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talkpoliticsSome of you may've already heard of Blueseed, a startup corporation that's planning to create a floating city, some 12 nautical miles away from the California coast. It'll be an offshore city equipped as a cruise liner. The location is deliberate: international waters, but close to Silicon Valley, so that the US and foreign workers could conduct their business without the necessity of obtaining work visa. A labor offshore zone of some sorts, that is.
The statement of the company says that the project aims to create an ecologically clean place for work, full of all cutting-edge technologies and facilities of our time. Of course it doesn't miss to mention that you'd only need a passport to be able to work there. There's also another nice side effect of being located in international waters, in that nobody would be paying any taxes.
No doubt, only the wealthiest would be able to afford the luxury of owning property on the floating city, including all those modern apartments with swimming pools, fitness gyms, private sports grounds and all other fancy stuff. The smaller lodgings will be for the workers. The city will be supplied with essential goods from trade with the many businesses along the West Coast. Traveling between Blueseed and the mainland will be possible either with smaller ships or helicopters. Renting a room would cost from $1600 a month. About 250 corporations have already stated their intention to book offices there, and create jobs on board.
The founders of the project are Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija, former chiefs of Business Strategy and Legal Strategy at the Seasteading Institute, are enjoying huge popularity among the corporate world. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, chairs the finance research and economic maintenance sector at this "marine estate". The city is supposed to be self-governing, and effectively be a city-state in neutral waters. Both Marty and Mutabdzija have previously worked on seafaring projects exactly aimed at researching the possibilities for creating offshore territories in international waters.
In their bolder statements, both founders and analysts are calling Blueseed an entirely new concept for the creation of "new sovereign states", which are to be developed on such floating platforms, away from state regulation of any sort, away from any country's legislation and off the sphere of influence of any sea nations. As if they'd exist in a bubble universe where the Pacific is not America's backyard, and where their economy wouldn't completely depend on the surrounding markets. But anyway. The boldest plans are that by 2050 such pieces of neutral territory should be hosting tens of millions of people.
The UN Law Of the Sea Treaty (LOST, haha) is deemed most appropriate as a possible basis for the legislation of such sea territories. It could help the offshore cities gain legitimacy as independent, sovereign city-states. In this sense, the idea is that all economical, technological and scientific innovations originating from these territories wouldn't be subject to any of the existing laws and rules that are present on the mainland. So the various pro-offshore think-tanks and organizations are planning to convene in 2015 and forge the legal basis for the establishment of the first sovereign city-state, ruled by international maritime law rather than obeying any one single state legislation.
While the idea may sound too far-fetched at this point, and chances are that governments (particularly the US, in this case) would have objections to such a development, on the other hand the involvement of multinational corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook and some industries (including those from Silicon Valley) and their heavy investment in offshore cities in international waters could turn things around, and what now seems like utopia may become reality one day in the not so distant future. After all, the special status of these territories could grant these corporate giants freedom from the jurisdiction of any existing state. They could turn out to be capable of not only funding the establishment of new states, but also running them. I.e. these "new territories" would be running themselves as they please. Which may or may not be the pipe dream of any corporate CEO, and certainly of many libertarian
As for the implications for the global economy, should the most paranoid conspiracy scenarios play out; and the consequences for economies such as the US (which would certainly be among the most affected from this "capital drain") - the conclusions (or wild guesses) I'd rather leave to you guys.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 15:07 (UTC)This is the key.
It's a fun idea. (Straight out of cyberpunk - which I suspect is part of why the techies are so into it.) But as long as it's wholly reliant on the US (and California) for food, materials, escape from the claustrophobic confines of the ocean liner...they're not really free. (Esp. as I'd assume that the US could be all, "Um...not so much" pretty much any time, although I suspect they won't unless things get seriously out of hand.)
Also, at $1,600/month for a room, the idea is only really of interest to wealthy tax dodgers and a few highly paid migrant workers who can afford the high costs, but can't get a visa, need to be proximate to Silicon Valley, *and* are okay with the cost/small confines. (I'd imagine that, say, your average brilliant Chinese computer programmer would prefer to live in Hong Kong and Singapore, which are sort of less claustrophobic versions of the same thing.)
With that said, I totally want to visit. I'm expecting a booming tourist trade.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:46 (UTC)In Hong Kong, for less than 1,600 a month?
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:57 (UTC)So compared to $1,600/month for a single room, that's pretty cheap.
Plus, of course, even Singapore is a lot larger than an aircraft carrier.
IDK. I guess I get the advantage in being close to Silicon Valley (in case someone needs to do lots of face to face meetings?) But there are already city-states out there that offer fairly easily immigration (to highly skilled professionals, anyway), that are cheaper and offer a lot more "open space". (Hong Kong, at least, has a lot of it if you're willing to take short bus/ferry rides.)
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 21:45 (UTC)I'm not going to lie, the first thing I thought of when I read the article was "Huh, what a great setup for a zombie movie."
But I suspect that your points about a) there being less claustrophobic and cheaper places to live that will achieve the same thing and b) their dependance on the nations around them is probably going to kill the idea before it gets started.
It sort of sucks though that the work visa program in this country is so fubar that something this far fetched seems like a solution, but I suppose that's a whole different discussion.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 22:04 (UTC)I do agree that the US really, really needs a better work visa program. (I knew at least one company in HK that had moved there precisely because of the screwed up US visa program. Pretty sad, considering how many roboticists they employed...) And I could see this working pretty handily for tax evasion. (Although perhaps not in the US, considering the tax laws here. But hey, in the UK....)
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:21 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:31 (UTC)BTW, it is not truly tax-free since residents and users pay rent. That is a form of taxation.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:34 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:45 (UTC)Anything to prevent this from becoming the slave quarters? Given the fact that the place is run by the 1% corporations, I'm starting to see parallels to factories built right on the border with Mexico, for the cheap labor that is.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 17:50 (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 15/10/12 18:29 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 18:44 (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 21:05 (UTC)Don't forget disposible underwear and a really giant bag of potato chips.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 21:43 (UTC)What are we? North Korea?
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 19:11 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/10/12 21:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 00:00 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 06:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 02:29 (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:09 (UTC)Apparently, they're planning to become a sovereign country.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 02:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 09:28 (UTC)Or is housekeeping etc all part of the deal offered by Blueseed? I skimmed and I don't remember seeing those services offered.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 12:17 (UTC)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...
(no subject)
Date: 17/10/12 00:34 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 03:30 (UTC)I'm assuming this utopia will be built on a foreign-flagged hull, since crewing with US requirements will be cost-prohibitive. Great. I'm living 24/7 on a former Panamanian bulk carrier or Cayman cruise ship that will sit at anchor in off-shore conditions. Even foreign flagged vessels need haul-outs, dry dockings that lift the whole darned thing from the water to make sure the steel under said water don't leak. Where will that happen? Drydocking is a tricky enterprise reliant on calm waters; tugging a monster drydock from shore once a year or so would get equipment to "city", but they would never get conditions calm enough to lift the hull without building a ring reef of substantial size and depth.
Okay, so they will have to "put in" to port on occasion. Will the self-declared citizens of the world (read: keepers of own money free of taxation assholes) be able to scrub the hard drives of their revenue streams quickly enough, and keep them down long enough, for a re-welding that goes long because no qualified welder can pass the new drug screenings? (True: a boat I managed stayed an extra 2 weeks on blocks for this very reason, resulting in canceled service.)
Even if they manage these substantial hurdles, what happens when the cost of bunker diesel spikes? Will their rent? You can't have a ship full of apartments without a substantial number of them being without windows, and you can't have lights and ventilation without power; diesel, even the low-grade bunker variety, more than any other commodity, will dictate the viability, let alone the live-ability of this Randian fever dream. This will further impact shore service. Will the high-powered exec be as high-powered when the ride to the money center is off limits due to a sustained el niño spring? (Another true from boat times: Such a weather event delayed delivery of a new boat bought in LA for, you guessed it, two weeks. Thanks to the cheap-ass company that once employed me, they cut enough safety corners to make the delivery round. That boat nearly sank off Oregon as a result, but nobody talked about the danger they were in for months. PTSD.)
This city-state on water is laughable fail writ large. They are probably resorting to this because the arcologies in Oath of Fealty can't remain tax-free enough.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 03:35 (UTC)Maritime claims are a bit weird. Better to buy an island from someone and set things up there.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:04 (UTC)Yup, like all treaties, international agreements, and world courts, whether signed party to or not, the US has the ability, perhaps the propensity, to ignore such things as it pleases. 'Cause yeah, Seal Team 6 and all.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:10 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 15:23 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 06:53 (UTC)If one of these offshore floating nation deals does actually come into existence, I wait in breathless anticipation for the day when well equipped pirates move to plunder the ship, or even to acquire the ship. I can only imagine that the occupants of the Blueseed (or equivalent) would call on the US for military assistance. I rather hope that the government of the US would have the nerve to respond with "Sorry, you're not an American territory, you're on your own."
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:12 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 07:54 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 13:11 (UTC)Oh wait.
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 09:18 (UTC)Who is to say that they would not be organised-crime equipped pirates? Say, a hostile corporate takeover between tax-dodging "businessmen".
(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 10:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 15:59 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/10/12 09:24 (UTC)That would be entertaining to watch.