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Do individual people unrelated to the origination of the policy have full authority to suggest changes of the Los Harcones policy drafts, and what criteria are employed to say which suggestions will be implemented? Does Los Harcones have an equivalent to the memo/ultimatum common in bureaucratic heirarchies?
Mr. Edwards:
Anyone can suggest changes to policy drafts, even visiting anthropologists. When considering changes to drafts, the Los Horconans pay special attention to the long-term consequences of policy proposals (they do not like being bitten by "unintended consequences"). Their policy drafts are not ultimatums and cannot be such. They are trying to build a society that does not have norms enforcers (i.e., police) and so they realize that they cannot operate by ultimatum.
Los Horcones is small; only about 45 people. It is not appropriate to think of them as having a bureaucracy. I think of them as a neo-tribal society. They use 21st century technology but their social relationships are very face-to-face and personal. The most important difference between Los Horcones and a traditional tribe is that the Los Horconans have a naturalistic, scientific worldview. They do not use assertions about supernatural beings and forces to explain their world or to justify their policies.
Scott
Scott, some of the most prevalent problems with bureaucratic heirarchies stem from their inefficiencies in passing information from one point to another within their own structure. Does the Los Horcones community have typical and/or unique methods of passing information within its structure, and are there any problems common with them?
Mr. Edwards:
The Los Horconans have weekly governance meetings that are attended by all of the members of the community. These meetings facilitate the transfer of management information to the whole community. They also draft policy statements and proposed rules and circulate those drafts and proposals through the community until they arrive at a consensus about what the policies and rules should be. They do not suffer from significant "information gaps." They realize that their governance system would probably not work for a larger community (e.g. 1,000 people or more).
Scott
I wonder: do they have a Dilbert Problem unique to their own model?
CME:
I am not familiar enough with the Mr. Dilbert and his cohorts to be able to tell you if the people of Los Horcones have similar problems. I can tell you that the Los Horconans take their policy-making activities very seriously. They continually evaluate the effectiveness of their governance structure and will not hesitate to experimentally modify that structure when they find a systemic "problem."
The Los Horconans collect volumes of data about their behaviors and they deliberately control the evolution of their culture. In contrast, Mr. Dilbert and company seem to be trapped by their traditions. The Los Horconans are probably better able than any other people on Earth to undertake the task of designing and building human sociocultural systems that are adapted to Mars. That is exactly why I went to Los Horcones to study their "cultural engineering" techniques.
Scott
I was talking about an international treaty, not the UN. The UN is inefficient to the extreme. The treaty should form an independant international body which will control Mars affairs. To the very least, this organization should be composed of the representatives of all nations that will participate in the colonization project.
Joel:
I agree that Mars should be governed by "an independent international body." My solution the The Problem of Owning Mars is based on this idea.
The fifth paragraph of Article 11 of the Moon Treaty reads as follows: "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. This provision shall be implemented in accordance with article 18 of this Agreement."
These provisions of the Moon Treaty provided the inspiration for my proposal that the Mars Society (an international organization) adopt a constitution for a Provisional Government of Mars and then ask the United Nations to endorse that constitution.
Scott
Regarding Walden Two as a model for government, the social management style Dr. Skinner expounded on has actually seen extensive use in several places in the business community.
Dear Mr. Edwards:
The governance system of Comunidad de los Horcones is structurally very different from the fictional governance system of Walden Two. These governance systems are similar in that they are both based on scientific principles and an experimentalist doctrine. (If you go to the Los Horcones web site you will see that they describe their community as a "political experiment." The link to their site is in my previous message.)
The people of Los Horcones have adopted the term "personocracy" to describe their governance system. From an anthropological perspective, I think that their personocracy is philosophically similar to the governance system of a traditional Japanese village. They try to avoid being democratic (tyranny of the majority) and seek governance solutions that take into account and accommodate the needs of every person in the community, hence the term personocracy.
Scott G. Beach
The governments of martian settlements might be similar to the governance system of Comunidad de los Horcones (click here). Los Horcones is based on B.F. Skinner's utopian novel Walden Two. The people of Los Horcones use scientific techniques to control their own and each others behavior. Their system of self-control and social-control is based on an experimental and scientific foundation.
Scott
Considering how gun-saturated U.S. society is, I'd be very interested to see how some U.S. citizens colonizing Mars would react if suddenly deprived of the "right to bear arms." Yeah, that could get pretty danged interesting.
Cindy:
If I were a voting member of a martian settlement I would probably vote in favor of giving electric stun guns and net-projecting guns to law enforcement officers. I see absolutely no reason for deer rifles or shotguns no Mars. There are no deer or pheasants on Mars.
Scott
I think that your proposal is a good one under the existing treaties. The only area where I would quibble is the "no weapons" clause.
Mark:
The "no weapons" provision was heavily debated by the members of the Civilization and Culture Group. I included that provision because it is already in current space treaties and because I wanted to maximize the possiblilty that the U.N. General Assembly would endorse the Constitution of the Provisional Government of Mars. After the establishment of only two settlements, the Constitution can be amended by the martian parliament. The martian parliament can make whatever weapons laws that it believes appropriate, and, in my opinion, that kind of local control is best.
But these political issues must be solved by the UN and by the Mars-faring nations before colonization begins.
I strongly agree that these "political issues" must be resolved BEFORE colonization begins.
Scott
Who owns Mars? Who should govern it? This topic has been included as a special evening session for the 5th International Convention in Boulder. INTERNATIONAL being the key word.
My "international" proposal for governing Mars is posted on the web at http://www.geocities.com/scott956282743/index.htm
Please review it and let me know what you think.
Scott
Matt, et al:
I posted my essay about owning Mars on the web at http://www.geocities.com/scott956282743/index.htm. This latest update contains a draft lease between the Provisional Government of Mars and a consortium of terrestrial nations. Please take a look at the draft lease and let me know what you think of it.
Scott
However, here's the big question: How do we avoid war on Mars over land disputes?
Cindy:
My draft constitution provides that a Center Monument may not be placed within 21 kilometers of any other Center Monument. Since each settlement area is 10 kilometers in radius, there will be a buffer zone between settlements. The buffer zone will be at least 1 kilometer wide. This rule could generate a settlement pattern that looks like the dimples on a golf ball. In the absence of common borders, we would not see the kind of "border wars" that neighboring terrestrial states engage in.
Clark:
I could revise my draft constitution to include a limit on the amount of martian territory that could be leased. For example, I could revise Section 8 to read: "The Government may establish and maintain a Mars Development Bank. The Bank may lease portions of Mars to people, companies, and states for periods of up to 50 martian years, except that the total of all leased areas shall not exceed x percent of all martian territory.
What numerical value should replace the x? How about 25 or 33?
Clark:
In response to my previous message you wrote, "It favors the Industrialy Developed nations which have the funds to purchase the tracts of land on Mars."
I am firmly opposed to allowing terrestrial nations to purchase tracts of land on Mars. My proposal allows leases ONLY.
And you wrote that the Mars Development "Bank is also biased towards Industrialized Nations since they at present are the only ones even capable of considering the exploitation or exploration of the Red Planet."
Please note that a consortium of rich and poor nations could jointly lease tracts of land on Mars and that those nations could contribute to lease payments on an ability-to-pay-basis (i.e., countries with larger GNPs would pay proportionately larger shares of the leasing costs).
You also wrote, "the Martian Bank invest[s] the funds used to aquire lease rights on Mars to help fund settlement and exploration of Mars- a noble goal, however, who would they send to Mars?"
I would like to see at least one prototype martian settlement in every country on Earth. Each settlement could periodically choose one family to go to the full-scale prototype settlement in Antarctica. If they can survive a year there then they would become eligible to emigrate to Mars.
You asked, "...being the inhabitants of Mars, wouldn't they be exploiting the resources for their own benefit but paying Earh Nations for that right since the nations are leasing it from the Mars Bank- what do the Martians pay with if all the resources are leased?"
Each group of settlers will have a Settlement Charter that allows them to take control of an area 10 kilometers in radius (KIR). That area may or may not be located inside a larger area that is leased to a terrestrial nation or consortium of terrestrial nations. If a settlement is located outside of a leased area then the settlers will be able to exploit their 10KIR exclusively for their own benefit and in accordance with laws that they adopt. If they choose to locate their settlement in a leased area then they will have to negotiate a resource extraction agreement with the leaseholder.
And you wrote, "...no nation would invest unless they could reasonably expect to get people on Mars and exploiting the lease..."
These leases are not commercial leases. Terrestrial nations will not expect to recover the cost of the lease payments through resource extraction agreements with settlers. For the first 100 years, colonizing Mars is going to be a very expensive losing proposition, just as early European attempts to colonize the North America were very expensive losing propositions. However, the leasing arrangement that I have proposed allows terrestrial nations to join together to colonize Mars WITHOUT exercising sovereignty over Mars. Please regard my proposal as a temporary solution to a terrestrial POLITICAL problem, not as a solution to the problem of paying for the cost of colonizing Mars.
And you wrote, "The plan leaves out 3/4 of humanity becuase they are too poor and only serves to perpetuate the status quo."
As I have previously stated, rich and poor nations can join development consortiums and apportion costs among themselves on an ability-to-pay basis. I cannot insure that this will happen but I will strongly advocate that it occur. And if I were a member of the Board of Directors of the Mars Development Bank then I would probably not approve leases unless the lessees provided written documentation of such agreements. My proposal can and should be implemented in an equitable manner.
You wrote, "The universe belongs to us all, or it belongs to a select few- which is it?"
Extraterrestrial territories do not currently belong to anyone; not to "us all" and not to "a select few." I have proposed a regime that will allow settlers to own their homes and businesses and enough territory to support themselves. That's "fair."