Today in news that's too bizarre to make up, Wired's reporting that a posse of Silicon Valley bigwigs have invested in "libertarian ocean colonies." Paypal founder Peter Theil has thrown half a million at the project known as The Seasteading Institute, which was founded by an ex-Sun programmer and a Google engineer. And no, they aren't kidding around. The Institute plans to construct a model in the San Francisco Bay in the next few years (Wired has a blueprint on its site).

So what's the point of these ocean pods? According to the founding duo, the idea is create diverse oceanic communities that could lead to the formation of new countries. They're doing it at sea because it's the easiest place to form a new nation—and its got perks for high seas citizens:

"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," says co-founder and Googler Patri Friedman. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."

While the idea of "seasteading" may sound odd (insane?!), the Institute says it's approaching the proccess from an entrepreneurial standpoint:

"'There's a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that's not crazy,' said Joe Lonsdale, the Institute's chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund."