Go offshore on the Blueseed!

[luzribeiro]

Comments

[policraticus]

$1600/month seems pretty cheap, depending on the amenities.

I don't think it will work, though. The internet makes this kind of idea sort of redundant, don't you think? When your work is mostly intellectual, all you really need is a high speed modem, a HD camera and WiFi.

[policraticus]

No Jolt! Cola? No Red Vines? No Hot Pockets?

What are we? North Korea?

[underlankers]

I predict that like all utopias these fail in a minimum of five months and a maximum of five years, with only a few outliers nobody cares about making it to 100 years.

[gunslnger]

I've been on a cruise ship and loved it, but it was only 7 days and we were in a suite. I would not want to live in one of the normal rooms. I don't know that they've really thought this through.

[kylinrouge]

A lot of people would be happy to live in cardboard boxes if they think it lets them get away from their paranoid notions of Big Brother.

[gunslnger]

*shrug* Yeah, I think they believe that, but wouldn't last more than a month.

[mikeyxw]

I’m not sure how this is going to help those trying to avoid taxes, the US taxes its citizens and companies based on their world-wide income, so this won’t go uncollected. I expect the extradition treaty for a relatively undefended ship 12 miles off the US coats would read something like “don’t make us come and get them.”

This looks a lot like a way to get engineering talent close enough to work in the same time zone and have some face to face meetings while their H1Bs get processed. Currently these companies already have something called “Vancouver, B.C.” that kind of serves this purpose. Canada is a sovereign country, on paper anyway, and, while it requires a bit more than a passport, it’s far easier than getting someone into the US to work. Vancouver is further than 12 miles from Silicon Valley, making the face to face meetings problematic, which gives this ship some advantages.

[htpcl]

> the US taxes its citizens and companies

Apparently, they're planning to become a sovereign country.

[mikeyxw]

Unless they somehow set up some trade agreements, having a company incorporated on a sovereign ship will mean you don't have access to any markets and your IP wouldn't have any advocates. I'd also expect that a passport from such a "country" wouldn't get you anywhere. I really don't expect this is the purpose as much as getting around requirements for work permits. Kinda like corporate America's answer to Guantanamo.

[harry_beast]

It sounds very attractive for highly skilled workers and high income people. As long as such an independent state does not run afoul of US law, I don't really see much of a downside.

[omnot]

"highly skilled workers and high income people" who are happy to do their own housework and menial tasks. Or pay 1600 a month plus wages to pay someone else to do it for them.

Or is housekeeping etc all part of the deal offered by Blueseed? I skimmed and I don't remember seeing those services offered.

[mutive]

It would be more than $1,600/month. That's just the cost of the room. I'm going to throw out a wild guess that food and energy prices are also inflated.

If you compare that to say, Hong Kong, where you can get domestic help for virtually nothing well...

I'm not sure that I see the benefit of this ship vs. already existing city-states with liberal immigration, tax, and trade laws...

[harry_beast]

I see domestic chores as an issue that they can probably decide on for themselves. And they can probably figure out how much they feel like paying to live there.