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Events today on Earth have polarized many people. Politics has become extreme, with individuals defending their camp rather than looking at the big picture. We even have propaganda coming from political parties and government of countries that should know better. This raises the question: why do we want to go to Mars? What do we want to achieve on Mars? This has a couple goals: one is to identify why we're doing this, why we want to go to Mars at all. The other goal is to get people to take a hard look at what is happening at home right now, look at the "camp" you have gotten into, stop the polarized us-vs-them mentality, try to work together.
First goals:
Minimal government, ideally no government. We do need basic infrastructure, but we need to ensure government is not treating citizens as slaves, that we do not exist to support government. If government is set up to support the rich, and treat average citizens as slaves, that's a major problem. That's what we're trying to get away from. We definitely do not want to duplicate that on Mars.
No tax. Yes, I said zero tax. Tax is theft. You could get picky about legal terms: extortion, embezzlement, etc. But tax is theft. Do we need tax to support a government structure that molly-coddles citizens? Absolutely not! One issue is if government takes a large portion of your income or your wealth, a significant portion of that will be given to the rich instead of providing government services.
We don't want government controlling society or controlling children. Many people have claimed that public school exists to indoctrinate children with values the parents do not agree with. That is absolutely not the purpose of public school. If that's happening where you live, you need to get involved and stop it.
As a solution to public school, I have suggested Mars use latest technology. We can home-school children. With education programs on personal computers (desktop, tablet, smartphone, etc), and with recorded videos of lectures. A lot can be done to record lessons so a teacher does not have to be in front of a class. This can be hybridized: with Zoom or equivalent, a class of children can interact with each other.
Here's one of the problems. In Canada, cost is between $15,000 and $30,000 per child per year to send a child to private school. That's day school, where children come home after school every day. Boarding school costs between $60,000 and $83,000 or higher. There is no way a young couple in their 20s could afford that. And that's not including expenses that parents currently pay to send their children to school, that just replaces school tax. And in Canada, a home owner must still pay school tax anyway, even if they send their children to private school. What I'm saying is the home-school with computers idea could replace this. Keep cost affordable, so it doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars per child per year. This would eliminate school tax entirely.
Realize what school tax is. Democracy cannot exist unless voters understand the issues. A modern technological society cannot exist without a literate population. How do you use a computer if you cannot read or write? Complex use of computers has become critical. So everyone must be educated. Miners no longer go down a hole with a pickaxe and shovel. They don't even operate power drills and equipment. The modern way of mining is to use a computer to remotely operate heavy equipment down in the mine. The operator is on the surface, so a cave-in will not threaten anyone's life. Farmers operate combine harvesters, and use complex equipment to apply fertilizer and herbicides. Everyone must know complex information. So education is critical for society. But a young couple in their 20s cannot afford to send children to school. But children must be educated, or they will not be able to get employment, they will not be able to contribute to modern economy. The solution was public school, paid with school tax. Everyone pays, from the time you move out of your parent's home into your first apartment, until you die. Nursing homes aka long-term care homes are not charged school tax, but every house, apartment building, or condominium is. Instead of paying an exorbitant amount of money that you cannot afford when you're in your 20s and just starting your career, instead you pay a smaller amount all your life. It's spread out.
Yes, if you live in an apartment, the building manager pays school tax. It's included in your rent.
Also, you don't want to penalize people for having more children. We want more children, so there will be enough people in the next generation to maintain the roads, maintain electric power generating stations, maintain power transmission lines that deliver power to your home, maintain water treatment facilities, water mains to deliver water to your home, sewer systems, sewage treatment plants, etc, etc, etc. So penalizing a couple who has many children is wrong. This means everyone pays the same amount, regardless whether they have no children, one child, few children, or many.
I'm going on about this because in the city where I live, certain individuals have argued to abolish the public school system entirely. They don't have children, or their children are now adult and moved out. Why do they have to pay school tax? Answer is above.
There is an alternative. You can home-school your children, with computers. That provides video, interactive computer games designed to teach, etc. This can reduce cost so it is affordable to educate children, without school tax. Without public schools; without buildings or yards, or expensive physical infrastructure. If a town or city on Mars wants to build public schools anyway, they can. But it will not be nationwide, or planet-wide.
I just typed a lot about school. This is only one example. A lot of the infrastructure maintained by government can be replaced by better alternatives. Take control away from government, make citizens independent.
We have a lot of crap happening on Earth right now. It's amazing how people have been distracted from what's really going on. In the US, freedom of speech and freedom of the press is a major part of the First Amendment. It's absolutely necessary for democracy. But Donald Trump has sued ABC for defamation. Russia is far worse; they just shut down YouTube, WhatsApp, X (Tinder), and now restricted Telegram. Uploading files to Telegram is not allowed, only text, and speed for Telegram is drastically slowed. The Russian government wants everyone to use Max, which allows the FSB (successor to KGB) to monitor everything you say and do. With Max, your microphone is always on, and the camera turns on at random times to monitor you. If you say something the government doesn't like, you're in trouble. Even if you don't post, just carry your device, the fact the microphone can hear you means it's a spy device. Obviously people in Russia are angry, they don't want to use Max. And Max doesn't currently allow streaming video, so even content creators in Russia who want to support government propaganda can't deliver their content to their subscribers, so they're angry. Will this happen in the US? If the government is allowed to do so, they will.
I live in Canada. What was done during COVID was wrong. Police crack-down of trucker protesters in Ottawa in 2022 was also very, very wrong. Luckily no one was killed. Federal Court in Canada has heard the case that enacting the Emergency Measures Act was illegal, and has ruled it was illegal. Not just a technicality; illegal. Government appealed to Appellate Court (aka Court of Appeal), and the ruling of all judges was 100% in favour of the ruling by Federal Court. We have yet to hear if Government will appeal to the Supreme Court, but considering the ruling by Appellate Court was entirely in favour of the ruling by Federal Court, it's likely the Supreme Court will refuse to even hear the case. My point is we have to ensure this sort of crap does not happen on Mars.
Starting a new civilization on Mars means we have to think about the big issues, create a system that solves current problems, and prevent new ones.
Are people of this forum capable of addressing the big issues? Are they capable of stepping back from the petty bickering of one political party vs another, of us vs them? Are they capable of the big issues? Read Magna Carta, a huge step in freedom and democracy from England in 1215. Of the US Declaration of Independence, the US Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the Constitution) ratified December 1791, of the US Constitution itself, of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? All great documents. Are people of this forum capable of thinking at that level? I am asking you to do so. To be as important as one of the Founding Fathers of your country.
To be picky, here's a website with a list of 15 Historical Documents that Changed History.
To be fair and not Anglo-Centric, that website includes Treaty of Paris 1783, and Treaty of Versaille 1919.
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