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Engineer these Mars bugs (i.e., Nostoc, a hardy cyanobacterium) to secrete a non-toxic hormone or factor that makes the bugs "commit suicide" when it reaches too high a concentration. Fairly simple project for a motivated grad student in 2050.
Josh, I just want to say that I respect your opinions and invite further discussion. I realize you feel passionately about your positions and admire that. Having said that, I don't have any intention of this going into a silly flame war.
Anyway, your quotes from that astute commentator, Noam Chomsky, are interesting. Although he can be a good critic of imperialist foreign policies, I do think he's wrong some of the time on some things.
I'll try to read more on "anarchy" at the link. The ideals are attractive and I agree with the notion that anarchy doesn't necessarily have to be "chaos"...at least when things are working properly. But they are more likely to work properly under conditions where goods and services are exchanged under contract, IMO.
However, the notion of "mine" and "yours" is not easy to briskly shake from the human race. I think sharing is wonderful. However, there are always greedy people who will take unfair advantage under situations of free sharing. Take a drive on the interstate during rush hour and you will understand what I mean. Most people share the common space of the road and just try to behave and muddle through. But there's always some stupid guy who tries to make a break for it in the emergency lane, or dangerously swerves around at 100 mph.
We are basically apes, mind you, and we share many of the same neurochemical pathways and behaviors. There's always going to be an "alpha male" and many more who aspire to be. The same behaviors that drive people to become the alpha are the ones that make people want to build the Trump Towers and shout from the floor of the NYSE. It's obnoxious. It's unfair. But the way to reign it in is to acknowledge that it exists and deal with it. The way to do it is with titles, deeds, and contracts--ie., enforcing material and human capital rights.
Nearly every society around the world has some notion of property. Even primitive tribes fight over the best hunting grounds, cattle, horses, fresh water springs. While not everyone parcels out resources in the same way, we need to acknowledge it is basic to our nature. We are not bees. Our genes have fashioned us for the hard, scarce life on the savanna, in groups of about 50-100 or so. Can't change that unless you want to change humanity, start from the year zero.
So here's my point. Anarchy without property is not really anarchy, because there is going to have to be the "law" that requires one to "share." Who enforces the law? Government of some kind. Because that is what government does. It enforces.
Anarchy on Mars? I say, "Fine." If anti-capitalist anarchists want to build their own settlements and utopias, why not? However, this anarchy ought not to be forced or enforced. If people want to be free to do business with contracts or deeds or property, I don't that should be penalized either.
In my opinion, equality is not an absolute right because people are not equal and are can only be made that way "by hatchet, axe, and saw." The only way I imagin equality being a right is in equality of rights. That is, everybody is born equally free.
Security is not an absolute right because it is subservient to liberty. By definition, anything you do to someone else without their permission deprives them of both liberty and security. However, each person is at liberty to decide what kind of security they wish for themselves.
Although property sounds like a mean and nasty word, it is actually an institution that reigns in the nastier human qualities of greed and envy. This institution is self-correcting since you are ultimately penalized for owning too much stuff that you either don't need or cannot afford. Also, things are not as well cared for when they are commonly tended to. Ever heard the saying "when it's Everyone's responsibility, it's No One's responsibility?" Property can be shared and cared for however one wishes, but it is in the interest of the proprietor to tend it as well as possible and be as good a neighbor as possible, since the value of his goods and his reputation are at stake. Thus I can't see how property is an anti-social creation; it cushions and lubricates society so ultimately liberty is preserved to the fullest extent.
Maybe I am missing something here. Anarchy that does not respect property rights simply has no chance in heck of working because it descends into a flashback to Pol Pot. Now Anarcho-capitalism...maybe...just maybe it could work...
People have the right to be as free as they wish, so long as they do not infringe on the freedom of others.
Because governments in history have, in general, had a tendency to inflict far more misery, death, and toil than would have occured in their absence, it is important to keep in mind that ANY government on Mars is something to be wary of. I.e., substitute the word "organized force" for government in any situation and you see what I mean.
Thus, any Organized Force that is set up on Mars needs to be limited in what it can do to you, even when it is sugar coating its edicts, regulations, fiats, and decrees about the things it's doing for you.
It needs to respect several principles. One is property; you have the right to own it. The most important piece of property is yourself. You are your own government over yourself and what you claim as your own (ie., your material goods and your labor). The job of any larger Mars government is to settle disputes between those who feel that their individual soveriegnty has been violated by another. Its main job would also to be to enforce contracts.
Under this idea, murder, theft, slavery, kidnapping, and sabotage (pollution) are abuses of the individual right to self ownership.
Clearly, settlement and immigration needs to be regulated by some kind of central authority. A person could, in theory, stake an absurdly huge claim to half of the planet's surface, and say that he "owns" it. Then others could do the same, and we'd end up with feudal-style warlords and fiefdoms battling it out.
Thus, there needs to be a firm distinction between what is commonly controlled (public) and what is private. The public realm is controlled by the government, with the aim of protecting human freedom. It is public for no other reason than necessity.
Public-controlled things would include immigration, water(ice) resources, the parcelling of land, and the common defence from pirates or earth-based tyranny.
How would the land be parcelled? It could either be bought or homesteaded. The sales of land would contribute to a central endowment that would be deposited in banks. The government would then perform its function by skimming off the interest from these deposits.
Oh well, that's my opinion. Whatever happens, we'd have to keep in mind that Martian government power must be limited and kept in check lest it take the all too easy route to tyranny.
My humble and succinct opinion:
A choice is a "good" one if it results in additional choices. That is, if it generates greater freedom for the people affected by the choice, it enables greater potential for good.
Terraforming needs to be a decision made by the Martians. All will decide in favor of it in one degree or another: after all, even a hollowed out hillside or a domed settlement is a terraformed space. Terraforming is required for humans to exist on Mars.
Planet-wide terraforming--regardless of the scheme--is likely to be incredibly slow. Increasing the atmosphere's pressure is likely to take decades if not centuries. Changing the atmosphere to a friendly O2-rich on would take 1000s. Given the time scale and the likely primitive nature of native Mars life (if it has any at all), it is probably that warmer temperatures and higher pressures would be at least neutral and probably favorable to indigenous bacteria. (Enzymes work faster when it is warm.) If not, mutation and natural selection would produce variants of Martian life to fill the new niches that arise during terraforming.
Worries about us contaminating Mars are pretty moot. It WILL happen the second humans visit. It's probably already happened when space probes attempted landings there. It's likely to have happened throughout geologic history as meteors between our two worlds cross-pollinated one another.
In the final analysis, since Martian critters are probably from Earth anyway (and vice versa), terraforming creates more options not only for human settlers but for life, itself. Thus it is likely to be a good thing. But it should be a decision made for and by humans, not influenced by spores of archaebacteria.
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