Frontierland

I happened to read about this place on the web today, and it started me thinking...
Can a group of people just decide to declare themselves independent?
What is the definition of a nation? With the internet shrinking the world, it could become fairly common for people to want to do exactly that.
The Sealand issue is a difficult one, but is peculiar to Sealand, not High Seas platforms of any kind, but the principle is interesting. A platform, moored or moving or fixed to the seabed in international waters, that is inhabited by a group of like minded people, might easily be considered a nation. It raises a lot of questions, but what would they need in order to survive ?
- Food (not too hard with hydroponics and fish farming advances)
- Water (desalination plants)
- Power (waves, sun and wind within easy reach! Tech advances for power generation and storage have made this much more plausible than before)
- Communications (satellite comms and VoIP have suddenly made this easy too!)
- Weapons (pirates are everywhere!)
- Money (here's the problem one. How do you have a bank account if you don't live anywhere recognisable and don't have 3 months utilities bills? - why do banks need that if they give you no credit!)
The key advances have come in communications. I could now conduct my entire life from somewhere in the middle of the Indian ocean, and no-one need know that was where I was. In fact, I may be there while I'm typing this!
To me the implications of this could potentially be huge, like the crack in the dam. My dependance on the state, and likewise, the state's ability to control me is being eroded. A significant number of people may decide that their nation has little relevance to their lives, and a geo-political reorganisation may take place. This is a new century and I fear the world will not look the same by the time we get to the end of it. I also hope it won't.