla of boats... then I think you'd begin to see a natural harmony between you idea and decentralization. Islands of consistency in a sea of eventualness.

Prehaps, you could pitch this not as a single vessel, but as a prototype for a flotilla... maybe invite current sea captians to join your network? That way you might be able to release some of the inevitable pressure of forcing participants into too small a space (1 ship)

Yeah I agree this is a pressure point of the project. People might suggest venturing into piracy-danger waters or not really understand storm seasons, but i see these dangerous directions as something any micronation might face.

It might be that the elected committee have the power to make emergency proposals - or just ignore direction if people's/the vessels safety is at stake and then explain afterwards why this was done. Really the governance part of the project is an experiment in direct democracy, with minimum elected officials. Anyone can be removed, so it's in their interests to do the best for the community.

@Dominic I like the flotilla idea a LOT - I hope this is what the project evolves into, but by starting with one vessel it adds this tangibility - you can join this one thing, not just a concept or website. But really if we get 8,000 citizens instead of 4,000 it makes more sense to get a 2nd vessel, rather than a bigger single one, and start the fleet

do all the vessels need to be crowdfunded, can you not buy your own boat?

BYOB FTW

I think more boats joining sounds like a great idea - maybe similar to Bitnation's embassies - people can become more than citizens

...someone appointed to managing finances and that person probably is the one saying "I don't think we can afford this and that right now". The assembly might overrule and say "whatever, let's just not pay the bill", the same way they could say "let's roam pirate infested waters".

This is actually the one area where Ethereum DAOs are most powerful, because it is easy enough to build in limits to spending when funds are not available or have been allocated to other things.

The other part of the project is more about bridging crowd decision making with the real world, with a kind of direct democracy mixed with accountable actors carrying out the will of the community.