Environmentalists are fond of saying that “There is no second Earth“. They are wrong! Here’s why: 

There is an entire second Earth right here on Earth.

Second Earth is a waterworld. It’s the vast Pacific Ocean that covers half the planet.

Well, he's a little fuzzy on the concepts of halves and wholes, but let's hear him out on colossal geoengineering projects.

See what’s really fun here is that once again the libertarians are blissfully unaware of their natural predator: bears.

ah yes so he's up to making ~~aircraft carrier~~ ~~floating libertarian treehouse~~ rube goldberg mad max platform out of pykrete

One idea for the bottom of the iceberg is to erect a grid of airtight barriers on the bottom of the berg, with cells a few dozen meters wide and a few meters tall and blow air bubbles into them

this makes this grid having to support several tons of buoyancy force, it will have to be airtight but also its connection to ice will have to be so, and ice will probably deform over time. did all of these motherfuckers dropped out of middle school?

There is an entire second Earth right here on Earth.

"... Mister Bond."

i like how he started on the premise that iceberg is cheap real estate, then okay let's cover underside with thermal insulation, and also reinforce top with freshwater ice, that freshwater will be have to be transported there and then frozen in place, and also let's cover top with expanded glass and concrete, and let's put wood pulp and basalt fiber rebar in ice, and

all while never counting beans, and any and all numbers are entirely pulled out of his ass

This is literally the dumbest shit I've read all week and it's been a pretty dumb week. I'm afraid I have to diagnose Roko with having the brain scamblies. There is no cure.

Yes, we've had vertical cities with economic class strata, but have we had frigid vertical cities with economic class strata? This is an incredible innovation in the dystopian novel genre.

Ok, seriously, this is just Mortal Engines fan-fiction in an oceanpunk AU.

extremely funny that none of his interlocutors bother asking what his engineering background is

Look, I already knew Roko was a moron but this is outrageous.

Yes, good plan, the ozone layer hole craves more skin cancer sacrifices. (And don't forget that hole is prob going to grow due to mega genius musk putting aluminum sats in the sky that burn up in high altitude)

Amusing also that nobody mentions piracy.

by the way, when was the last time when rats got their lives or limbs in danger by testing their stupid ideas? instead of, you know, asking someone who knows beforehand? probably something weird happened to people testing these anti-cavity bacteria, but nothing really serious i guess. that was maybe half year ago or so

Someone send Roko a copy of James K. Morrow's novel "Towing Jehovah" which involves the enormous corpse of God being towed, by a (much smaller) oil tanker, from near the Equator north to a fijord for burial in a cave. (I lost interest toward the end).

It's not strictly relevant - I don't think the crew sets up on the corpse itself - but it'd be fun to watch where Roko's head goes.

"Step One: We kill God. Step Two: We harvest the cadaver, plastinate it, and build our city."

Roko is of course begging the question, and the premise he is wrong about is that there is a sizable population willing to relocate to a floating iceberg, instead of living in an existing country.

Consider what the proposed citizens have to consent to:

• paying for the R&D required to implement the technical solutions Roko envisions, along with the continued higher maintenance costs
• paying higher wages for the people who are supposed to do all the boring menial jobs in this floating city, on par with existing cities
• paying higher daily cost of living for everything from food to building supplies to luxuries to entertainment that have to be imported
• being at the mercy of "legacy governments", many of whom possess navies capable of everything from interdicting the food supply, to literally undermining the city from below, to actual assaults and airstrikes
• paying higher prices for insurance of their lives and dwellings and possessions because of all the above

Amusingly the solution for a libertarian city is a megastructure project probably only a rich nation is prepared to pay for.