With many of you recently returning from a liberty-orientated festival, it seems timely to plug a related event from The Seasteading Institute. The first Ephemerisle – “Burning Man at sea” – will be happening October 2-4 2009 somewhere off the San Francisco coast, and looks like it will be a hell of a lot of fun.
The idea is to have boats and barges clustering together to create a temporary autonomous zone to party hearty unmolested by the law. While guns, dope, and dancing are their own reward, the event has a more ambitious aim. A festival like this obviously provides a place for liberty-minded folk to discuss tactics, which by all accounts was of great value to PorcFest participants.
More importantly, though, Ephemerisle aims to grow from a temporary gathering into a permanent place – the beginnings of the first city at sea. Medieval trade fairs often grew into permanent cities, with periodic temporary events stretching longer and longer in time until the gaps between them disappeared. This permanent autonomous zone would be entirely self-organizing, with people and structures constantly joining and leaving. Even without any permanent residents, we could see the emergence of a permanent city.
The first one will obviously need to be on a small scale, but if you want some good times at sea while you witness the possible birth of something big – be there.
Brad Taylor is a graduate student in Political Science at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He blogs at 
Oh man I am so all over this. Great find, Brad. I have taken the liberty of adding an Ephemerisle Event over on the social network.
I was meaning to mention it in the seasteading post, but forgot.
I really wish I could make it; it sounds so freaking awesome! Maybe next year.
i would love to go! I don’t think I’ll be able to afford it, but perhaps…