Ephemerisle Adventures

[nasu_dengaku]

Epehemrisle is truly maturing.  I recently came back from our four-day floating-city-building adventure with a warm glow from new connections, new accomplishments, and the excitement of an ad-hoc community coming together and *working well*

Some thoughts in no particular order:

- I love the people who showed up.  The people really made the event.  We

Comments

[crasch]

Great summary, Matt. I agree that Ephemerisle's problems are very different from those on the open ocean. I also agree that it's still a very valuable experience despite the differences.

Even the toy problems of Ephemerisle have made me appreciate the magnitude of the difficulty of seasteading on the open ocean, far from civilization. I'm certainly glad to be learning with a few rented houseboats, placid delta currents, and paramedics a 911 call away.

I'd also like to attract more boaters as well. It seems to be happening naturally to some extent. There were at least four people who owned their own boats there this year, even with no advertising to the boating community specifically. Are there mailing lists for libertarian boaters?

Jungle Jim said that hundreds of boats raft up over July 4th in the Delta and watch the fireworks launched from Conrad Hilton's barge. Perhaps a future Ephemerisle could be held to coincide with this?

[nasu_dengaku]

I think coinciding with the July 4 celebration is *not* a good idea. It will be much harder to get houseboats, and the selection function for the July 4 event is "people with boats who want to party and watch fireworks". I don't think we should broadly target the boating community as that will change the character of the event.

[sarcazm]

i was thinking... in regard to trying to anchor everyone down and together properly, perhaps look into the battle at red cliffs?

cao cao's analyst had essentially done just that in the harbor.

[nasu_dengaku]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Red_Cliffs That was an interesting read. I think we mainly just need to apply a little planning -- once we got together and made a plan for proper anchoring, everything worked fine.

[sarcazm]

there's also an amazing film about it - a condensed version and the uncut one, both called red cliff and directed by john woo. the international version is the long one. it's actually pretty historically accurate in accordance with the romance of the three kingdoms, if you're interested.

[nasu_dengaku]

Good to know!

[badgerbag]

Oh, fabulous, and I'm so sorry to have missed it this year. I agree witih you about the value of Ephemerisle -- problem-solving on the water and experiencing boat life, and community building!

[outlawpoet]

These are interesting problems to have. I have to admit, I felt a certain pressure to invite only people I thought would mesh in well and want to take care of themselves (or even contribute to the community) rather than sell it as just a 'cool event', and inspire a bunch of tourists

Re: virtues of practicing in an "easy" setting

[ext_668696]

Speaking as a total noob, if Ephemerisle were held on the open ocean, I don't think there's any way I could have come. The barriers to entry would have been far too great.

As it is, Ephemerisle was an amazing chance for me to learn so, so much in just a few days. For example, I had never driven a boat before. It was also super inspiring in terms of making me want to learn more about life on the water. Next step: learn to sail.

Re: virtues of practicing in an "easy" setting

[nasu_dengaku]

Agreed. The sandbox element is useful. Thanks for sharing!