Blueseed, the Floating City for Startups, Has More Than a Hundred Firms Ready to Ship Out

Oh great just another way for big businesses to avoid taxation. Time to clamp down on businesses trying to do these things before it happens!

@gizmowiz
Big businesses? They're startups, know what that means?

Anyways, my friend pointed it out that it's very ironic that "We as humans are going out of our way to solve the logistically difficult problem of creating an island city,
because we want to avoid rules made by humans"

I am the Blueseed CIO. Please make sure to read the Blueseed FAQ - it answers many questions, such as those involving taxation, Internet connectivity, the rule of law etc.

www.blueseed.co/faq.html

I find it strange that so many start-ups start up in California to begin with. I live in New York which is not business-friendly at all and I imagine California isn't much better. You'd think the Silicon Valley types would try a different state before shipping out to sea.

@mrmessma how is that ironic?

they should call the floating city rapture, that would be absolutely awesome

WHAT?! People trying to do work without giving me my fair share of their effort!? HOW DARE THEY?!

Stop this travesty of tax evasion at all costs! We need to annex whatever offshore society they create. It's only fair. They can't hide their money from us!

Now that I'm done bashing childish, greedy mindsets.

This is a great idea. And as for calling it "Rapture" , that is basically the idea of this system (sans propagandized business-is-evil trope). Create a new country that has general law and order, but is committed to business and doesn't overburden business with excessive regulation and "taxation for social justice".

They are selling a business environment that is beneficial for start ups, and is becoming scarcer and scarcer in this country and around the world. I have no doubt this company will go places. Best of luck, Blueseed.

Not much difference between this offshore account and the other few thousand.

No doubt about it, I wanna start a bank on that boat, so I can move quiet mountains of cash for people at the highest levels of the U.S. government who aren't allowed, legally, to own said mountains of Afghani and Iraqi cash. Yes, I'd be a go-between with opium warlords and killers of U.S. troops on one end, and inkpen pushing, cowardly scumbags on the other, but there's gotta be a downside with any trade, right? Oh, wait. The World Bank and the IBF already do that. Crap.

Haven't we learned from Sealand (aka the Principality of Sealand)? You'll be hard pressed to successfully run a law/tax dodging operation in international waters if for anything but the inevitability of them needing help in one form or another with the rest of the civilized world (banking, telecom, civil, or emergency services [fire/health]). Even in the UK with Sealand, they came close to having a few law actions passed to raid the little sea platform in 'international waters', but was generally abandoned because, a few idiots occasionally pointing guns at each other and playing 'God' on a worthless kids' fort in the sea was hardly worth the cost and effort of any real government/military action.

I recently gave a presentation on science fiction stories inspiring the future. Snow Crash, written by Neal Stephenson and published in 1992, was the champion of my argument. Google Earth, augmented reality, airbag suits for motorcyclists, aspects of the internet; including the first use of the term avatar as a digital representation of a person, are all contained in this book. Also in Snow Crash, is a self proclaimed monopolist, who uses a floating barge comprised of everything from surplus aircraft carriers to plastic bottle islands in an effort to create his own sovereign state. I must say, of all the future tech described, I never thought I'd see a version of L. Bob Rife's Sea-Society

It will be interesting to see who else gloms on to this idea.

@jayphox I thought of Snowcrash, too! :') It floated around in the ocaen as a mass, but remember it had a bit of a pirate mentality to it, too. I don't think a sovereign nation in international waters would be able to do much other than try to just exist as an entity. The failure there was the assumption it would have good, uncensored Internet connectivity for seemingly free in a shanty town type setting. For that matter how would they have fresh food and water? It's been years since I read it, so maybe Stevenson addressed these issues.

Perhaps the Pirate bay's UAV network will provide the connectivity. The mere fact that the technocratic elite are finding it worth their time and money to move offshore, and away from government, points to the rather grim future of the book. Franchising every facet of America seems impossible, but NASA, for example, is quickly falling behind it's private, profitable counterparts. The thirst for natural resources as well as information may be what leads us to this fate.

The whole point of my presentation was that the authors of science fiction do not have to address such issues. By presenting them, the technologically inclined readers are inspired to conquer them.

*also, pirate mentality today is exhibited primarily by hackers, (not Somalians). Information is worth more than any piece of eight, and those that would share it have been branded pirates by those that would prefer to control the flow.

So... What happens when a few massive huricanes or other natural disasters come through?

That was my thoughts as well Jadimuzio. I read their FAQ but, it doesn't address rogue waves and a few other occurances.

I don't get it-- seems like a huge expense compared to hiring the "best technology minds and ideas from around the world." to work for your company remotely from where ever they already are.

It would be far wiser to pass legislation and not tax technological startups until they reached the one billion mark as long as none of them produced toxic chemicals that could leach into the environment. The innovation that this could spawn would be geometric and would give the establishment big boys a run for their money.
A ship not bound by international or national laws is too much of an enticement for illegal money laundering of some sort which is not subject to auditing of any kind by a just legal authority.

They have it backwards, you don't gain rights by being in international waters, you lose them. The Coast Guard would have little problem seizing the vessel and towing it to port if it was declared a threat to the US. There are two better options, strike a deal with a sovereign native american nation (there's at least one in Canada I know of that's a major technology hub) or simply do what other cruise liners do: have a theme cruise for start ups and travel around visiting ports of key US (and other?) coastal technology centers.

@ edelbrp, You are the one who has it backwards. With the current state of the United States (citizens not being able to live a day of their lives without breaking some law), we would gain far more freedom by denouncing our U.S. citizenship and living in a self sustained colony in international waters. The problem you refer to is that we are but human; and as such, we are susceptible to intimidation, coercion, and force. If such a sea colony were to get going, it would have to hire its own security forces to man the rails and protect against foreign threats including the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy. Please note, I am a Marine Corps veteran and technically a part of the Navy that I have just mentioned.

You see, humans are sovereign individuals. As such, we cannot be owned or lordship claimed over us. If a human decides to live as a sovereign individual in international waters, then they are free to do so. Personally, I'd love the opportunity to live on one of these islands or even help design and staff them.

Hi SgtB. I think you missed a few points, this isn't a self sustained colony by any means, the point of this venture is to be as close to Silicon Valley (just 12 miles off shore) without having to abide by the immigration and tax laws (amongst others). They plan on operating a ferry service that would take people back and forth to this anchored vessel. It's a law dodging attempt, clear and simple. My point was that hinging everything on the technicality of being just barely in international waters is hardly going to stop the US (or really any nation) from shutting them down.

for all you people talking about overpopulation(not real) this would be perfect for it. dont for get that water covers 2/3 of the earth.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

There are several applications to this, from tax evasion evil big businesses being their evil selves (which i dont hink all businesses are evil, I'm not Communist), and as an offshore bank. But let us think of the more positive applications of this.
Hm, 7,000,000,000 humans on the planet, and no where to put them. Aha! the ocean.
Here's another thing, a design that I came up with on the school bus (@dandv, please pay attention, and please contact if interested) that can be used to move cargo into countries that are otherwise too poor or can't have a shipping business because of bad waters or unacsessible ports. That would increase the global economy, and allow the smaller nations to enter the world market.
Now, if we consider the positives to this, and the negatives, of course, this company is a great idea. Add the possibility of kelp farming or possibly tuna ranches that can be accessed easily by the seaborn pioneers, we have a win win, more space for humans as well as more food for the humans that are being produced.

By the way, love the first concept art, thats the way to build a better oceanic city!