TAZ, SeaSteading and Water-Borne Community

SeaStead on the BC Coast

The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerrilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it.
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The TAZ is thus a perfect tactic for an era in which the State is omnipresent and all-powerful and yet simultaneously riddled with cracks and vacancies.

From The Temporary Autonomous Zone by Hakim Bey... Wikipedia article, here.


TAZ, SeaSteading and Water-Borne Community

I find ol' Hakim a little hard to read, but the name says it all, don't you think? Temporary. Autonomous. Zone.

It fits right into the blender in my head with the concept of seasteading - an attitude which may occur at the vessel or fleet level. Add in many years of musing, missing and longing for water-borne community. A dash of easily built barge hulls in kaleidoscopic plethora of form and function. ZZZZZZZZZ! Mmm-mmm!! A heady mix.

Water-borne communities are nothing new. In fact, what's new seems to be wide-scale efforts to eradicate them. In the eyes of many Concerned Citizens, any conglomeration of home-built shantyboats or even down-at-the-heels yachts tends to be viewed as blights on the viewshed. Bureaucrats see us as health hazards, impediments to navigation or hotbeds of public menace.  Between them, they grind away every working day to contain the problem of Us.

"Got a problem with that," they say, "Come to the meeting and represent yourselves."

Sure. There'll be at least one a week, forever. But I shall breath deeply to regain my wa, and spare you the rant.

What I wanted to talk about are possible synergies inherent to these concepts.

TAZ means that, within the existing set of laws and prejudices - and potentially into a future where such peaceful assemblies are outlawed - a water-borne community can coalesce in a locale. Density need not be as high as pictured above, though it has its attractions. Alternatively, a complex of bays and coves might be chosen, each within rowing distance of the next. Evaporation of the community is as easy as casting off, to re-condense in another place, another time, another configuration.

The beauty is that each can come as they are. Rolling stones may roll through, pausing to gather a bit of moss. Some may prefer to explore the area in small excursions interleaved with festivity and art.  There is world enough, and time for elders, gardeners, weavers, homebodies... those with large equipment hobbies, or to whom the rigors of mobility exceed their abilities or interests. Resources impractical to those constantly underway - owned in common, perhaps - may be concentrated. When large endeavors are undertaken, many hands are available to lighten the work.

I modestly propose the TriloBoat as work-horse hull. Greenhouses, shops, living quarters, storage, decks... communal vessels of every stripe. Perhaps the tractors, cargo runners and cruisers, as well. Keep it small, of course, and KISS... get each to wear as many hats as possible. Don't want sprawl, after all

Once a certain, critical mass is achieved, such a community and its constituents would be able to bootstrap itself into whatever its citizens dream of being.

It can start with one, but the more the merrier.

In the end the TAZ is almost self-explanatory. If the phrase became current it would be understood without difficulty...understood in action.

From The Temporary Autonomous Zone by Hakim Bey

This post also appears at SHANTYBOATLIVING.com