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I never saw archie post your personal details on every website he could get his hands on.
You've proven nothing. Your entire argument revolves around a simantic attempt by Proudhon to separate property from possession.
If you care to think you've shown that anarchy is somehow the only rational system, go ahead. I can't stop you. Unfortunately, economics disagrees.
If your arguments ever became somewhat convincing, all I would have to do is open one of the doctorate level economics textbooks lying around the house.
And yet, you've failed to show how! In basic soph fasion, you simply make a obviously wrong statement and hope that it goes unchallenged!
This is exactly the problem. My statement is based on real facts. You have failed to provide anything to dispute this. Again, all I'd have to do is open a textbook.
The Laws of Thermodynamics
The Conservation of Mass
Thermodynamics has to do with energy, and conservation of mass has to do with the universe retaining an equal amount of mass at all times. Englighten me.
Josh, I proved the debit vs. credit card issue to a T.
Your posts increasingly show that you can't bear being wrong on anything dealing with economics. Your obsession with communism/socialism/anarchy is getting funnier by the post.
Wrong. Mars and space in general requires that humans have a relatively complex understanding and usage of technology. Earth does not require this, so when we think about society in space, we must consider this. In space, if we're going for personal freedom, we will have to do away with ridiculous restrictions put upon us by property laws, and so on. Otherwise you'll have people being thrown out airlocks or whatever.
You mean I have no right to own anything? I don't find property laws restricting, I actually find them beneficial, I wouldn't want my hard work to be wasted on someone who gets equal compensation for less work.
Um, no. There's no talk of inefficiency, in fact it's the exact opposite, since habs are going to be efficient whether you like it or not. But as populations grow, there is a resource strain in any system. There is absolutely no system completely immune to this problem (that's why clark talks of population control). But since we'd be using a much higher level of technology than we currently are, this is less of an issue (if even an issue at all), in any case.
You are going to tell me, in all seriousness, that a larger population is easier to manage than a small one? Oh dear. It's not like I have any desire for inefficiency, the fact is, that it will exist as the system gets larger. This is basic fact.
Well, I have no idea what this means, and I suspect you're just talking out of your butt. Decentralization doesn't ?cost more? than centralization. In fact, it's the opposite. Just look at how much centralization is costing Earth.
Oh, and since we'd have very little to no loss in the system, I don't even see an issue with costs related to distribution at all.
Well, since I don't see any big centralization hurting Earth, I actually see globalization helping Earth greatly, your comments are really off the mark once again.
It's the opposite? No, you need multiple distribution centers to ensure that everybody gets their rations, and so on. Bread lines, so to speak. These cost money that wouldn't be a factor in capitalism, where everybody gets paid through private organizations, buys things through private organizations, and so on.
Very little to no loss? Come on, Josh, there is nothing besides your fantasies and Proudhon to back this up.
I've seen his posts at SDC and ES...I just don't see the kind of aggressiveness that you've shown.
Define "laborers," please. If you mean scientists and engineers, they are the out-to-pasture volunteers. Contracted fabricators have their own production personnel, as do the launch facilities their launch checkout, etc. teams. I get the feeling I'm in contact with someone out of Dickens!
What do you think you pay for when you pay a contractor? You pay for the labor cost, material cost, and then profit. So you still pay for your labor.
Laborers=workers, including whatever staff that exlusively work for you.
Your relatively small directly "employed" staff saves little money, and certainly doesn't cut cost in half as you suggest. You still pay the cost of most of the labor put into the project via contractors, launch, etc.
What if you had a small fusion reactor dedicated only to producing power for the ship and engines? For the purposes of the outpost, this would make sense anyway, as we would need a lot of power for our facilities, factories, etc.
It would release less radiation to the crew, wouldn't be an explosion risk, and would use more abudant (and thus, potentially cheaper) fuel.
dicktice, NTR engines could be clean in the atmosphere. But I don't support Orion because I just cant see it being safe from Earth->orbit.
The volunteer laborers will be dwarfed by the paid laborers (production, launch costs, shipping, supplies, and so on). So what you are saying is that there are a few thousand unpaid laborers?
Let's see how much this saves-assuming a salary of $60,000 apiece:
5,000: $300 million. Not the "cutting in half" estimate you had mentioned.
Any more laborers,and it becomes the bureaucracy that you say it isn't.
Wayne, posting yales's details at space.com was not cool. And archie has done nothing wrong. I used to respect you, but it's gone.
The larger the population, the greater the aggregate amount of resources the Community has at its disposal. If a Community has 10 people, then it has the value of those 10 people with which to secure luxaries. This presents a limited amount of resources though becuase 10 people will have different wants- one may wish to watch movies, another music, another a book. Now, imagine a community with 100 people- they will have 100 peoples aggregate resources to work with to buy in bulk (warehouse style ordering reduces cost by units), or to buy a greater variety of luxaries.
Watch TV. Is the government always the best decision making body? No. That's why elections are necessary. And capitalism directly allows people to satisfy their wants and needs. In a mature economy, communism, anarchy, and pure socialism are no more valid on Mars than on Earth.
So now you have 100 people. You also have to divide the resources among those 100 people. Which means either a) inefficiency with dealing with a larger population, or b) more costs to develop smaller scale distribution methods.
Individuals will have an incentive to work harder because they receive bonuses and extra credits (through etra work) to buy personal possesions. Things like fancy clothes, a personaly designed hab suit (not the stiff community issued one), vacations, Earth imported food stuff, etc.
So they work longer hours, but have no direct incentive to work harder hours? I see no great incentive here. Take the Soviet Union. It failed because the resources didn't exist, and workers were not motivated, because there was equal distribution no matter what. So I work a few more hours, but I don't work hard.
It dosen't matter what you do within the colony, because you are paid in "work hour credits". One hour of work is equal to one hour of work for anyone else in terms of purchasing luxary items. Think of it as all peopkle are equal members in the company- yet each does something different within the company.
So Albert Einstein's work is just as valuable as a freshly college-graduated physicist?
So now Communities have an incentive to expand and grow- to add more people- not only people, but quality individuals who will contribute to the overall Community.
Established Communities could even eventually set up a system whereby prospectiove Terran immigrants are selected and their trip is financed by the Community- in exchange for a guareentee of work within the Community.
These Communities could even be set up on Earth.
What this also allows is for individual Communities (or even groups of Communities) to focus on a few key industries to export to other Communities. So Community A builds rovers, which they trade for goods and services from other Communities that specialize in suit manufacture, or agriculture. The Community receives the value of the exported product, to be used to run the economies. The individual use the work hour credits to buy from the Community the things that they want.
Why would the world's brightest minds be attracted to these communities? They receive no bonus for being a higher level. Someone set up similar communities a hundred and fifty years ago, Fourier I believe. One of the Utopian Socialists. They failed.
Josh, Cuba is tiny. Come on, now.
It's called a signature, Josh. You have to sign everything you buy with a debit card. If somebody buys something online, and you track it, you can call the company and say, "Hey, I never bought that."
But now you are grasping at straws. Because you made a bad comparison, you are trying to find a way to salvage it. With cash, if it's gone, it's gone.
How many engineers did Apollo take? How many work on the Shuttle? You have to base it on what's out there now. These engineers can't be miracle workers-it's proven economic fact that paid workers work harder over longer durations.
However, I don't think you'll find that many volunteer workers. There aren't that many engineers that can work without pay for an entire mission!
Resources, available land, science value, terraformation can moderate climate, possible advertising and other revenue return, reputation, etc.
There are many possible reasons to go to Mars.
Fusion beats plasma in:
1) Power
2) Thrust
3) Manuverability
4) Payload
How does plasma obviously win out in safety? As preston said, fusion simply dissipates. Van Allen Belts, which can fluctuate, are more of an issue.
Power is very important-say you want a science or mining outpost. All that power (especially for an outpost, which once parked, can switch the engines to straight power reactors) is very useful for high power needs.
Payload, fusion can launch more from the surface, and can be made to be redundant more easily than plasma sails. Complexity? Besides the heat, there are three basic components for fusion. A magnetic field, microwaves, and the reactor chamber.
Now you are just latching on to this fission for fusion idea. That's assuming we can never get a net power gain out of fusion, which is pretty silly. Like I suggested before, we could have redundant systems (which is a no-brainer) and start the engine using an external source. The fusion could then maintain itself. You could even have another fusion reactor on board dedicated only to powering the ship and engines.
Extrasolar? I highly doubt that plasma can beat 13% lightspeed.
Do we know that plasma sails wouldn't have an affect on planetary communcations? What if our magnetic field hit our satellites?
You could use the water that the ship will need for its crew. Keep the pipes filled with it, in a constant cycle. I don't think this water would be unsafe-water is a very stable molecule.
Lead was just an example. There are other materials that shield radiation well, and could serve as part of the ships hull.
Water is a good radiation shield. So is lead. You could include several layers of radiation protection, like you would for the crew anyway. But I don't think solar radiation would be that much of a problem.
Heh! Suppose every person in America owned stock in all the NYSE and NASDAQ corporations. Then we would have accomplished the Marxian dream.
The means of production (capital) would be owned by the workers.
Sure, I see nothing wrong with that. But would the workers know how to manage the companies if they ever reached a majority ownership?
What stage of the economy are we talking about? A mature one, where Mars is at least partially terraformed, or the early base/colonization phase?
You can add money to your debit card. You have to pay to extend your credit limit on a credit card. A credit card costs money. A debit card doesn't. The only similarity is the material and shape.
People in Cuba don't experience any of that. The point is just to not let anyone have a monopoly over natural resources. Since we'd be in a colony (in most cases anyway) there wouldn't be a monopoly over the colony in any democratic system; the colony is public.
Ah, but people in Cuba do experience poverty, starvation, and so on. Although the social programs are, in some cases, very good. But it's easier to provide these programs with a smaller population than it is with a large one. That's why I say, on a small scale, communal or socialist economics might work, but as a whole, the system would be ineffective.
They're going to show that nuclear has its own benefits that in many cases outweigh M2P2, just as I did.
Why not fuel cells? Fuel cells could be on every house, generate more jobs to produce, and generate water for every house.
And yet, you didn't even show how. You just made a statement and somehow magically it's going to be true. My ?solar obsession? has to do with one very small fact. Nothing in this orbit can produce the kind of energy we get from the sun. Nothing. What, may I ask, is wrong with pointing this out?
But many processes can harness the energy they produce more efficiently.
As I pointed out before, there wouldn't be the mass mining you seem to imagine. You wouldn't be mining 100,000 kg of uranium if you only needed 100 kg. It simply doesn't make sense. Especially since the government could regulate the mining of uranium.
The problem I see is that humans generally want a direct reward (i.e. higher wages, rewards), and don't see the community as an incentive to be more productive. Take the Soviet Union, for example.
I think the idea might work from a strictly theoretical point of view, but to put it into practice may be tougher.
On a small scale, it would work. But I think, on a larger scale, as Mars grows in population, the economy will become more capitalized, as government control is no longer needed. By this I mean, we have a huge agricultural infrastructure, power, etc. The government could create jobs by opening new facilities that would produce goods for export only (i.e. trying not to interfere with the competition of the economy-which would be regulated in other ways, like the laws we have today).
In the early stages, this would probably be a better idea.
A debit card, is, in effect, a prepaid credit card. If someone buys something with either, that money is deducted. Most credit card companies don't help you out if the deduction is more than a certain ammount, unless you have insurance. I think $50 is the ammount mandated by law, but ammounts more than that can vary by credit company.
Wrong. A debit card is backed up by the money from a bank account. You can only spend what you put onto it, and you don't make payments on what you spend. You are spending what you have, and you don't get penalized for spending it.
Your description of a debit card is completely wrong.
And clark, I couldn't disagree more. Sure, unemployment may be at a minimum, but after the initial society is developed, you can have a capitalist system. No need for feudalism. Food can be grown in greenhouses by people paid for their work. Unemployment can be taken care of by working for government unemployment programs (not welfare-you would work to get the money).
If there are people who have found their little niche somewhere, and they've thrown out the idea that people should be slaves to one another and share technology, knowledge and resources, what would you do? Would you rightly leave them alone, and let them do their thing, or would you force them to become your slave or whatever, because for some reason you need to be ?more productive? (and you think that you deserve to be able to control people)?
Under capitalism, as long as they can support themselves by providing a service in sufficient demand by society, they are left alone.
Well, by the time that these big interplanetary lugs are in operation, I would think we would have deep system outposts (ex, asteroid belt) that could send rescue ships to slow down/jumpstart our derelict ship.
but you would have the same issue with any single engine system, solar/plasma/NTR, etc. A good way to backup is to have a small fusion reactor as a backup (maybe even running on a minimal mode to allow it to be turned up and used at a moment's notice), and redundant fusion engines. My assumption is that you would have more than one engine anyway, to produce more thrust. Even if you don't use all your engines, you have redundancy. The thermal heat from the first reactor, that Josh mentioned, could be used to start another reactor, along with energy from emergency fuel cells.
Oh, and if someone steals your credit card, depending on the service you've bought, you may wind up having to suck it up or whatever. Stealing a credit card is the same as stealing cash, in this case. You always can't get back what you've lost. I believe all major credit cards have stolen card insurance, though.
Unless you mistated (Meaning "You can't always, etc"), I believe most major cards have ways of preventing loss. If you can prove that you didn't spend the money, the court will reimburse you/credit card company.
But a debit card is much different from a credit card!