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#1 Re: Human missions » Using illegal goods to make mars profitable - The Martian Mafia??? » 2004-06-22 02:08:55
Sorry if i broke any forum rules by condoning legal activities(oops). My original pst was sort of short sighted but i did it because i was inspired by the case against mars topic.
I started this topic for 3 reasons:
1. i think the key to making mars a succesful planet is overcoming a critical time in its early history when large powerful governments start looking at their bottom lines and see that all the billions and billions of dollars they are spending and say "why are we spending all this money on this planet". Then funding gets cut and there needs to be an early way of making mars profitable. If mining, entertainment, drugs, whatever make mars come out ahead then it can continue to grow and prosper. I just thought ilegal activity could make that transition go a little easier.
2. Another thought i wanted to get into is whose moral code and laws do we follow. What do we decide is right and wrong? On Mars we are going to have our own moral code.
3. I think a martian mafia is a really cool idea. One critism of this board and all mars fanatics is that they tend to utopia-ize mars and make it seem as if the realities of human nature wont exist on mars. The evils of society arent going anywhere and are going to come with us to mars. I think that may be the reason some people came down hard on my post.
Anyways i think this thread may be a lost cause and i think i will start a new post in the civ and culture forum if this thread is all burnt out.
drew
#2 Re: Human missions » Using illegal goods to make mars profitable - The Martian Mafia??? » 2004-06-19 11:18:02
They will be able to track the illegal shipment as they fall throught the atmosphere but the smugglers will be able to tell the when and the where the shipment lands. With current tech NORAD may be able to track us(if they can pick us out among all the space junk out there then they are damn good), but will they be able to do anything about it? I know there developing stuff to shoot down satelites now, but will they be able to shoot down a moving target as opposided to a target that they know the orbit of for sure. Is blowing up drug shipments going to be worth the expense when the shipment may not even end up on their country.
Drugs can be easily produced and have incredible high value. Plus we can determine the when and the where these drugs land at which i think will add to there value.
If we are really going to colonize mars, we have to find some way to justify the costs that earth is going to be spending on mars. We most likely wont be getting rich off it either we will mostly be trading for equipment and nitrates so we can grow more food(and more drugs) in the martian soil.
Information is going to be a commodity but it will take a couple years for mars to start developing enough to do that. Illegal goods will help kick-start the Martian economy in the early years until transportation costs come down and we can export precious minerals.
All right then, how about off-earth banking? You know, where you can stash all your ill-gotten gains so nobody knows?
Nice. 
Another important illegal activity.
#3 Re: Human missions » Using illegal goods to make mars profitable - The Martian Mafia??? » 2004-06-19 07:17:04
Hey everybody, Ive visited this board for a while and thought i would actually post something...
If youre looking for something thats going to make mars profitable you need to do better than heavy water or entertainment or even precious medals. We need something thats really profitable...illegal drugs and weapons grade plutonium and uranium.
I think these are both logical choices for exports to earth. If were going to have all these nuclear reactors that produce all our power, Mars is going to have a lot of enriched uranium and weapons grade plutonium just "laying around". Im sure some country would pay top dollar for it. Hell, the US might even pay us double the going rate just to make sure it gets into the wrong hands. And say it does get into the wrong hands, who are we objective Martians to say whos morally fit or not. And if somebody gets blown up because of it, its all earths problem and not ours.
As for illegal drugs i think its inevitable. Mars is one big huge lawless place with people struggling to get by. If you look around the world those conditions(almost always) lead to people turning to growing drugs to make there means. These drugs could be a "cash" crop for mars, like tobacco was for early north america. These drugs have a lot more value on the open market then almost anything else.
So how about it folks? From what i have been reading on this board, everyone seems to be so pro-mars no matter what the costs, risks, or even who its done by(I'm with you on that). How about breaking a fews laws (not ours) to get it done. Discuss.
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