New Mars Forums

Some of the colonies that eventually became the United States of America were theocracies, and they had significant religious differences.  They were able to put aside their religious differences and join together to form the USA.  To protect themselves from religious persecution, they prohibited their federal government from establishing religious beliefs and practices.

   First Amendment to the United States Constitution; "Congress shall make no law respecting an
   establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

We might emulate this example by permitting the establishment of religious communities on Mars (i.e., Christian communities, Moslem communities, Jewish communities, Hindu communities, Buddhist communities) and secular communities and experimental communities etc.

I have drafted an "Agreement" for an experimental community...

DRAFT  Agreement to Plan and Establish an Experimental Community on Mars

We, the parties to this Agreement, will plan and establish an experimental community on Mars.  The name of the community shall be Scientia Three.

The rules and policies of Scientia Three shall, to the greatest possible extent, be based on experimentally verifiable data.  Scientia Three may be described as a scientocracy.

   "Scientocracy is the practice of basing public policies on science". 
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientocracy
   Learning from Experimental Communities Using Behavioral Systems Analysis,
   https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 … 19-00005-y

We recall the words of Henry David Thoreau.  He wrote, “That government is best which governs least”.  Thoreau’s statement shall be the motto of Scientia Three.

We shall establish an office that maintains records about all Martian communities.  The office shall be known as the Ethnographic Research Registry.

Scientia Three and other Martian communities may establish a federation of Martian communities.
   https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Mars-T … 0700633901

This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Nevada.
   https://contracts.justia.com/contract-c … rning-law/
   https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-081 … S081Sec755

kbd512:

Comunidad de los Horcones was founded in 1973 by a group of 7 people.  Several of those people had recently received masters and bachelors degrees in Behavior Analysis.  And some of them had recently worked with disabled children who had Downs Syndrome and autism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRU1VEGE1M

Los Horcones now derives some of its income from teaching disabled children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO-6IqrSd2Y

Twin Oaks was founded in 1967 and it was originally intended to be a Walden Two community.  The founders of Twin Oaks did not have masters and bachelors degrees in Behavior Analysis.  A few years after its founding, Twin Oaks abandoned the goal of operating as a Walden Two community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Oaks … C_Virginia

My draft constitution of Mars reads, in part, "The laws and policies of the Government of Mars shall, to the greatest possible extent, be based on experimentally verifiable data."  In contrast, the first paragraph of the constitution of the State of California reads, "We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution."

If you were going to write a constitution for Mars would you put "Almighty God" into the constitution?

kbd512 wrote,

The "fellow humans" of Los Horcones treat each other as science experiments and they are taught to do that from the age of four or five.  They are told that their parents and grandparents expect the children of Los Horcones to learn how to use behavior-shaping techniques to shape their own behaviors.  When they are older they start attending community meetings.  They discuss proposals to amend their community's bylaws.  They may authorize limited, experimental changes to the bylaws and over the course of the experiment they may receive reports about the results of the experimental changes.  If the results of the experiment are deemed desirable then they can amend the bylaws in a way that makes the experimental changes into "standard operating procedures".

The culture of Los Horcones evolves.  The Los Horconans exercise control over the evolution of their culture.  Their "cultural engineering" efforts are recorded in the minutes of their community meetings and in their bylaws.  As a corporation, they have the statutory power to adopt, amend, and repeal bylaws.

I do not treat the Los Horconans as "a science experiment or puzzle".  They treat themselves that way.  They want to have control over the evolution of their culture.

The paper titled "MarsKibu" was "Presented to The Mars Society" in April of 2019.  According to that paper, MarsKibu will be "governed as a direct social democracy".

A social democracy "is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy.  As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal-democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented mixed economy.  The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest, and social welfare provisions".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

Would you want to live in a martian settlement that practices "direct social democracy"?  If not, what form of government do you favor?

Scott

A paper titled "MarsKibu" was "Presented to The Mars Society" in April of 2019.

MarsKibu - Presented to The Mars Society, April 2019
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Re … ociety.pdf

Here is the "Introduction" to the "MarsKibu" paper...

Introduction

As mankind stretches its frontiers into outer space, Mars may become the focus of our endeavors. Human missions to Mars will gradually be replaced by larger exploratory groups, which will pave the way to settlement on the Red Planet. The Mars New Kibbutz (MarsKibu) concept design to settle 1000 people on Mars can lead to a self-sustained environment in terms of energy, water, food, and waste management. The MarsKibu will generate value from Earth space tourism and use the resources generated to acquire necessary earth goods for the operation of the Mars habitat. The inhabitants will enjoy high quality of life, stemming from a social support system, medical care, and leisure facilities. All these are accompanied by a strong sense of mission shared by our first Mars inhabitants. Our habitat is governed as a direct social democracy, with all inhabitants possessing equal voting rights. Elected officials serving in expert panels manage our habitat on the day-to-day operational basis. As with the great explorers of Earth, our inhabitants will bring forth a message of hope and faith in humanity’s ability to overcome obstacles. As on Earth – so, too, on Mars the establishment of a new social democracy settlement society on Mars, which is a separate community that maintains an independent and cooperative society of its members, will be organized based on a common partnership on the property and its objectives, research work, equality and cooperation in all fields of production, consumption, health and education.

Because my all-time most favorite number is the spectacular one-and-only Phi (1.618033...)!

But you can vote to amend the Agreement... if it pleases you to do so.

I would not object to one or more voluntary monetary systems.  However, when a government makes a centralized system mandatory and outlaws all other systems then we are on the edge of a tyranny.

I have no objection to Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies being used on Mars so long as such use is voluntary.

For the purposes of discussion, let's say that I am one of a group of 16 people who have signed and submitted a "Volcanoville Settlement Plan" to the Mars Secretariat.  http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 35#p197435

What kind of monetary system might we write into the Volcanoville Constitution?

I would want to investigate the possibility of minting coins made of a very hard titanium/gold alloy.  Coins made of this alloy would probably be very durable, with some lasting for as long as 1,000 years.
https://phys.org/news/2016-07-lab-titan … teels.html

Zimbabwe destroyed its monetary system with extreme hyperinflation.  During the final stage of the death of its money, Zimbabwe issued 100 trillion dollar bank notes.

Now Zimbabwe is trying to rehabilitate its monetary system.  "Zimbabwe says it will introduce gold coins later this month as it tries to curb soaring inflation amid a slump in its currency".  https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62059711

The United States dollar has lost about 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve Bank was established in 1913.  The Federal Reserve Act was written in secret, by and for the benefit of bankers.

Will Martians allow themselves to be abused by bankers and paper money scams?

I believe that each martian settlement should have a constitution that authorizes the issuance of gold and silver coins.  And the settlements might make it lawful for private companies to issue cryptocurrencies that are backed up by gold and silver coins and bullion that are stored in regularly audited vaults.

For an example, see the website of https://kinesis.money

JohnX asked,

Article 11(5) of the Moon Treaty reads, in part, "States Parties to this Agreement hereby undertake to establish an international regime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the exploitation of the natural resources of the moon as such exploitation is about to become feasible".
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moon_Treaty#Article_11

If we wait for the "States Parties" (the national governments) to establish an international regime for Mars then it will never happen. 

Should the Mars Society and other space advocacy groups support the establishment of an international regime that will eventually transform itself into a sovereign martian government?  Yes.  We can do that much ourselves.  We can also ask people to demonstrate their commitment to the settlement of Mars by filing a martian settlement plan.  People who file such plans can then ask their national governments to provide funding for the construction of martian settlements.

Scott

JohnX, you wrote

Rather than asking the United Nations for permission to establish a Government of Mars, we might side-step the difficult issue of sovereignty.  We could establish a Government of Mars that abstains from exercising sovereignty over Mars.  The Prime Minister of the Government of Mars might simply receive "settlement plans" and review the plans and then file the plans in the office of the "Secretariat of Mars".  The Prime Minister could quietly refrain from filing settlement plans that contain conflicting land boundaries and/or obscene language.  The plans that are filed would be open to public inspection. 

A "settlement plan" might read as follows:

Scott

kbd512,

All human societies change.  Some societies change rapidly and others change slowly.  It has been my goal to create an intellectual tool box that gives people the power to control sociocultural evolution.  That is the underlying purpose of my "Draft Constitution of Mars".

Scott