What she said. Also, just to serve as a counterpoint, I really like the term "Institute". It makes it sound, as you said, like something that involves thought and research as opposed to a more generic term.

Edited at 2008-04-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

same here.

+1

As a counterpoint, "Institute" makes it sound formal and professional and credible.

Or "Project Seastead"! You could get Heidi Klum as a celebrity spokesperson.

"The Seastead Project" just makes me think of the "Free State Project" which makes me think "FAIL."

Agreed. I vote for "The Seasteading Institute" as the name with seasteading.org as the URL.

Agree. To me anything named after a web address sounds like it ought to be describing a primarily or exclusively online thing.

agreed on "what is seasteading".

Yeah, it does seem like the ".org" thing will be dated in a few years. Just as not many companies refer to themselves as ".com"'s anymore.

The .org is just an address. It happens to have some helpful info about the nature of the business (namely that it's a non-profit), but it's still just an address. You wouldn't name a business after your phone number or street address.

I think google.org (which Matt mentioned) works better because it exists in contrast to google.com.

That's true!

Y'all are way off on the primary domain names disappearing.

People were arguing the same thing in 1994. And in 1997. Back when I did internet strategy consulting.

Instead, the English language and quickly enough most every other language on the planet adapted to using domain names and --- FAR more confabulated and unreasonable, even the "www" sudomain.

Now the causal force is operating the opposite direction: we can't get rid of dot-com if we want to, because now it's an established part of the language. Once it's an established part of the langauge, neologisms will take the existing denotation and alter it to create modifications and metaphors.

Yeah, it seems like we should get rid of all primaries because dot-com is so dominant. But this ignores how sticky the already existing infrastructure is --- including the fact of how many conflicts between .org and .com domains there are, with those .orgs being significant real-world institutions.

There's no technological or legal workaround here. Rather, it's much easier for language, naming conventions and human behavior to change, and we've already seen that happen.

Even other small businesses may not use the full street address, but would use the street name in the business name, e.g. Adams Avenue Bookstore.

I got seasteading.org last night, and already have seastead.org, but seastead.com and seasteading.com have been taken for awhile by other organizations. (One is an HVAC company owned by someone named "Seastead", the other is by a live-aboard boater who thinks that boats are the true seasteads)

Infrastructure first, applications later :).

Don't 2 masters count almost as a PhD? :). Anyway, I think you & I may have rather different opinions about the value of a PhD :).

Foundation was one of the main things I considered, as it is a standard nonprofit term, but it seems less active and researchy than Institute.

Society is not bad, though.

I would SO check out The Seasteading Asylum.

I like this with the active verb...

The Seasteading Initiative

Initiative - to initiate, to begin ... seems the most fitting so far.

I also like The Seasteading Consortium
(which from what I understand of the project in my limited exposure to it is more along the lines of where it is heading, yes?)

There's been plenty of voiced opinion to back up my feeling that the .org is not a good idea. It is not a virtual organization, you will be creating a very real and tangible thing/place. You'll have a URL anyways...no need to identify that way.

Institute makes me thing you would be studying and creating an academic organization devoted to Seasteading, not actually creating a seastead. (this could be the offshoot when you are ready to have the Seastead University)

Foundations are more for funding and research of certain topics or fields, they facilitate the doers, are not the doers themselves (in general).

That's all I've got...
It's very exciting no matter the name. :)

Initiative and Consortium are my personal favorites out of the above, too. I'm also liking the sound of coalition.