
The Blueseed Project - Opening Silicon Valley To The World - vabmit
http://www.blueseed.co/
======
rdl
I have some experience living close-offshore of a larger country for legal
related reasons :) (Sealand/HavenCo, around 2000)

I'm glad they picked something relatively inoffensive to governments (visa
regulations for people who would otherwise be H1B/O1 or not local at all,
supporting local popular high-tech businesses). There has been a lot of talk
about offshore drugs and other things which would have been really quickly
shut down.

If they're smart, they'll regulate everything ELSE more strictly than the
US/California, and just focus on one very PR friendly "one thing" -- the
visa/immigration rules, which they'd be 100% in compliance with by being
offshore. You absolutely do NOT want to put that at risk by fighting drug
laws, environmental laws, underaged sex laws, prostitution laws, etc. all at
the same time.

~~~
djm
I'd love it if you told your story with respects to sealand. I was fascinated
with it when I first heard about it many years ago, especially to learn that
the UK govt seemed to have allowed it to exist without shutting them down.

For others reading this who don't know the story my recollection of events is
that it goes something like this:

(1) UK builds large offshore firing platforms in the english channel to target
german bombers in WW2 then abandons them after the war.

(2) A military family moves to one of the platforms after the war and declares
it to be an independant state. The UK government lets them get away with it.

(3) Over the years they remain there and allow others to come and live on the
platform. They issue passports etc. At one point they were the base for a
pirate radio station. At another point they fended off an armed
invasion/attempted coup of the platform.

(4) In the late 90's havenco set up a business on the island. The idea was to
provide secure hosting outside the scope of any legal harassment from
authorities. The business didn't work out.

(5) A few years ago the platform burned down in a fire.

I'd love to hear accounts from people who have actually been there & seen it
for themselves.

~~~
rdl
In between (1) and (2), the "military family" had experience with fishing in
the area, and with pirate radio (from boats, and from other platforms
(unambiguously in UK waters).

Pirate radio was big because there was no popular music or commercials on UK
public radio at the time; pirate radio was largely killed by removing both of
those conditions in the UK by the government, not through regulation.
(although they did increasingly ban it)

(4) didn't work out for a combination of internal reasons and the macro
implosion of both tech and the bandwidth/colo market (we started working on it
in 1998/1999 when stuff was going for $2k/mo; by 2002 it was $150/mo, and our
cost basis was high.

Our biggest fundamental problem was not having a payment system option; I
wanted to fund an anon ecash development thing out of our first investment,
but cofounders vetoed that. This led to really limiting the kind of businesses
which could operate "purely offshore"; they all had to incorporate in places
like Nevis just to get a bank account, at which point they could just host
there (or in Canada, or whatever) for a whole lot less.

5) The platform was basically restored to the mothballed condition it had
between the end of pirate radio (early 1970s) and HavenCo (2000) after 2002;
there was a fire, which caused damage, but didn't destroy it. It's still
there; just irrelevant.

I'm still sort of interested in interesting jurisdictional arbitrage (free
trade zones, differences in laws across places, multi-national structures),
but I'm much more interested in purely technological solutions to problems
(i.e. using crypto, hardware, etc. to solve the same problems as sealand)

~~~
djm
Hi. I don't have anything to add but I just wanted to say thanks for sharing
:)

------
WordSkill
As crazy as it sounds, ideas like this might be necessary to save America from
completely trashing its own economy and position in the world.

If putting innovators on boats 24 miles of the coast is what it takes to
maintain America's innovation edge, so be it.

Regular Americans have no understanding of how wealth is created and how once
dominant empires can lose the very things that originally put them on top.
They somehow imagine that, even in the face of imminent systemic collapse,
America will always remain on top and always be somewhere that immigrants will
clamor to get into.

American life is MASSIVELY subsidized by the fact that the dollar is the
world's de facto reserve currency, but that will only remain the case if
American continues to lead economically and China is already playing a far
longer, far smarter game.

American industry is MASSIVELY subsidized by the fact that, for now, the U.S.
is where the investment dollars gravitate to - but that can change overnight.

American power in the world is ultimately dependent upon economic power but,
ironically, cripplingly expensive and completely unnecessary militarily
adventures over the past decade have hastened the day when China becomes the
world's preeminent economic power by approximately two decades.

America has become wholly dependent upon the manifold privileges and
advantages of being Number One. That means that there can be no graceful
decline; once an unknown tipping point is reached and it becomes clear that
this is no longer the case, the advantages currently supporting everything
that Americans take for granted will slip away in rapid succession.

So, yes, today, it is possible to treat foreign innovators and highly-skilled
workers with disdain, to force them to jump through hoops and subject them to
bizarre, dehumanizing visa processes, Hell, you can even force them to sit in
boats off the coast of San Francisco ... but it is already true that the best
and brightest are at least looking at what is available elsewhere, that
countries like Singapore and Chile are waking up to the possibilities and I
wonder how many more economic crises it will take before the proposition of
dedicating your hard work and talent to a people that clearly hate you begins
to look less attractive.

So, embrace this seemingly crazy notion and any other idea that routes around
self-destructive tendencies of the American voter, do all you can to put
tomorrow's breakthroughs as close as possible to American soil but, just
remember ... we're going to need a bigger boat.

------
3KWA
Nice but unrealistic!

Living at sea full time even surrounded by bright, talented and driven peers
comes with many challenges that a start-up probably does not need to deal with
(not even addressing the cost issue).

My credentials for saying so: I am a "geek" and a Yachtmaster 200t Ocean
Instructor who worked on yachts and sailed across 2 oceans.

On the other hand, using a yacht in a harbour in SF bay, with "crew" on a
b1/b2 visa working on startups should be investigated (yet again boats are
expensive :P).

~~~
harold
I think there may be some merit to your idea about the "live aboard" concept.
It might work best someplace like Anacortes, where the boat could be moved
across the border to Vancouver for a period of time.

Sailor here as well (out of Morro Bay, CA) and sail offshore regularly on my
own boat.

------
ique
I'm not sure what the point of living off the coast of SF is if you can't go
in to land now and then. The whole point of being in SF is the networking
possibilities, not some magical sphere of influence that surrounds the area.

If you still can't enter the country you might as well be in your own country
working in comfortability.

~~~
gojomo
A few weeks off on 'shoreleave' every couple months might be both practical
and compliant with border controls.

Oil platform 'roughnecks' spend 2-4 weeks working 12-hour days, then get 2-4
weeks off on shore, for work that's much more physically draining and
dangerous than tech work.

------
Eliezer
I'd believe this if Patri Friedman were running it, but not otherwise.

~~~
vabmit
The guys are from the Seasteading Institute team. Patri is essentially
resigning from operations and getting ready to focus on related commercial
ventures (start-ups). You can get the full story in the latest newsletter:
[http://seasteading.org/blogs/main/2011/07/31/the-
seasteading...](http://seasteading.org/blogs/main/2011/07/31/the-seasteading-
institute-july-2011-newsletter)

There are several companies that allow people to live on cruise ships for >3
months (like the "Semester at Sea" offerings). And, there is at least one
cruise ship that sells cabins as condos and is essentially a permanent
residence.

Keep in mind that you can spend a good amount of time on US soil and still
avoid paying income tax or needing a resident/work Visa. I expect the ship
will speed a good amount of time at port in California if they're able to get
funding and execute.

I think this is a great alternative to say opening an office in London or
Dublin to deal with immigration problems for EU people. Leasing and operating
such a cruise ship probably (I'm just guessing here) wouldn't cost much more
than leasing and operating an office in London. This has the added benefits
that country of origin doesn't matter (it's not just EU), that the people
would be in the same time zone, and that it is so close by that travel to SFBA
would be relatively inexpensive (compared to travel from London).

------
JimmyL
"live, work, and play in close physical proximity to the fertile grounds of
the Bay Area"

Among other problems, how will people on this ship take advantage of the
"fertile grounds of the Bay Area" when the CBP agents at the port catch on to
the fact that anyone coming from that ship is probably coming into the city
for business meetings (as opposed to touristic purposes) and purposefully
skirting various bits of immigration law?

~~~
gojomo
I know to be wary of DHS/CBP arbitrariness, but they aren't against all
visits, just those that run afoul of often-stupid regulations.

If they know...

• the ship itself has no contraband

• the business visits are short in duration

• the presence of the ship (and the ship's economic interests) makes it even
more likely you'll stay exactly for your stated duration and no longer

• the employment technically is outside US jurisdiction

...they might actually _prefer_ orderly visits from a ship, over more
complicated less-understood visits from faraway. Provide CBP with a non-
threatening, transparent, technically-compliant model they can understand, and
they may not be your enemy.

------
mrilhan
I'd believe it if every online community hadn't already fantasized, written,
prepared wikis, appointed Financial Ministers and plotted to buy the
Principality of Sealand at one point or another for this same goal. Thanks for
the chuckle though, it was nice to daydream about visa-less US
entrepreneurship.

~~~
patrissimo42
Exactly. If someone was going to do actually this, instead of fantasizing and
appointing Financial Ministers, they would have to be doing international law
research, engineering studies, raising millions of dollars, talking to real
entrepreneurs....which is exactly what I've been doing at The Seasteading
Institute has been doing for the last 3 years, to pave the way for ventures
like this.

When something is usually done as a fantasy, I can understand why you'd
pattern-match it to fantasy. But just because it's usually done wrong doesn't
mean it can't be done right.

------
wladimir
So instead of improving on the state-of-the-art of telepresence and have
people work remotely from any place in the world, certainly possible with
today's global communications infrastructure, they want to put actual physical
boat with developers on it close to shore, to avoid immigration laws?

And from all places it's a silicon valley enterpreneur proposing this? This is
so bizarre and inefficient I don't have words for it... It's crazy in an
anachronistic way like putting a horse in front of your automobile to avoid
fuel taxes.

------
latch
What laws govern ships in international waters (or planes flying in
international airspace)? From my quick research, it seems like the laws where
the ship is registered applies, is that right? (and that many ship are
registered in a sovereign state, known as "Flags of Convenience" which seems
to have no real law?)

------
gojomo
I've seen this idea before; can't recall if it was at the peak of the last
bubble, or since, and it's really hard to search for references.

If I recall correctly, one previous variant suggested a ship off Los Angeles.

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sixtofour
The Pacific Ocean can be anything but peaceful at times.

------
dendory
"Our Satellite Internet lane will be really fast! Just with high latency..

And our security system will actually have to repulse not only cyber pirates,
but real ones as well!"

~~~
tomjen3
Even though it is outside their territorial waters, I do believe the US Navy
would object in the strongest possible terms to pirates there.

------
freakinjoe
evil organization detected.

~~~
mhartl
s/evil/good/

------
gsivil
This is pathetic and not resourceful. I have more respect for the
fanboys/fangirls that will stay nights and days in line to get the new iPad 3.

~~~
pjscott
They've got a boat, a business plan, and an important problem. What have you
got?

~~~
jgh
how big is this boat?

