The Problem

There is turmoil that results in desperate people in several areas of the world as people struggle to advance within their society and the world at large. There are three primary drivers for these restless people.

The inability to obtain a living (food, clothing and shelter).
The inability to have political control over their future (democracy).
The need to satisfy the demands of a religion or belief system (extremist beliefs).

In their struggles, these people are sometimes driven to violent revolution, which then releases a flood of refugees from the conflict zone. These refugees are then gathered in camps by the nations that receive them in order to maintain control over them and care for them, and there the ability to move easily into the larger world of stable life and opportunity is halted. These camps then become hotbeds of revolution, extremism and terrorism. No nation wants to disburse these people into their main population because they would become a welfare problem and a potential source of political unrest and revolution in the receiving nation. The primary examples of this problem are the Palestinian refugee camps distributed in several areas in the Middle East. Other examples of restless groups within their nations of origin such as Kurds in Turkey and certain minority tribes in African nations also exist. It is natural to ask if there is any way to provide these groups with a means to move out of their isolation into the larger world of opportunity, and thus eliminate these desperate and dangerous groups from the world.

When these people struggle to achieve their goals, they can disrupt our civilization. It is even possible that by use of nuclear weapons or cyber attacks, they can disrupt our interlocking civilizations enough to cause a major collapse of civilization’s primary structure. Again it is natural to ask if there is any way to make these primary structures more robust against such attacks.

The Evidence

No one would argue that these desperate and dangerous groups don’t exist, but many would argue that nothing can be done for them except provide welfare through the UN. The number of people in such groups, and the crowded conditions and sectarian strife in the countries surrounding these groups precludes a simple disbursement into the population.

The potential for collapse of civilization is real.

In 2008, the world financial institutions came close to total collapse by a collapse of the world debt systems.
It is clear that nuclear bombs in the 10 major government and financial capitals of the world would collapse the current world system of government

The Solution

One area, the ocean, is available that can provide a desirable place to work and live for these refugees from violence and revolution. There is also a technology, the SEMAN (see AP1.0 on this site), a seagoing vessel that provides a means of living comfortably on the ocean. This vessel allows one to make fresh water, grow food and harvest energy for sale on land. One can travel to any place near the ocean for free, and enjoy all the electronic entertainment a land dweller enjoys. These SEMAN can travel in groups (pods) to allow contact with friends. In addition, the SEMAN can sequester carbon dioxide and thus provide a service to civilization and a purpose to the life of the SEMAN owner and operator. The ocean provides enough high-energy space (wind speed >15 KN) to ensure profitable operation for 200 million SEMAN and each SEMAN is designed for 2 adults and 2 children (see AP2.4). Since the number of refugees in all nations does not normally exceed 10 million at one time, the ocean can provide living accommodations for most of the refugees without crowding the others living on the sea, and they can form groups (pods) with common backgrounds that live together. Clearly, life on the sea will not be suitable for all refugees. For some, it will seem too much of a change from their old life. Others will be unable to master the skills needed to run a SEMAN. Still others may find it important to go back to their old country and rebuild it; yet, it seems possible to use this new life on the ocean as a means to start draining out refugee camps, and thus provide a new life for some refugees. The problem is how to offer this opportunity to the refugees.

Since the UN often provides supplies for and supervises refugee camps, it seems that it is the proper organization to provide the following goods and services needed to get SEMAN construction for refugees started.

A training center to teach refugees how to build and operate the SEMAN
A construction center for building SEMAN
A source of materials for building SEMAN
The funds needed for initial SEMAN construction loans. The operating SEMAN would pay back the loans from energy sales to provide for later SEMAN construction loans.

The obvious place to start a pilot project to test this concept for draining refugee camps is the Palestinian refugee camps. The Palestinians have shown a remarkable skill in entrepreneurship in other areas, and so seem capable of working out the details of this new option for refugees.

In addition to preventing terrorism, the Aquater Alliance and the SEMAN provide a repository of capability to aid in restarting civilization in case some of the basic systems of civilization are compromised. Since the SEMAN operate on the ocean they are more or less immune from the things that would cause collapse of these systems.

Summary and Conclusions

The struggle to provide the things necessary for a good life is generating turmoil and violence in the populations of many areas of the world. In their struggles, these people are sometimes driven to violent revolution, which then releases a flood of refugees from the conflict zone. These refugees are then gathered in camps by the nations that receive them in order to maintain control over them and care for them, and there the ability to move easily into the larger world of stable life and opportunity is halted. These camps then become hotbeds of revolution, fanaticism and terrorism. No nation wants to disburse them into their main population because they would become a welfare problem and a potential source of political unrest and revolution in the receiving nation.

Thus the SEMAN may be able to provide a means to begin to drain out refugee camps around the world and provide a partial solution to this problem.

Notes

The prototype SEMAN is about 90% complete. To see progress on the prototype, click on “SEMAN Prototype Update” on the home page of this site.
To donate to help complete this prototype, click “Add To Cart” on the home page.