SOC/LAW: "Last Free Place" online (was: Economics and Law of Ocean Settlements)

T0Morrow@aol.com
Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:29:16 EST


Greg Burch wrote:

>A couple of years ago Tom Morrow cryptically wrote to me that he had searched
>maps of the world's oceans and had located at least one promising geographic
>area of relatively shallow water outside the EEZ of any existing state. . . .

Me? Cryptic? Heh. Well, to alleviate at least a little bit of mystery, I've
finally posted "The Last Free Place" on the web, available off of my homepage
at: <http://members.aol.com/T0Morrow/T0Mpage.html>. You'll find the shallow-
water location that I'd mentioned to Greg, the Mascarene plateau, described in
the paper's footnotes.

For now, at least, my longer essay, "Extropia," remains in editing. The legal
and geographic details in "The Last Free Place" will, however, probably make
it of more use to would-be nation builders than the philosophical musings of
"Extropia."

>[T]his "last free place on earth" could be very important. As far as I
>know, this "lost horizon" does not lie above any known hydrocarbon deposit, .
. . .

I've corresponded with government officials in the vicinity of the Mascarene
Plateau about just that question. But on that count I will for now remain
cryptic. It's less a function of cloak-and-dagger stuff than of time
commitments, however.

Tom