Seasteading failed because it ignored existing local people and their politics.

Evidence

But he returned later that year with six people he’d met on the West Coast, determined to form a new work-oriented commune entirely under his command. … IT TURNS OUT, though, that no slate can be thus cleaned—even in the sea. In 2018, two years after the Seasteading Institute signed an informal agreement with French Polynesian officials to allow offshore development there, the government backed out, citing concerns about “tech colonialism.” A documentary on the Institute’s efforts found that Polynesian locals weren’t given much attention at the Seasteading Institute’s events. In a description that might not have displeased Peter Thiel, a local radio and TV personality called the project a cross between “visionary genius” and “megalomania.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 202

Categorization

• XREF: The French Polynesian tech-colonialism blowback is the non-Western, materially-grounded counter to Odell’s mostly-Western examples — feeds the reader’s privileged-method critique.