New Mars Forums

Indeed.

Rick, er, I mean random ISA supporter supporter who is not Rick, don't threaten people here. Critical debate is not slander, but threatening physical violence is outside the realm of civil discourse. Further such conduct is ban material.

We'd hate to have to bring this up at the next Skull and Bones meeting. 

great stuff.

The people of Earth will pay for their crimes! Hellfire and damnation upon the nonbelievers and space heathens!  :twisted:

We now return you to your regularly scheduled meltdown.

So start slower. Don't let anyone outright claim anything until some fairly solid infrastructure is in place, say a mine. Once the land is occupied and in use no protest amounts to much. Build precedent on precedent.

Whatever happens, the Outer Space Treaty is not going to govern what we do out there. There will be other guidelines devised as needed based on real activities, not what some lawyers with pens in their hands think is fair.

People tend to accept what is very quickly even if it isn't what should be. Get some activity happening ont he Moon, Mars or elsewhere and in short order the concept of "ownership" will seem natural. Legal regulation and de facto sovereignty follows, game on.

Muahahahaha!

It serves a number of purposes if done right. If it's set up for business purposes government can subsidize the effort. This gets infrastructure and tranportation in place at cut-rate prices (from a taxpayer perspective) and the sponsoring nation can deal for first-dib trading status. The business entity gets to write its own laws for the facility. No overbearing regulations, no taxation at the source. . .

Or a government could assist some dissident types in the task. Get some malcontents out of the country, test out some hardware, build some infrastructure and spread the host culture.

In both cases it skirts the Outer Space Treaty.  A private colony of citizens from a particular nation using equipment from that nation, in some case even "owned" by that nation. It grants de facto sovereignty, even if the colony is allowed to do whatever it damn well pleases. The host nation can retain a reasonable claim to jurisdiction over the people and the equipment, the people own the territory. It's a fine line. This makes future, less-shady activity easier from both a physical and political standpoint.

So in short, it allows us to avoid all that treaty-busting headache while essentially gutting it with a smile.

And let's face it, clark knows what he's talking about on this point. 

Then again, Bell's out-of-context citations do sort of illustrate the growing kook-factor in the space advocacy community.

Topic moved from "Human Missions" where it was quite out of place.

There's also no reason to have two threads dealing with this poll, so the lesser thread has been locked.

Why should exploration and exploitation be considered mutally exclusive? Without exploration you don't don't what's there to exploit. Exploration without exploitation is simply self-indulgence of curiosity on the part of a few at public expense. Either extreme is an indefensible position.

Explore and exploit along the way. Take what we need to keep going and if some folks make a buck on the way, just as well.

Easily the funniest thing I've read all day. Inspirational even. 

Funny folks those Pastafarians. Great at parties.

New Mars podcast eh, there's an idea. If anyone decides to head it up I could probably contribute some stuff and maybe edit audio if needed. Perhaps a relevant musical selection or two as well.

What you're missing is that freedom is relative. I'm not talking about freedom to do whatever you want with no regard for others. What I am talking about is forming a community of like-minded individuals who share a common set of values and act in a manner agreeable to all not because they're forced to but because they choose to.

It's really just freedom of association on a grand scale.

The Amish pay taxes, they're bound by the same regulations as anyone else. Can't just go claim a hill and raise a barn. They exist as a curiosity within the greater society, they can't really go their own way. Any group with grander ambitions than living like it was 1600 are even more restrained.

I want to keep the fruits of my labor. I want to build somethign that can't be taken away by government-sanctioned thieves under the color of law. I want to be left the hell alone. Can't get that here.

But feel free to light up clark.

Not when it comes from wide-eyed utopians, no one is seriously suggesting that we can build a magical land of fairies and rivers of honey where no one is ever sad and the trees sing gleefully as they pass out perfectly ripe fruit to all who pass by. Of course there are rules, simple physical realities that can't be cast aside.

But the human-imposed realities can be selectively discarded. If a few hundred like-minded people tried to create a closed community in some empty backwater of the US it would only be a short span of time before the authorities showed up with "you can't build that here without a permit, environmental impact studies, zoning. You still owe taxes, pay up or we'll kick you out. You can't structure your local government like that, you have to follow this model, you most certainly will not try that. No you can't expand your building, not without a permit, we've already been through this."

That's what can be escaped on Mars, communities can in theory be truly self-governing. Freer than most modern Americans can conceive. 

Bringing us to:

Yes, it would be absurd for an idividual trying to escape from all humans. But for a group of humans trying to escape from the overbearing control of others, that's another story. Perhaps they will build a better society. It won't be perfect by any means, but better is always possible, we have to grant that possibility. Otherwise what's the point of any change? Why even try to improve?

It wouldn't be all that different from living in a major city. All these people crammed together, going about their respective tasks, none of the natural beauty or freedom of Earth. A constant barrage of rules one must conform to as they live out there days in an artificial habitat bearing only a fleeting and mocking resemblance to the natural world man evolved in.

If you can live in New York, you can endure life on Mars.

But Mars has one priceless quality that no place on Earth offers. It's a clean slate, a chance to start over. Colonists could build any sort of society they desire, build a world in their own image rather than conform to what another world would have them be. That is freedom, the freedom to live as you will without bowing to the dictates of others who command without justifying.

On another level, empty deserts carry a beauty of their own. An entire world of resources of possibilities, such wonders waiting to be discovered. A future to create, discoveries to be made, and entire world to mold and inhabit. Earth is downright boring by comparison, everything's already done and claimed.