Nearly 150 Companies Show Interest in the Tech Love Boat

New submitter dandv writes with a story from VentureBeat about another entry in the race to escape national jurisdiction by offshoring work — literally offshoring, that is : "Blueseed is a Silicon Valley company that plans on launching a cruise ship 30 minutes from the coast of California, housing startup entrepreneurs from around the world. These startuppers won't need to bother with U.S. visas, because the ship will be in international waters. They'll have to pay tax to whatever country they're incorporated in, though. So far, 146 startups said they'd like to come to the ship."

Comments

I fail to see the point

[msobkow]

You can remotely access and program pretty much any system you'd ever work on in an offshoring relationshing. Your physical location has little or nothing to do with the ability to provide the contracted services.

While there is demand for at least some of the offshore service provider's staff to be working on-site with the customer companies, you wouldn't be able to do that with this ship. You still wouldn't have a visa, so you still wouldn't be allowed to "land" from the ship for such meetings.

In order to be in international waters, the ship would be what, 200 miles out from shore? That's a pretty long ride for any landbound customers to take in order to come meet with you on the ship. Customers don't tend to meet at provider sites; they expect the provider to come to them.

That being the case, what is the actual purpose served by working on this ship?

Or is this like the old Sealand failure? A great idea in concept that has no practical purpose and few real backers?

Re:I fail to see the point

[SuricouRaven]

According to wikipedia, they found a loophole: The temporary, easily-obtained B-visa.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading

Re:I fail to see the point

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It seems particularly odd when one considers the fact that you don't need to spend months on a boat 200 miles off California to enjoy the privilege of booking a slightly-eyebrow-raising percentage of your profits through an anodyne corporate PO box in some sunny tax haven. You can do that from the comfort of your own home.

Is there a large market of non-US-citizens who can't secure visas(or who find longterm shipboard stays more comfortable than flying out for a meeting?) but desperately crave physical proximity to silicon valley, possibly along with an internet connection to it that is far suckier than a hardline from virtually anywhere in the not-actively-fighting-a-brutal-meatgrinder-bush-war world?

I understand the appeal of tax dodges; but I don't understand what this boat concept brings to the game.

Re:I fail to see the point

[vlm]

In order to be in international waters, the ship would be what, 200 miles out from shore?

I've looked into cruising and the myriad of laws. First of all you just described the EEZ limit which controls "traditional money making activities and environmental laws" but expressly does not include loitering. So its a fuzzy zone. The coast guard can order you to not discharge your blackwater tanks, cannot tell you not to just sit/anchor there, can tell you not to fish there, and running an office is somewhat vague.

The contiguous zone is 24 miles and you must follow customs laws presumably including visas. This is a recent "American Empire" turn of the century thing and the whole world used to (still does?) respect only 12 miles. In the REALLY olden days before the previous turn of the century it was defined as a cannon shots length, or so I'm told, like a mile or two.

This is very important to cruisers... more than 200 miles away you can technically tell all authorities other than your flag nation to F-off, but you need to stay at least 24 miles away or else have to go thru customs, and in that range from 24 to 200 miles you sorta have to listen to them. Customs is not necessarily the end of the world, but its nice to not even have to think about it. For example, say you were sailing from California to Alaska, it would be extremely advisable to stay at least 24 miles away from the Canadian shore.

Disclaimer, I've done hundreds of hours of sailing on little craft, mostly inland, but never across an ocean.

30 miles in a 150 knot helicopter for the VCs to visit you is what, 12 minutes of flight? I'm not seeing this as a serious issue. Also I can see a pleasure cruise on a well appointed yacht when making visits rather than flying, if they're in the mood for some fun.

Re:I fail to see the point

[h4rr4r]

How does that loophole protect them from my pirate ship?

Or the tenants from the captain/landlord?

Re:I fail to see the point

[jythie]

Well, their plan is they will not be in international waters so the commute is pretty short. Instead they will fly the flag of some minor country and anchor within US waters, which is a legal grey area that in theory should leave them outside US/CA regulation/taxation yet still be able to commute in for meetings.

But as others have pointed out it has many of the same problems as Sealand did. It is a nice concept in theory and in fiction, but in reality such plans have significant issues and, for their customers, end up with the same basic issues that basing out of a major country has with the added problem of not having a robust legal system. If nothing else, one of their big claims is that they avoid the 'immigration' problem.. by implementing their own immigration system. So you still have to go through an immigration process, just an easier to bribe one.

I am skeptical that many of these startups are expressing real 'I would pay' interest or have really thought about the full legal ramifications of such a setup. Blueseed really seems to be more of a scam to get investor money then anything else.

Re:I fail to see the point

[jythie]

Realisticly it doesn't actually bring much, but it draws on a rather heavy Ayn Rand mythology that they are hoping to capitalize on. The theory is supposed to be that if you take away all those pesky regulations then 'real entrepreneurs '.. some kind of the 'the best rise in power when not being kept down by other people in power, except each other since that is dog eat dog, but because people who already have power are bad we need to stop them, but not new power which should be unchecked'. So beyond just taxes and visas they can suspend things like workers rights, wages, etc... so all those pesky things like stopping child labor, taking sexual advantage of your subordinates, firing injured people, making them work 140 hour weeks but still in debt to the company store, all those things are perfectly legal again... and part of the mythology is whitewashing how badly those went the first time around.

Oh, and of course the ship will probably have its own company store.. so everyone there will have to pay whatever prices the Blueseed charges for things like food, power, internet access, etc.

Which is why sane companies will probably stay away, but gullible startups who have read more fiction then done research might find the place appealing.

Re:I fail to see the point

[h4rr4r]

So they get the protection of these Oppressors(government provided defense forces) that our taxes pay for without them paying a dime?

How typical.

Re:I fail to see the point

[jythie]

Yep. That is the idea. Reap the benefits they want directly want, get the advantages of benefits that effect them indirectly (like the education system), but not have to pay for any of it and claim with a strait face that they are dong the capitalist thing of paying only for services they use.

Re:I fail to see the point

[crazyjj]

That's one of the problems with libertarian dreamers. They crave a dog-eat-dog world, but they all think THEY'RE going to be one of the top dogs. They watch Firefly and think they're going to be Malcolm Reynolds. It never occurs to them that the vast, vast, vast majority of citizens in a truly libertarian system would basically be dirt-poor slaves to a handful of top dogs, and the odds of you being one of those top dogs (unless you're *already* very wealthy and powerful) is slim to none.

Re:I fail to see the point

[jythie]

*nods* it dovetails into the idea that somehow the people who do have power do not deserve it or got it illegitimately. Though it also depends heavily on the idea that states and companies are fundamentally different and that unless one has a police force then they can not exert control of other people's lives... thus they do not see the power of non-government entities as 'real'... thus anyone who is a 'dirty poor slave' is simply lazy or immoral since nothing is stopping them from being rich.

Re:I fail to see the point

[DerekLyons]

This is very important to cruisers... more than 200 miles away you can technically tell all authorities other than your flag nation to F-off

This is mostly true, and can bite them in the butt.
 
If they intend to operate out of US ports, and provide anything that even looks remotely like passenger service (I.E. hosting staff for their clients) then they can't exit and re-enter the United States without visiting a "distant foreign port". Back in the day when there was tons of coastwise passenger transport, this protected US firms from foreign competition. Today it mostly means that Alaska cruises have to port at Victoria and Maratimes/East Coast cruises usually in Halifax. For Blueseed this is going to mean visiting Mexico between port visits to the US. (And they *will* either have to visit the US or sail across the Pacific Ocean for servicing - a ship can't stay at sea forever.)
 
Also, pretty much every nation subscribes to SOLAS and even the flag-of-convenience nations have safety requirements. Not to mention, that if they ever port, they'll be subject to safety inspections by the Coast Guard of the nation they're porting in. These are non-trivial to comply with and are deadly serious - the can be at a minimum refused entry, or at worst impounded for failing to comply. On top of these inspections, if they hope to carry insurance, the ship will have to regularly be inspected and certified on a regular basis by a legitimate classification society...
 
These "tech Love Boat" companies all sound to me to have based their plans on urban legends about how the law of the sea and related conventions work, and not on any real world legal and business research.

Re:I fail to see the point

[s73v3r]

You can remotely access and program pretty much any system you'd ever work on in an offshoring relationshing. Your physical location has little or nothing to do with the ability to provide the contracted services.

Yes, but physical location does have a good amount to do with your ability to meet with investors. And there are still some customers who don't like the idea of someone all the way around the world providing their services.

Re:I fail to see the point

[s73v3r]

Given the choice of two jobs, one where you must sleep with ugly superiors and one where you can tell them to fuck off, people will generally prefer the non-prostitution job.

Why yes, they probably would. Doesn't mean they'd actually have much choice in the matter, however. You're going to reply with some bullshit about quitting, and then I'm going to remind you that the subordinate in question needs the job in order to keep a roof over their head, and to feed their family. And that jobs are quite scarce.

You are honestly forgetting the entirety of why the labor movement started. Do you honestly think that if it was so easy as to just "quit and find a new job", that the labor movement would still have gone on?

Re:I fail to see the point

[Qzukk]

child labor stopped - answer: we stopped needing them to work to avoid starvation and grownups are generally more productive (productivity which leads to excess, excess which allows for the leisure to learn)

And yet at least one Republican candidate publicly challenges child labor laws and proposes that kids get put to work to replace the adult janitors on the (government) payroll.

X0 hour work weeks - this is debatable but things were trending in a given direction but given the nature of this offshore venture, it may be like an oil rig or crab boat or whathaveyou - lots of hours during work followed by lots of vacation time. In general, "X0 hours per week" we'll be at a sustainable level or the venture will suffer

This being Silicon Valley where "crunch time" and X0 (for X>7) work weeks are quite common, the most likely outcome is honestly not enslavement or floggings or anything ridiculous like that, the most likely outcome will be Indians brought in to work 70-80 hour weeks until the project is done and then sent home and a new set of Indians brought in to work more 80 hour weeks.

sex with subordinates - you're weird. Given the choice of two jobs, one where you must sleep with ugly superiors and one where you can tell them to fuck off, people will generally prefer the non-prostitution job.

First, see my answer above. Then, realize that nobody is retarded enough to tell people that they're going to be hired as sex toys to keep a boatfull of men happy. Sex slave trafficking generally begins with an offer of a real job. It's not until after the woman is illegally in a country where she doesn't speak the language that she's told her employment contract has been unilaterally changed.

firing injured people. Their are three ways this can be dealt with. The employee can buy private insurance. The employer can buy private insurance. Or the government can mandate this insurance.

Or (more likely) be returned to their home country. I doubt that they're going to be doing any significantly risky manual labor. The most likely problem would be the entire ship coming down with Listeria or some other typical cruise-crud.

Re:I fail to see the point

[Alan R Light]

The exclusive economic zone is 200 miles, but International Waters is only 12 miles out.

The residents can get a business visa to come onshore for business meetings, they just can't perform any actual work in the United States.

It's true that the residents must abide by the whims of the owners, but the owners in this case are businessmen who want to create a good space for business in order to stay in business. That's a lot different from relying on the goodwill of a single eccentric individual.

Re:I fail to see the point

[roman_mir]

You know, the real disadvantages of having the oppressive, income taxing government are much greater than the perceived advantage of having an 'educated' population. The so called education system is in a huge bubble in USA, people are getting gov't guaranteed loans - basically free money, because whatever they don't pay out in 15 years is forgiven, and the maximum amount anybody is going to have to pay monthly is only on top of 2 minimum poverty levels, and then it's only a 10% of that so called 'discretionary spending' , so the poverty level counts at 16,000USD/individual or 33,500 for a family of 4, 2 of these is is 32000 for individual, so if you make 50000, then you have to pay a maximum of 10% from the 18000 a year, or 1800 a year, or 150 a month, and this goes on for maximum of 15 or 20 years, so anything you owe beyond that is forgiven, it's a massive bailout/stimulus/incentive to spend huge globs of 'free' money.

So everybody should go back to college, and they should go to a college that provides the students with everything. Why not buy everybody an expensive car as part of 'education' process? Why not a house and all the furniture, a bunch of expensive clothing, whatever?

A college has all the incentives to waste money, the student has all the incentives to waste money, the colleges and students need to collude under this system and just buy globs of stuff and put it on the gov't backed education loans system. Of-course there is already a huge bubble in education loans, over a trillion USD of debt too.

All this so that anybody can go to college to major in Arts - sociology, why not? A language or literature or whatever passes for 'economics'.

So AFAIC costs of this system far outweigh the benefits, in fact there can be no benefits once gov't gets involved in anything beyond its direct mandate - border protection being one of those, but not healthcare, not education, not housing, not banking, not money, not debt, not insurance, not regulating businesses, not taxing income, not telling people how to live their lives, what to smoke and who to fuck.

The US should provide no protection

[bstarrfield]

None. The "Tech Love Boat" exists solely as a tax and immigration dodge, and its founders are proud of it. May real pirates raid this libertarian haven; may real storms smash its bow. Let me hazard a guess that they'll incorporate in Antigua, and pay no taxes, and that they'll import slave labor from India to work in the bowels of the ship.

Blueseed wants the benefits of proximity with Silicon Valley, and none of the costs. Why should we give a damn about them?

I'd also like to know who these "entrepreneurs" are. Let them live in their cabins and bar them from the shore. They don't want to pay for civilization, due to their brilliant and stunning gifts. They choose to leave civilization to live in their Brave New Race to the Bottom, _stay there_.

When a crime occurs on the "Love Boat", who will settle that crime? Blueseed? So they'll be a government, too. Hmm, maybe an invasion sounds good..

Re:The US should provide no protection

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a really good response.

If you're a nationalist.

Seriously, it's not a tax dodge, though it is an immigration dodge. It's about startups being able to engage with the tech centre of the world without arbitrary red tape blocking them from doing it on the US mainland.

I don't even understand how you can complain about both immigration and tax avoidance in the same post. If they were allowed to immigrate they would be able to pay tax, if they were allowed to pay tax they'd be able to immigrate. You can't bitch and moan about the two in one sentence, the fact they can't immigrate means they can't pay tax. Whining that people for not paying tax in your country whilst simultaneously implying you don't want them in your country is one of the most laughably irrational arguments I've heard on Slashdot in a while, and in recent months the standard hasn't exactly been particularly high.

The fact that your country is horrendously paranoid, and massively afraid of immigration despite having a relatively tiny population density is why these sorts of far fetched schemes arise in the first place. Of course, none of that would be so bad if it weren't for the fact that your entire nation is built off the back of relatively recent mass immigration.

Re:The US should provide no protection

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably thinking of the Republic of Rose Island.

There was also this illegal gambling operation off the coast of California. That didn't end well. In fact, practically all these libertarian paradise offshore independent micronations haven't ended well. Either they never really became self-sufficient, the people who ran them turned out to be more dictator-like than anyone wanted to deal with, or they were only intended as a joke in the first place. Evidently starting your own micronation ("with blackjack, and hookers") isn't so easy.

There's this interesting historical anomaly in what is now New Hampshire, but that was more of a leftover from unresolved disputes than something newly established.

I predict another Sealand

[DeathToBill]

The advantage of these ventures is that they're outside national jurisdiction. The problem with these ventures is that they're outside national jurisdiction - and for almost every company out there, they benefit from the protection of a country's laws more than they suffer from them.

Sealand failed because anyone who hosted data there was wide open to the whim of Roy Bates - and if you didn't like his whim, you had no recourse. This will be no different.

A good article on Sealand: http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/28/2909303/sealand-havenco-doomed-data-haven-history

Re:I predict another Sealand

[alphatel]

Would the correct term now be "offshore offshore" ?

Re:I predict another Sealand

[ahoffer0]

There is wisdom in the parent post. All things being equal, the infrastructure and the populace of nation-state like the US is a bigger boon to business than the constraints imposed by its laws and regulations. If that were not true, Sealand and Somalia would be the greatest economic engines on the planet.

Re:I predict another Sealand

[Githaron]

The advantage of these ventures is that they're outside national jurisdiction. The problem with these ventures is that they're outside national jurisdiction - and for almost every company out there, they benefit from the protection of a country's laws more than they suffer from them.

Sealand failed because anyone who hosted data there was wide open to the whim of Roy Bates - and if you didn't like his whim, you had no recourse. This will be no different.

A good article on Sealand: http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/28/2909303/sealand-havenco-doomed-data-haven-history

If you outright bought the boat, the only whim would be your own. Of course, true pirates could also come back to the high seas.

However, just like Ayn Rand

[Kupfernigk]

All these Randians will expect the US Government to rescue them when their ship goes tits up. Perhaps the best answer is for the US Coastguard to quote them to provide emergency services - 35% of turnover?

Hey, worked for Sealand

[crazyjj]

Why is it that every Libertarian seems to think that they can skirt laws just by taking some boat out to international waters? As if the nearby country is going to be like "Damn, we know you committed the murder, but you were JUST over the line into international waters, so we're going to have to let you go!"

Re:Hey, worked for Sealand

[MacGyver2210]

What, exactly, is so high about an average of 8% tax rate? Mine is at least three times that for personal income tax. Why do these super-rich fools deserve to pay less of that money, even though they have more?

Re:Hey, worked for Sealand

[crazyjj]

If you read up on Sealand, my favorite incident is the fire that effectively ended that wackjob dream. Here these are these libertarians screaming that they're an independent country and don't have to pay taxes. But then comes a fire and what's the first thing they do? They start screaming for the British Air Force and Navy to come save them.

Libertarians don't want to pay taxes, but let one of them dial 911 just once and be told "Tough shit. Deal with it yourself" and watch them scream like little girls.

Re:Hey, worked for Sealand

[h4rr4r]

I totally agree, it is simple they are just sociopaths.

Re:Hey, worked for Sealand

[GameboyRMH]

Verily, it is of the utmost importance that we parlay in only the most proper English on this esteemed forum. The business conducted here is of the most serious variety.

Living on a boat.

[Plammox]

According to sources near Blueseed, they plan to charter a regular ship, before raising capital for the barge they have concept drawings of. Question 1: Have they ever lived for a prolonged period on board a ship? Not all cabins are presidential suite standards. I suspect cramped compartments with no port holes and the persisting smell of fuel oil will get the better of the inhabitants' productivity. Question 2: Who will enforce (what?) law and order, when a couple of Aussies start to binge drink, plank on the railing and pick a fight with some English, after which they insult a bunch of more conservative-minded Indian IT-workers, causing all hell to break loose. And who says the US of A will tolerate a floating tax haven right off the coast of silicon valley?

Nah. Most of all, this just looks like a anarcho-libertarian's wet dream.

Forget insurance ... what about health care?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

When the nearest hospital is over 200 miles away, you'd better have helicopters ready to make the jump. And you'd better have them cleared for permission to enter US air space with no notice (like that's going to happen).

This is just another scam. Another variant of the "company town", where they deduct your room and board and other expenses from your pay, and if at some point you don't like it, you can take a long walk off a short plank.

Re:Forget insurance ... what about health care?

[h4rr4r]

That oil platform makes money hand over fist and is owned and operated by a company the US government has some say over. If you don't want Government restrictions/protections the situation will be very different.

Re:Forget insurance ... what about health care?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Remember - the US has NOT ratified the "Law of the Sea" treaty - UNCLOS. Under existing international law, they still have jurisdiction out to the 200 mile limit, not just the 12 mile territorial water limit, nor the additional 12 mile exclusion zone.

Other nations have the right to "innocent passage". A barge anchored within 200 miles is not engaged in "innocent passage", and as such, does not have the legal rights enjoyed by vessels engaged in "innocent passage."

However, even vessels engaged in "innocent passage" still need to conform to the sovereign states requirements for things like a valid insurance policy for indemnification in the case of bunker oil spills, etc. right out to the 200 mile limit.

Don't expect this idea to float unless there's lots of campaign contributions also floating around.

VC Vipers

[tungstencoil]

Am I the only one who read this as "VCs will found a way to get cheap offshore talent under their collective wings by purchasing a cruise ship on which to enslave, err, house their startup 'incubators'"?

With Start Up this sounds like bad idea

[ZombieBraintrust]

I would only get on a boat like this with people I trust. With a start up there is too much risk that the managers are terrible people. The motivations of a start up are not good either. For a startup it is all about cutting costs. Now if an Google rented the whole boat out to work on a specific project that would be different. Then the motivations would be focus and ease of access to people. I would also prefer the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific ocean. Seems like there would be more to do in the Gulf on weekends.

Sweatship

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Sweatship

Quick primer on the downfall of the US economy

[sl4shd0rk]

Late 80's: there were a lot of skilled trades and professional labor in the US. Cars, Steel, Mass production, Agriculture, skilled trades, software development, science, NASA, everything was going pretty well compared to today.

mid 90's: NAFTA took root. Companies began leaving in droves to offshore labor to the far east and Mexico. Many companies who wanted to keep the labor at home, had no choice but to follow the leader because they couldn't compete with such cheap labor.

Late 90's Early 00's: software development, tech support and engineering started heading for India and other regions. Workers were told "too bad" and laid off in huge numbers. Corporations were swimming in revenue.

Today: Michigan, the hub of manufacturing in the US has no economy to speak of. Detroit is the most dangerous city to live in. The US no longer has much of a Scientific community. It's all been sold off or off-shored. We have no manufacturing to speak of. Most of what people buy now comes out of a Chinese shipping container.

The industry is crying that we have no engineers, software developers or scientific professionals and act like they have no idea why. Now companies want to float a boat out in international waters so they can ship in more cheap labor and not have pay for visas and probably skirt a shitload of tax revenue that would otherwise go into the US economy? Yeah, great idea.

Re:Quick primer on the downfall of the US economy

[h4rr4r]

No manufacturing output? We do about 18% of the worlds total. That is some odd definition you have of none to speak of. We make expensive stuff, we let the chinese make cheap shit.

The industry always wants more labor, too much supply lowers prices. Why would they not want that?

Re:Quick primer on the downfall of the US economy

[vlm]

Actually we still have the largest manufacturing sector in the entire world by quite a bit.
We have completely and almost totally destroyed our consumer products manufacturing, true. The only thing I've bought in 20 years made in the USA is/was some plastic trash cans and oddly enough a gasket-less aluminum pressure cooker made in Wisconsin.

The whole world depends on the USA either exclusively or as a majority provider for aerospace, mining equipment, heavy stuff like that. To a much lesser extent we still make cranes too. And chemical process equipment although like cranes we're trying to give that away to China as fast as we can. You can almost draw a graph of "unit weight" on the x-axis and percent imported on the y-axis and you'll see damn near a straight line where we import 99% of our kitchenware but we manufacture 99% of the world's production of 100 kiloton and up mining dragline equipment (you know, the things that strip entire mountaintops off?) and practically all mining trucks larger than 100 tons.

Re:Quick primer on the downfall of the US economy

[the eric conspiracy]

Exactly. The grandparent is complete bullshit and should be modded down.

The US is the world's largest manufacturing nation in terms of economic output. People seem to forget giant companies like Intel, Caterpillar, Boeing, Cisco, ADM etc. not to mention the pharmaceuticals and the farming industry which are world leading. Not only that but the US does it with a mere 8% of its workforce. The economic output of the average US worker is more than 10 times that of his Chinese equivalent because he's more technically skilled and produces far more valuable products in a highly automated setting.

The Boeing main aircraft assembly building in the Seattle area is the largest manufacturing facility in the world.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/facilities/

It was Boeing who discovered the Y2K problem because they are such a large consumer of aluminum they have to project consumption of aluminum a decade in advance so the aluminum industry can scale their capacity to match their consumption.

I don't know where people get the idea the US isn't competitive in manufacturing. It is a huge force on a global scale in manufacturing, and factors like low energy costs because of the vast natural gas reserves being developed are likely to keep it that way. Anyone writing that the US has no manufacturing capability is full of bullshit.

http://www.shopfloor.org/2011/03/u-s-manufacturing-remains-worlds-largest/18756

http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-american-manufacturing/

Re:Quick primer on the downfall of the US economy

[phantomfive]

You speak of the 80s as if you had not lived in them. In the 80s, people were worried that Japan was taking all our manufacturing. Now people who need a reason to worry speak of China the same way.

btw NAFTA had nothing to do with the far east. By the late 90s, most low-wage assembly lines in the US were filled with Mexicans anyway, so we had the choice to keep importing immigrants or sending the factories to where they were. Whether you hate immigration or labor more of course will affect your opinion of the choice, but sending the factories to Mexico is certainly the kindest thing to do for the immigrants, since they don't have to leave their families, go to a strange land, etc.

Re:I'm Andrew Ryan...

[h4rr4r]

Nice reference, great game, but here in reality the man did not toil alone. He was not able to produce without the poor being kept away from his warehouse at night, he was not able to risk only his investment by nature but by laws governing incorporation, nor was he able to get it to market without roads. I love how those who have never done a day of physical labor like to talk about sweat, blood and tears though.

Re:As its international waters

[DeathToBill]

Tsunami's not an issue except on the shore - it's pretty rare for a tsunami wave to exceed 1ft on the open sea, but that translates into tens of feet when it reaches the shore.

A tsunami in deep water is a non-event.

[ClayJar]

Off-shore in deep water, there is absolutely no danger whatsoever from a tsunami. A tsunami is only a problem as it reaches shore, as it's there that the very long period waves just keep coming and coming and piling up water. In deep water, there's just a very, very long swell of minuscule amplitude.

Storm waves are vastly more significant. Their period is short enough and their amplitude great enough to potentially cause significant damage to oceangoing vessels. Considering also the occasional rogue wave (a wave or short set of waves at several times the amplitude of the prevailing wave conditions at the time), and having lifeboat/evacuation drills every so often would be best practice. At least the area in question is outside the hurricane belt, so hurricane evacuations (such as those from Gulf of Mexico oil rigs) shouldn't be required.

weird ignorant /.er opinions

[vlm]

Let me summarize an entire articles worth of weird and ignorant /.er opinions:

1) this is the first boat that is not US flagged to ever sail either in or nearby the USA, and if it docks for repairs it'll be the first time a foreign vessel has ever entered a US port, so no one will have any idea what to do.

2) there exists a single line in the sandy sea bottom, on one side its complete and total utter US control and the other side is all pirates.

3) magically, because this platform has servers instead of oil drilling equipment, decades of regulation and case law from the oil biz could not possibly apply to this biz, just because it makes for a nice sounding argument.

4) no one has ever lived on a boat for an extended length of time, nor is it even theoretically possible, much less comfortable.

5) the relationship must be binary, either a ship and its flag nation must be US lapdogs and hard core statists, or it must be a libertarian paradise, and only one of those possibilities is unrealistic therefore it Must be the other far extreme possibility (laughably goes for both sides arguments)

6) Foreigners and foreign sailors have never been present on a ship entering a us port, so no one will have any idea what to do.

7) Closely tied to #5, There are only binary governments, the hard core statist fascist western govts like the us and our european lapdogs, and pure capitalist anarchy, therefore since its probably going to be flagged out of panama or something, and panama isn't quite the usa, therefore slavery and polygamy will rule the ship. Uh, no. I don't think very many flag nations allow that on their ships. As a wild guess, I've been on cruise ships that are panama registered, if this tub's panama registered it'll be about as wild as a cruise ship... probably a nude tanning deck, a casino to gamble in, no secret police checking to see if couples in bed together are married (to each other) and are of the correct gender, and generally anyone looking "old enough" gets to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco although technically you have to be 18 in Panama (I think). That's probably about as wild as Panama is going to let it get.

8) A crime has never before happened on board a ship, therefore no one will have any idea how to handle a criminal activity if one happens.

Re:weird ignorant /.er opinions

[h4rr4r]

1. Not at all, nice stawman. The issue are if it is armed, or expects US navy protection without paying for it.

2. No there any many lines, and not that many pirates in that area. This might attract some.

3. Oil rigs are not generally trying to avoid the US government immigration laws like this.

4. It sucks, but people do it.

5. It will surely not be the latter.

6. your own stupid stawman

7. The Western governments are not fascist. You should learn a little more before speaking on that topic. The USA has nude beaches, Casinos, no secret police that check if people are married or correct gendered, alcohol and tobacco laws are enforced by locals not the feds. In short this is more nonsense you are spewing.

8. More of the same idiocy from you. In reality for practical reasons crimes on board ships are often under reported and under investigated. This will happen on this boat as well, if it ever leaves harbor.

Maritime law disagrees

[chrb]

None. The "Tech Love Boat" exists solely as a tax and immigration dodge, and its founders are proud of it. May real pirates raid this libertarian haven

Under international maritime law, all nations have a duty to combat piracy. "Piracy is of note in international law as it is commonly held to represent the earliest invocation of the concept of universal jurisdiction. The crime of piracy is considered a breach of jus cogens, a conventional peremptory international norm that states must uphold. Those committing thefts on the high seas, inhibiting trade, and endangering maritime communication are considered by sovereign states to be hostis humani generis (enemies of humanity)" Wikipedia

The bottom line is that it isn't in the interests of the United States to have pirates operating off the U.S. coast, even if they only target vessels of other nations.

When a crime occurs on the "Love Boat", who will settle that crime?

It is exactly the same legal situation as a crime on a cruise ship. The passengers are subject to the legal sysem of their flag nation, and of others that exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction. The U.S. Constitution gives the federal courts jurisdiction over maritime matters, so it is up to the courts to rule on which particular crimes are worthy of extraterritorial jurisdiction. See In international waters, are you beyond the reach of the law?

Re:Wonderful idea, hope it works and takes off

[roman_mir]

The freest country with slavery and voting for only wealthy white landowners

- first of all, you are saying it like it was a bad thing that only landowners could vote.

As to blacks, as I said, I would NOT have ratified that Constitution with that language in it, but by 1870 the slavery was no longer the same issue at all.

I am against democracy, unless you are mistaken, I am against democracy, AFAIC democracy is mobocracy, it is the gateway to tyranny, that is my conviction.

OTOH having a representative democracy is fine, where a subgroup of people will vote on issues directly, not the entire population.

In 1870 to 1913 we had the beginnings of the labor movement.

- so? There could be no labour movement before there was labour, could there? When everybody is a subsistence farmer, hunter / gatherer, they don't form unions. But that's not why wealth was created at all. Wealth was created by the businesses, not by unions.

The businesses made people productive, provided management, efficient allocation of land, labour and capital and created the goods that actually were then bought by the very people who were working. That's how the tide lifted the boats.

As the free market capitalism provided the profits and investment capital, this was used to acquire and build better tools, making the workers more efficient and productive, and this is why one person could do much more with the tools than anybody before could without those tools, that's what investment is, and that's how a worker becomes more affluent earners - by being more efficient, by doing more with less time. That's why the working hours could eventually be shorted, that's why there were weekends.

Subsistence farmers don't get to enjoy 8 hour days and 5 working day weeks, they don't have that luxury. Only capitalist free market could create that.

The reality is trickle down does not work, and the rich are more than happy to take all the gains.

- nonsense.

This so called 'trickle down economics' is the ONLY economics that works. The more productive a worker at a factory is building cars, the more efficiently the cars are built, they cheaper they can be sold, so that more people buy them, because more profits are made by selling more cheaper products, not fewer more expensive products.

Originally only the very rich could afford cell phones, computers, plasma TVs. Today everybody has them - that's how productive the capitalists made the workers, that everybody can afford these things.

THAT is trickle down economics, THAT is how wealth is distributed in the free market. Your problem is you think about wealth in terms of money - but the best way to treat money is to have it concentrated in the hands of those, who were the best at organising land, capital and labour to produce that profit, that resulted from all those efficiencies and overproduction, and the market willing to pay for those profits.

You are saying that the wealth isn't being distributed? How many cell phones have you had in your life? Cars? Houses? Pairs of clothes? Shoes? TVs? Computers? Tables? Chairs?

You think wealth is what the rich have and you do not? Wealth is what you can use on daily basis, the rich have the WORK.

You think Steve Jobs having spent under 4% of his entire fortune during his life enjoyed the wealth he created by using it? NO. It was all invested, 96% of his wealth was always invested, so that slobs like you could be lifted in the tide that he was busy creating.

So only those with money should be allowed to vote?

- straw man.

The only people who PAY for the music should be able to order it. Those who pay income taxes to the federal gov't are those who should be allowed to vote, nobody else.

If I lose my job and live off my savings for a year I should not be able to vote?

- CORRECT.

NOT IN THAT YEAR.

Re:Wonderful idea, hope it works and takes off

[roman_mir]

All of the questions that you marked up as "Straw man" are the important questions that will arise when the rubber hits the road (or the ship leaves port as it were).

- they were all straw man arguments, which you constructed and then implied that I made a comment on them, while I didn't.

If you phrase them in form of a question, that's a different comment then, it's not what you did, thus - straw man.

Is anybody forcing YOU to go there onto that boat and figure all those things out? NO? Then it doesn't concern you at all, does it?

They'll figure this out, it's not like you are the first to think of these questions and it's not like the boat operators wouldn't want to set rules - it's their territory after all.

IF the rules are such, that they make MORE SENSE to the population on board, than the rules ashore, then that's all we need to know - it's a comparative advantage.

Regarding Law

[michaelwigle]

Check out the laws section of their FAQ... Laws. So, there will be American Common Law in place. They aren't claiming to be their own country. Actually, it looks like they are primarily saying "We're Googleplex on water. It's cool!". Whether or not that's enough incentive to actually move your living and working quarters there is another matter. It also appears to me that International laws will apply so folks hoping to run illicit activities from there may still find themselves in hot water. I don't think they are trying to get around laws, just provide a cool place to set up shop that would certainly have "fewer" laws.

Re:Why don't they setup in Anguilla, BWI

[jjo]

The problem with Anguilla, BWI is that it is situated in the Caribbean Sea, and stubbornly refuses to budge from that location. Blueseed is for people who place a high value on physical proximity to and face-to-face interaction with people in Silicon Valley, but for whom a location in the US doesn't work. These people may be wrong, but it's at least a plausible idea.

Re:Wonderful idea, hope it works and takes off

[roman_mir]

If we had those regulations maybe less people would have been victimized, less crime would have occurred and people may not have lived such short brutal lives.

- NO, what would have happened, would have mean less competition, less economic activity, because rules would have put most people out of rich of running their businesses the way gov't prescribes they must.

Can't make an omelette without braking a bunch of eggs, can't have wealth producing society without an intermediate steps of suffering and hard work and brutality. If you believe you can wave a magic wand and create all the wealth to pay for all this nonsense you are espousing, then you are only guilty of wishful thinking and nothing else.

People came the USA to make money

- and why couldn't they do this at home? Because USA was the land of opportunity, but the opportunity based on WHAT? Opportunity based on NON EXISTENT GOVERNMENT.

not evade taxes

- Yeah, right.

or escape oppression

- Oh, wow, now that's ignorant.

Re:Wonderful idea, hope it works and takes off

[roman_mir]

People came the USA to make money, not evade taxes or escape oppression

- by the way, even today USA provides huge opportunities for tax evasion, which is why so much money is still there - foreign money.

The money that is made by foreigners on their investments in USA are not automatically collected for the foreign governments by the IRS. USA is a huge tax haven for foreigners I'll have you know.

People certainly came to USA to avoid the taxes that they were paying back in their own countries, USA had a war with a King over taxes (sure sure, without representation, as if the Federal government is representing you today, or even your State government for that matter. The closest thing that represents you that is sort-of government like is you condominium corporation.)

Wrong.

[SuperKendall]

That's one of the problems with libertarian dreamers. They crave a dog-eat-dog world, but they all think THEY'RE going to be one of the top dogs.

Wrong. In a truly dog-eat-dog world, any dog that gets too far ahead gets eaten by the pack...

Libertarians have no desire for power. They just want to see limited power OVER THEM. You seeing it as a quest for power over others is more revelatory to your own subconscious desires and/or fears than that of Libertarians.

Basically, you apparently can't handle a world where you are not on a leash...

Re:Wrong.

[crazyjj]

Wrong. In a truly dog-eat-dog world, any dog that gets too far ahead gets eaten by the pack.

Yeah, except it has never once worked out that way in reality. In lawless regions or other areas where the government is weak, what inevitably happens is that you end up with a handful of powerful warlords who basically terrorize and dominate the populace. They build up their own private armies to not only protect themselves from the "pack" but to do whatever the fuck else they want too, including showing up at your home periodically to take anything they want and rape your wife. Life is great if you happen to be one of those warlords (or one of their family or close friends). Life is complete shit if you're anyone else.

And you're not escaping the leash. You're just trading in the democratic government leash for the much tighter and shorter leash that the rich and powerful will have you on in your libertarian paradise.

Re:Wrong.

[crazyjj]

I think you just confused tyranny with liberty

You think that getting rid of government is going to get you the latter. In reality, it's going to get you the former.

Re:Totally wrong!

[s73v3r]

In terms of government, Libertarians simply want to take over - and then leave you alone. That's the extent of it.

And by "leave you alone", they mean allowing any employer to mistreat you as much as they want, and giving you no fucking recourse whatsoever. They mean allowing any company to pour whatever toxic sludge in the environment that they want, and forcing YOU to bear the burden of trying to prove they did some harm, against their legion of highly trained lawyers.

You have no clue whatsoever what the people in charge of the "Libertarians" think. You cannot learn from history, and see how bad this shit would be.

Re:Wonderful idea, hope it works and takes off

[roman_mir]

Right, because it's impossible to arm an expensive cruise liner? If they are going to spend tens to hundreds of millions on a ship, they can afford to put in weapons systems.

Blueseed FAQ

[dandv]

I should've linked to the Blueseed FAQ in my original post. It answers a lot of the silly counter-arguments (though not those as silly as "Pirates!!!" - When has anyone last seen pirates near California?). To sum up:

• * why not telework/conference call all the time: because that doesn't work for startups in their early stage, and because no investor will invest in a startup without meeting the team in person; also because you can't go to startup events via Skype
• * the whole libertarian red herring - Blueseed has nothing to do with a political system or another. It's an entrepreneurial solution to a very clear problem: the lack of visas for foreign entrepreneurs. AILA (the Association of Immigration Lawyer of America) explains it very clearly in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLCYfhZEFb8#t=3m15s: "There are simply no US visas available for immigrant entrepreneurs"
• * the whole tax haven or lawlessness red herring: Blueseed is JUST LIKE Vancouver, in the sense that Microsoft employees come to Silicon Valley all the time from Vancouver to conduct business, then they fly back. There's nothing radical about Blueseed, other than it being much closer than Vancouver. Also, the entire cruise ship industry has been functioning for years and is a clear precedent that laws do apply on cruise ships, and people don't just go murder each other.
• * International waters are 12, not 200 miles from shore. See UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, article 3.
• * the exploitation red herring: how in the world would you think that Blueseed will be on anything BUT best behavior when everybody on board is online pretty much 24/7, and the entire ship will be in the brightest press spotlight?

Re:Wonderful idea, hope it works and takes off

[roman_mir]

since I was very specifically talking about federal income taxes, your argument about other forms of taxes is moot.

As to 'thinking about what government does in terms of what it spends' - it is the only rational way to think about the government. It doesn't produce anything, it takes taxes and hopefully just spends that rather than also counterfeiting money and borrowing more to spend, so it should spend only what it gets.

Gov't is what it spends on, its spending is completely tied to what it does, 100% of it, so yes, gov't is what it spends on.