Freedom Ship International

[lockmat]

LINK

Of course I'm stealing this from Niche, but it's just to interesting to pass up. This may be old news to some of you, but brand new to me.

This thing is cool, hilarious and crazy all at the same time. We could discuss forever the pros, cons, logistics etc.

What do y'all think of it? A little google news search brought this up to me with some very interesting facts just in the first paragraph:

It has been billed as a maritime Utopia sailing the seven seas. But security experts are warning that the 40,000 people who are expected to buy homes on the mile-long, 300-yard wide Freedom Ship may find life closer to Blade Runner than The Good Ship Lollipop .

The vessel's very name may prove deeply ironic, for there will be one security man to every 15 residents, homes will be ringed with electronic surveillance equipment, the ship's police will have access to firearms, the captain will have absolute power, and there will be a jail in which to dump miscreants. A squad of intelligence officers will monitor threats to security, both from inside the ship and externally from pirates and terrorists. The ship will be equipped with 'state-of-the art defensive weapons' to repel attacks and the system of government sounds remarkably similar to that of some of the world's least savoury regimes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/may/2...rke.theobserver

[TheNiche]

I would sort of expect that anybody buying into this plan would probably want an exceptional security plan. Otherwise, these types of very wealthy individuals would probably insist on bringing in their own private security personnel, and I can't see that going over very well.

For the most part, though, I doubt that security would be as big a deal as this article suggests. Cruise ships have a multinational crew, and the non-english-speaking crew are paid extremely poorly. Somehow, crime isn't a big problem. Probably has to do with the pre-employment screening process. Among the folks who are wealthy enough to buy a condo on a Freedom Ship, I'd suspect that they've got too much to lose to commit any serious crimes, and also that they will already be well-traveled enough to be comfortable with a multi-cultural atmosphere. This may function like a big city, but the sociology would be completely different.