Corporate Government

kbd512 · 2021-10-26 19:56:09

tahanson43206,

Asserting the prevalence of white supremacy based upon someone living in a rural area is what I was getting at.

It's no different than if I asserted that, "the forces of ignorance and laziness are strong inside the urban areas." <- That's also a pretty arrogant and ignorant statement if you ask me. I've lived in cities for my entire life, and I'm pretty sure I'd take exception with someone making that assertion about me, based upon where I live.

The overriding point is that there are all kinds of people scattered throughout this country. Merely living some specific place does not automatically associate you with the worst behaviors of any small minority group in society.

Also, I called the specific statement arrogant and ignorant, not you. There's a pretty big difference between the two, and it's not semantics.

Take the point, not the arrow.

RobertDyck · 2021-10-29 21:54:54

Not sure where to post this, so I'll do it here. My first talk for the 2021 Mars Society virtual convention. 30 minutes, 16 seconds. First 10 minutes and 16 seconds are the PowerPoint presentation, the remaining 20 minutes were questions and discussion.
Newfoundland: historical example of settlement - Robert Dyck - 2021 Mars Society Virtual Convention

Terraformer · 2021-10-30 02:57:47

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Humans are humans - brilliant, messy, evil, heroic. And that is what colonising space will be. Messy. No-one is going to tolerate one group laying claim to the entirety of Mars, unless it's done with the assent of all spacefaring powers, and the debates over that could easily drag on for centuries.

Why are you so convinced that your Martian Federal Republic isn't going to go the way of the United States? Especially if things are set up expressly to prevent any rebellion from being possible. How is your constitution/charter going to be any more effective at holding back would-be autocrats than every other constitution ever written has been?

It's all so many words in any case. People will do what they've always done. Maybe, if we're lucky, House Musk will get there early enough that the other Houses will submit to them to avoid conflict. Space is not a friendly environment. Given the large amounts of capital involved in establishing settlements, there will be a natural tendency towards aristocratic/monarchic governance, because citizen-shareholders will want to safeguard their inheritance. Why stump up your families wealth to help build a city if all the later immigrants to it get to control what you built? No. The Plebians have their assembly where they can bring their petitions. But the Patricians are the ones who rule.

RobertDyck · 2021-10-30 10:20:21

Very pessimistic. One reason I became less active in the Mars Society was my attempt at politics. Actually, I changed focus to try to fix things here after I failed to win the SURE contract with NASA. It wasn't just that I didn't land the contract, although that one was ideal for my skills, experience, certifications. It was what was done to me to ensure I didn't have a chance. But in politics, I got screwed worse. I still haven't fully recovered from what was done to me. But what you said is why even try? Why even try to fix anything? No matter what, you're screwed. Truth is if you don't try, you will fail. You fail at every project that you don't try.

tahanson43206 · 2021-10-30 12:34:12

For RobertDyck re #204 and entire topic

Thanks for staying engaged despite discouragement encountered along the way...

Your topic here has engaged the deep thought of many very intelligent people over thousands of years. As usual, we living today are likely to have missed out on the lessons from history ... there's just too much history, and much of it is not accessible for various reasons.

It seems to me (borrowing one of those historical thoughts) is that the government you devise will work best if it operates with the consent of the governed.

An autocrat uses fear as the primary tool to enforce whatever policy the autocrat decides to impose.

Another well documented technique for autocratic government is to falsify the information delivered to the governed.

That's been going on for as long as records are available.

It seems to me that if you are going to devise a government to help to keep people alive and productive on Mars, it might make sense to look at the 17 person expedition in development by OF 1939. That team is going to consist of people (from Earth) who are highly intelligent, highly educated, very tolerant of other human beings, and very supportive of everyone else.

The US military has a lot of experience building combat teams along those lines, and I have no doubt other Nations have done the same.

The team that OF 1939 puts together could be a model for what your government on Mars might look like, if you can (somehow) get away from the idea of providing an outback for misfits.

Mars doesn't need any misfits from Earth. If someone wants to get away from everyone else there are closer places than Mars.

Women are NOT going to want to have to put up with a disorganized group of misfits who are at each other's throats.

Women are NOT going to want to have to put up with lack of a smooth running education system that insures each child achieves potential.

Women are NOT going to want to have to put up with a deficient medical support system for every family and every citizen not in a family.

If you want women to participate, you need to design a living arrangement that is comfortable for ** every ** citizen, and not just the misfits.

In working with the ancient posts from the early days of this forum, I can see there were a number of woman participating. It seems to me the quality/tone of the conversation was influenced by their presence. None remained after the Great Crash.

(th)

Terraformer · 2021-10-30 12:56:02

Maybe not everyone enjoys reading walls of text The posting rate remains the same, but it does feel that actual discussion has dropped precipitously.

RobertDyck · 2021-10-30 13:05:04

When I was a preschooler, I expected and wanted to get a university degree. I wanted to go to school at age 4, but there was no nursery school back then. I don't think people will voluntarily remain illiterate. The point form in post #170 was an attempt to restart the discussion. Perhaps I was too brief on that point. Rather than bricks-and-mortar school, I suggested virtual school. Yes, that means a curriculum if you want to graduate with a diploma or degree. With government organized computer education systems. Not live classrooms, not even live video conferencing, but recorded video by teachers/professors. With interactive computer programs to educate. This is a lot more practical on a planet with homesteads spread across the planet. And lower infrastructure cost. I do not see a need for school tax, school board, or other systems to set up computer based remote learning. Yes, parents could get involved to the degree they wish and are able.

Your characterization of freedom as "misfits at each other's throats" is disturbing. I expect better of an American.

I don't see why you keep saying "women". How are women different than men? I've met a lot of women who are just as libertarian as men. A lot of conservative women. Ann Coulter is just one. She's... well... I disagree with a lot of what she says, but she's a very high profile female conservative. There are a lot of others.

If you read through this entire thread from the beginning, you'll see I had initially suggested a healthcare system. The only way I could think of funding it was a payroll tax. I suggested a 10% payroll tax, paid by employers who hire non-family. So a cottage business of just parents and children would still be exempt. This did not go over well. Americans specifically jumped on me, on my posts. The very idea of tax on Mars!!! You're American, does the idea of privately funded healthcare really offend you?

Ps. I am disappointed that we never got most of our members back after the Great Crash. This was a lively place. Palomar (Cindy) briefly re-joined, but for some reason left. :'(

Last edited by RobertDyck (2021-10-30 13:05:57)

Terraformer · 2021-10-30 13:29:50

If Mars has city-states, they can see to their own healthcare, funded through their own taxation. If a woman doesn't like it not being available to homesteaders, then she shouldn't marry a man who insists on homesteading (in any case, when there's a hundred miles of near vacuum and not-even-dirt between you and the hospital, emergency healthcare kind of becomes abstract).

RD, there *are* meaningful average differences between men and women. A lot of overlap of course - all traits follow a distribution, and masculinity/femininity are no exception. But Ann Coulter, and others like her, are outliers rather than the norm. Mars is going to be testosterone poisoned for quite a while...

Which probably means they'll be living in buried starships for quite a while, given the ability men seem to have to tolerate bare and unfinished homes.

kbd512 · 2021-10-30 16:49:01

Terraformer,

How exactly will Mars be "testosterone poisoned"?

As opposed to "estrogen poisoned"?

What if we merely focused on preventing Mars from becoming "useless ideology poisoned"?

That'd be a great start.

Terraformer · 2021-10-31 02:54:26

I was using it as a reference to a heavy gender imbalance in the Martian population, tilted towards males... if it was tilted towards females, then yes, estrogen poisoned would be an appropriate term.

If a colony is to succeed, Mars needs women.. And children. It's cities and societies and governments need to be built with families in mind if they are to be anything more than research outposts. TH is right about focusing on the needs of women.

In working with the ancient posts from the early days of this forum, I can see there were a number of woman participating. It seems to me the quality/tone of the conversation was influenced by their presence. None remained after the Great Crash.

Huh? I've just been assuming everyone who doesn't have a male name (Gary, Robert, Louis) on here is a woman. Very masculine women, and disproportionately sapphic given the references to wives, but women nonetheless

tahanson43206 · 2021-10-31 08:16:11

With a nod to Terraformer ....

For RobertDyck ... this is an important topic .... I'd like to see it continue to develop ...

At present, I see no history of thinking that would lead to a community of contented, productive people who want to live (a) and want to help others (b), and want to contribute to a group achievement.

However, in your persistence in trying to advance thinking in this topic, there is a chance of progress. Regression is inevitable, as members reveal their deep seated views, but the overall trend ** should ** be positive.

The doors to this forum are open, and women are as welcome to apply for membership as anyone else.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-10-31 09:32:47

The initial journey of man to mars will be a frontier that are not for the ill of heart and should be compared to the wild west where it was the mountain men that set the stage of knowledge for those that followed. So in time we will have woman on mars.

Terraformer · 2021-10-31 10:10:59

Are there other examples of colonisation that can be drawn on? The wild west wasn't the only time a group of people moved into a new and hostile territory. The Polynesians, for example, travelled across large stretches of the pacific to new islands. The Norse found their way to Iceland. Did they follow the same pattern of men going first, building a colony, and then women coming later?

Terraformer · 2021-10-31 10:22:58

Robert has given us Newfoundland. Okay. Commercial interests first, returning home every winter. That's a base though, not a colony. At some point you want to get to an actual colony, with families.

How many of the homesteaders were single men, rather than families? If we do get some Sovereign of Mars, it may decide to put limits on who gets to homestead, preferring family groups over individuals. Mars is a harsh general - it may even decide that only groups are permitted to immigrate, as lone wolves cannot provide for themselves on such a world and would become a burden. Perhaps relaxed for certain cities, but if you want to go start your own settlement, you need a minimum number of people with you... a Sovereign, after all, wants its planet to be *successful*, not scattered with random houses in various states of repair.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-01 07:10:20

For Terraformer re #214

I like the direction you appear to be heading with this post, and hope other members will provide support as we go along.

For RobertDyck .... clearly there was a transition from all male fisherfolk at some point. Does your study of that period include details about how that transition occurred? There might have been an enterprising fisherman who saw a commercial opportunity to serve the population who showed up with supplies or perhaps even "home cooked" meals? Perhaps that person enlisted some brave (trusting) woman to join him in the venture?

For Terraformer ... I have difficulty imagining how a "Sovereign" has a chance of coming into being on Mars, with present trends.

it seems highly likely to me that China and Musk will set up independent bases, and the two groups will most certainly NOT have a close relationship. It seems highly likely that a minimal emergency communication link will be established for traffic control in orbit, if for nothing else.

The Indians and Arabians seem (to me at least) potential providers of travelers to Mars.

I have said before and will repeat here ... it seems to me inevitable that at some point the people who set up shop on Mars are going to want to limit access to the planet for a great variety of reasons. Just as securing the coasts was a priority for the newly minted United States, so will securing the orbital space around Mars become a priority for those who make the heavy investment to land there.

The risk of injury caused by an unwanted arriving object will (at some point) become too great.

The people of Earth are edging toward trying to protect themselves from unwanted objects that might intrude in the vicinity of Earth. That will certainly be a part of the thinking of those who set out to settle Mars.

(th)

Terraformer · 2021-11-01 07:33:05

th,

I don't think immigration will be restricted on a planetwide level, not without some kind of sovereign. But in order to move to Mars you are going to need somewhere to live, and if no city wants you and you can't afford to found your own, it's hard to imagine anyone selling you a ticket.

How many people are even going to be able to meet the requirements to contribute on Mars? No colony is going to want people below average in intelligence - that's half the population ruled out right there. Probably they'll only be willing to take the top 10% (120+ IQ). Of that group, they won't want anyone with serious health conditions, unless they have other traits which make them worth the burden on the healthcare system (e.g. being an absolutely brilliant life support technician). They'll want people who have proven themselves to be conscientious. The colonists need to be able to fit into the culture of the city they're going to.

After all this, we're talking maybe 1-2% of the global population who could even be candidates. How many of them actually want to go? I think Mars easily has enough room for 8-40 million Terrans to move there. (0.1-0.5% of the human race). It's going to be a while before immigration for the merely-above-average Joe becomes a possibility (but if the settlements succeed, it will).

NewMarsMember · 2021-11-01 07:56:57

For Terraformer re #216

I am finishing up morning activities, and noted the arrival of your prediction of the kinds of people likely to arrive on Mars.

Thanks for this significant contribution to RobertDyck's topic here!

I am looking forward to seeing RobertDyck's vigorous defense of the 98%.

(th)

kbd512 · 2021-11-01 11:21:58

Terraformer,

I'll tell you exactly why we're not a good solution to every problem, nor even most of the problems that will be encountered in a frontier environment.

Most of us can't be bothered to clean our own toilet, we only have significant expertise in a singular field of study (and typically thoroughly disinterested in anything else), many of us have highly neurotic personality traits (the mere fact that so many of us think people with lower IQs are such a threat to our dominance illustrates this point), and we're typically not very good at improvising or compromising. We frequently fixate on "perfect" solutions to problems, instead of accepting adequate solutions that resolve the immediate problem, however imperfectly. Did I mention how disagreeable most of us are? That's never good when teamwork is required.

How many immediately life-threatening problems require advanced math and science skills to solve?

Apart from piloting a spacecraft manually during reentry, the answer to that question is likely near-zero.

For example, if a life support system is so complex that it requires advanced math and science to repair, then that's indicative of a bad basic design that should never have been sent to Mars to begin with.

Any environment so hostile to human life that it requires routine practical demonstration of advanced math and science skills, is not some place you would ever willingly put children. If there are no children, then there is no human civilization, because children are the next generation of human civilization.

All societies have young / old / strong / weak / healthy / sick / more intelligent / less intelligent people. If you think we're going to create some defect-free utopian version of humanity on another planet, then you're wrong.

Nobody with an advanced degree built or repaired any part of the technology that runs human civilization. They did design it, which is very helpful when prototyping or designing new technology, but we're not sending prototypes of anything to Mars. Anything we send there will be thoroughly tested, spare parts will be included, and repair manuals provided.

There are no PhD holders on construction sites. The guy who built your car never graduated from college. The guy who fixes your car never graduated from college. The guy who built your cell phone and laptop and any other appliance you own, never graduated from college. The guy who designed the microchips in your car or computer probably has a PhD in electrical engineering or physics. The guy who repairs computers when they fail is probably still in high school, yet knows more about computers than 99% of the people on the planet ever will, including people who went to college and possess fantastically high IQs.

What kind of culture are we looking to create on Mars?

Is it the snobbish beliefs in intellectual and moral superiority that the nazis held?

Or the idea that we're creating a human society, that colonizing Mars is a human endeavor, and that to do that we need people who are good-natured, hard-working, and willing to tolerate huge risks on the mere chance of creating a brighter future for humanity?

Terraformer · 2021-11-01 11:39:13

kbd,

What the absolute f*** are you talking about.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-01 11:45:32

For kbd512 and Terraformer ...

I think there is a solution to this debate in which you both can end up winners.

Rather than provide it (since I have done that already in other topics) I'm asking the two of you to see the solution for your selves.

To frame the discussion as I see it right now ...

kbd512 believes that there will be ordinary people (ie, the 98%) on Mars in the future, doing menial labor and happy to do it.

Terraformer is offering the prediction that only the 2% will actually go to Mars in any foreseeable future.

Can the two of you work out a view of the future that accommodates ** both ** predictions?

(th)

RobertDyck · 2021-11-01 11:56:07

St. John's Newfoundland also had whalers from Basque. This was a time before invention of plastics or petroleum products. Whale oil was used for lamps, whale bone was carved to make products, etc. There was a need for support so eventually carpenters and blacksmiths set up shop. Bakers made bread. The fishing camp grew to become a village, then a town, then a city. With all the support services of a city.

France established a colonies in Quebec, Acadia, and Louisiana. They trapped animals for fur, and harvested tree sap to make maple syrup that they called "sugar". Certain types of tree were harvested for timber, white oak and "live oak", because that special type of wood was very strong, required for military combat ships. "Live oak" only grows in southern North America: along the Atlantic coast from southeast Virginia to Florida, west along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana and Mexico, and across the southwest to California. The name "live oak" is from the fact the tree grows year round, it doesn't become dormant in winter. It only grows in warmer climates. Fur trade became big business. Quebec doesn't have live oak, but does have white oak, and did have fur and maple syrup. Quebec colonies were required to provide food locally, including wheat fields using seed grain brought from Europe, and meat from the animals trapped for fur. Most of the colonists were men, Quebec had to periodically send more colonists. Eventually the king of France was tired of having to send more colonists to Quebec, so he sent a shipment of women, young prostitutes from the streets of France. His orders were to get married and have children so Quebec will raise their own men, so he doesn't have to spend money to send more men. The men were quite pleased at a shipment of young single women looking for husbands.

RobertDyck · 2021-11-01 11:56:34

Acadia was a large colony, covering what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Magdalen Islands. From 1604 to 1607 their territorial claim included all of Maine and the Atlantic coast of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and all of Rhode Island. Britain and France fought over this land many times in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s. Eventually in the 1700s the British conquered Acadia, required civilian French colonists to swear allegiance to the British crown or leave. Many did leave to the French colony of Louisiana. British soldiers confiscated their valuables and stored food, didn't compensate them for land, so they moved with very little. They arrived in Louisiana quite poor. These Acadians had developed a separate culture, remained distinct from other Louisiana French colonists. They settled in low value land that others didn't want. Over time in Louisiana the name "Acadian" was slurred to become "Cajun". Those who stayed to live under British rule are still called Acadians.

Not sure if that's relevant, but just so you know.

kbd512 · 2021-11-01 13:43:21

tahanson43206,

From my perspective, Terraformer was asserting, for example, that her (please forgive me if I have that wrong, but I seem to recall her stating that she was a woman in another thread) personality traits make her unsuitable for going to Mars in some way. My response to that is, why the hell not? What makes her think she's not capable of going to Mars and doing as good a job there as anyone else? You receive baseline education and training, and then you practice until you get good at something.

None of this is a swipe at anybody. It's asking why we can't simply send trained young men and women. I'm providing counter-points for why we don't need to send every highly educated and high IQ person to Mars. I think that's highly unrealistic, even if it were desirable, and it's not at all clear to me that it would be. What specific situation are we afraid of that reasonably intelligent young men and women can't solve? If we send a spectrum of our society to Mars, why won't that work?

When you send people into a particularly hazardous environment, before you send them there, you do this silly little thing called "training". As someone who spent time in the military, same as I did, you are well aware of how that works. We didn't require the smartest people on the planet to do that job, nor were we able to take the people who were the least intelligent. In other words, sending someone who was mentally retarded into close combat made about as much sense as sending someone with a PhD in physics. Between those extremes, the military did take and successfully used a very broad spectrum of people from every walk of life.

There's nothing "wrong" or "bad" with doing manual labor, but when you're building a second branch of human civilization from scratch, you're going to be doing a lot of manual labor. That's baked into "constructing a second branch of human civilization from scratch".

Do you think architectural engineers would be happy pouring concrete, merely because they're doing it on Mars?

If mere location doesn't change the definition of "pouring concrete" between Earth and Mars, then I assert you'll need a lot more people interested in pouring concrete, than designing buildings, and that any plans for new buildings can be E-mailed to Mars, even if it takes a half hour.

The number of people with advanced degrees and high IQs who are pouring concrete is likely to be vanishingly small. Similarly, the number of sanitation engineers, aka "garbage men", who need to advanced math skills to "sanitize Mars habitation spaces", is likely to be pretty small.

Terraformer · 2021-11-01 14:21:28

What makes her think she's not capable of going to Mars and doing as good a job there as anyone else?

Because (at the moment) I'm a miserable little pile of dysfunction. If (no, when!) I sort these out, sure, I could do something, if I learned how. Probably arguing with people about why we should be using composting toilets instead of the fancy, complex, and prone to breaking ones that have been designed by a NASA contractor....

(Okay, I'll admit it - Anna on the Moon [see Martian Chronicles subforum] is a self-insert fantasy...)

Though they may not want someone who may need a heart valve replacement at some point. Going to be a while before Mars has a fully equipped cardiology unit.

I don't consider 120 to be 'high iq' in the genius level sense though. That's basically the top set in school. Not all of them are working as engineers or research scientists - a good number are electricians, teachers, nurses, and even builders (and intelligence helps them do those jobs!). Maybe the threshold won't be that high. But there will be a threshold, and it's unlikely to be as low as the US military puts it (bottom ~15% in IQ, 83, cannot join). At least people will have to be above average. I don't think Mars is going to be importing Irish navvies to build stuff, especially if robots can do the job. How much does each worker cost, simply getting there? What happens when the work dries up?

And as I said, it's not just intelligence. Svalbard deports you if you don't have a job. It is illegal to die there. If you're pregnant, you get deported. Not that a permanent settlement couldn't exist there, but when resources are limited you have to be very selective. Should Mars reach the point where they have thriving cities, sure, that could change. But it's going to take a long while to reach that point.

kbd512 · 2021-11-01 15:12:02

Terraformer,

It may be illegal to die on Svalbard, but I'd like to see them try to prosecute that case.

Deporting pregnant women means there will never be a new generation of humanity living on Mars, unless it's solely a tourist destination, like Svalbard.

What's the point of going to Mars as a colonist if you're not allowed to start a family there?

Magnificent desolation may be intriguing to behold for a little while, but eventually you'll need someone else to talk to.

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