Proving that there are still plenty of crazy start-up ideas chugging along toward fruition, economy be damned, the Seasteading Institute is moving full bore ahead with its plans to conquer the high seas with its tiny "nation states." The start-up, which received half a million in funding from PayPal co-founder Peter Theil with a business plan whose stated goal it to take over the high seas, is hosting its first annual conference next week.

The Seasteading Institute, which we've written about before, says its aim is to construct "highly rugged, modular constructions that make it easy to attach your home to your micro-nation of choice but just as easy to detach it and move away," according to VentureBeat. Basically the idea is if you don't like your country of nationality, you can move to the high seas and live as you want....sort of. While it sounds like the punch line to a joke (or something that should get you locked up in Belleview), SI's founder Patri Friedman says they came up with the idea because they realized the "governing industry" has "a high barrier to entry and a high customer lock in." Yet, just like any other start-up (sane or not), the Seasteading Institute needs more cash to fund its costs, which the founders estimate are between $10 million to $500 million per unit. Perhaps not surprisingly then, attending their conference next week costs. It's $95 for journalists and $195 for the rest of us. Hey, those high seas units don't come cheap!