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wedrifid comments on How likely is Peter Thiel's investment into seasteading to pay off? - Less Wrong Discussion
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They actually respond to a lot of this in their FAQ.
An important model for them right now are Cruise lines. The big ones operate with a large degree of autonomy while flying the flag of countries that are most amenable to this and doing business in ports where people like to make money (it turns out, this is a lot of them).
So, the sea steads will fly the flag of a sovereign country and acts of overt aggression against them would be attacks on a sovereign country.
Yes, they would fly a convenience flag and no one will care about minimum wage, but the sovereign country won't offer any protection, either from pirates or from other countries. Yes, the US won't attack the ship of another country, but the other country will be happy to oblige the US and cede the ship, retroactively, if necessary. I'm getting this from the Seasteading Institute, too.
Doesn't quite work. Once your ship is a stationary economic operation within the EEZ, the protection of your flag erodes quickly. In any case, the US would be free to impose on them. For example, they could raid the seastead and seize it if they find contraband (cf. drug interdictions). They'd still need to be 200 nautical miles offshore to be safe.
Have you looked at their website at all? They say that they will be more than 200 nautical miles from any country, out of any EEZ.
Read my first paragraph. You can also read an overview of admiralty and maritime law re seasteads helpfully hosted by the institute. It's not pretty.
http://seasteading.org/files/research/law/Balloun%20-%20U.S.%20Law%20Enforcement%20Admiralty%20Jurisdiction%20Over%20Seasteads.pdf