Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

clark · 2004-08-03 15:45:13

How about a heavy background screening to come up with potential candidates. Then distribution of the screening report including the details of crimes committed on the one hand, and positive contributions on the other, to all settlement inhabitants. Then everyone can observe a taped interview with the candidate, followed by a vote on whether to invite her or not.

Electronic tattoo. Same thing, but if you prefer that...

Not quite sure about the whole Survior-esque take on criminals. A giant popularity contest?

Because Martian exploration and settlement will be part of a system of scientific and technological development, most of the benefits of which will be seen in greater opportunities back on Earth.

Those same developments can be obtained at a fraction of the cost by forgoing actual exploration and settlement of Mars. We can do more and go further with the same resources by just pretending (as it were). We could learn to live at the bottom of the ocean and achieve just about all of the same results for an even wider population. So why Mars?

But, the feeling of opportunity can be enhanced by basing settlement chances on scrupulously fair competitive examinations of knowledge, reliability and efficiency of performance, stability of behavior with respect to the requirements of the settler's environment, etc. Maximize actual knowledge and proven performance, minimize, or even eliminate, relatively insignificant formal certifications.

Sure, it works for college aps, why not mars immigration. :laugh:

There could be some exceptions, for example, what if a particular problem required talents only possessed by someone like Stephen Hawking?

He has nor eal physical presence therefore he wouldn't need to be there to do what needs to be done. But I see what you are getting at.

smurf975 · 2004-08-03 15:47:05

Quote Smurf975 Aug 03 2004, 17:19
But still this isnt all. like on Earth the culture that dominates is not really the richest(else the Saudis and Kuwaitis would) but those that in some way appeal to to allotof different peoples and are advanced and have the best schools and personal technologies and freedoms
Using the Saudis as an example they are not the richest there upper class is but the majority of the population are poor and undereducated. It is for this reason and the lack of trust the Saudis upper class have for there own citizens that they employ so many foreigners to do the jobs they need. This means the Saudis are consumers just not producers and everything that they need is purchased and when the oil runs out.
A succesful society must be a general society and is capable of reacting to new enviroments allowing advantage to be taken. Also the society must be of a sufficient size to allow enough trained population to allow it to be a success. And it must stay the course. Holland did have colonies in the Americas and also in Africa and a lot in Asia, but with trouble at home and with a political union with Britain it decided to do away with its smaller American colonies, giving them to Britain.

I know about the situation in those mid east oil producing countries. But I was talking about the number you would see if would surf to the CIA world fact book.

But then, you still have swiss and luxembourg and perhaps other countries (Hong Kong and Singapore come to mind) but culturaly they are not that important. Although they do have higher standards of living then most powerfull and influential nations.

C M Edwards · 2004-08-03 15:50:16

You can solve this by importing people from poorer nations but if you don't want to loose your heritage as those people will make other people of another culture its not recommended. And perhaps they will also send a part of their wages to their homecountries which is a loss for the American economy.

Yes, but it's not necessarily a loss to the Marsian economy.

In examining the American example, it's important to know two things:

My Cajun grandmother and my Spanish aunt are both laughing at the suggestion that early cultural influences are obliterated by later influences,

and

The primary influence on US society today has nothing to do with who came out first in the settlement of the country. The primary influence is the citizens of the United States of America.

smurf975 · 2004-08-03 16:02:43

You can solve this by importing people from poorer nations but if you don't want to loose your heritage as those people will make other people of another culture its not recommended. And perhaps they will also send a part of their wages to their homecountries which is a loss for the American economy.
Yes, but it's not necessarily a loss to the Marsian economy.
In examining the American example, it's important to know two things:
My Cajun grandmother and my Spanish aunt are both laughing at the suggestion that early cultural influences are obliterated by later influences,
and
The primary influence on US society today has nothing to do with who came out first in the settlement of the country. The primary influence is the citizens of the United States of America.

Yes almost all immigrants want to become Americans and follow the American dream. What makes immigrants in the US adapt to American ways and standards is unknown to me. As in other countries they will form a closed group and keep their native countries habits. Although Americans do accept things from their native cultures if its interesting such as food.

But America is just a country and Mars is planet. Also if you would have had a very large concentration of Spanish or French people in the US back in the days, I'm sure their native cultures would have been more influentual.

So I think its imposible to have just one culture on Mars like in the USA. That is if there are many people of the same culture there.

Grypd · 2004-08-03 16:37:53

In a country the immigrants over time will have there culture blended with others to form a new form of that culture.

The Usa and Canada are examples of countries benefitting from diverse sources of cultures which are blending, Mexico is not. The majority of that culture are from one country and the previous culture was annihalated by the newer one.

The people who move to the new country are usually going there as they want to and this leads to a willingness to "get on with it". And the difficulty that all have to face on the frontier leads will force cooperation and a feeling of identity

Morris · 2004-08-04 09:51:27

Hi. Thanks for your thoughtful response.

There are basically two forms of societal change. Those which spontaneously follow as inherit in the "logics" of the system, and those that respond to challenges from outside or such aforementioned system intrinsic factors.

Yes, thanks for expressing it so well. I am especially interested in the intrinsic factors which influence the success of systems.

In the case of the Roman Empire, the shift from an aristocratic republic to a permanent dictatorship was more of the latter 'creative' type in my opinion, not the other way around. If the chaos and ever harsher class conflict of the aristocratic oligarchy had simply been allowed to run its course, it would have ended in fatally weakening the empire, leaving it open to disintegration and foreign occupation. Our present day civilization would never have evolved.

My comment was directed towards the disintegrative factors within the republic which led to the chaos. Class conflict was a part of it, but was it a greater part that currently exists in the United States? To me the big problem was the huge amount of personal power accumulated by a limited number of individuals with much too little control by the larger state. Almost all important government officials were the personal clients of one or another of these individuals. Unless citizens have a more powerful affiliation with the state than with any individual (or political party, I might add) then a highly functional life of the state cannot be maintained. If you have to be loyal to individuals, then it is much better to be loyal to a single individual (the emporer) than to have the constant strife associated with several individuals.

By installing a dictatorship, fundamentally based on merit and not class affilation, this danger was avoided and the empire could prevail for several centuries. The high point of Roman civilization is the era from Vespasian to Marcus Aurelius in my opinon, not the anachronistic chaos which was the late republic.

I think that there is a fair amount of agreement about the "high point" era of the Roman Empire. I am fascinated by your assertion that the dictatorship was superior because administration was fundamentally based on merit rather than class affiliation. Do you have some documentation for this?

Its final downfall, again, was not fundamentally due to internal weakness, there were several low and high points during the realm of the caesars, but the previously unprecedented magnitude of outside military pressure (the migration period).

I don't believe it for a microsecond! There is just too massive an evidence to indicate that it is not true. For one thing, huge migrations were periodic throughout Roman civilization. Even as early as the Republic they had to fight off huge hordes of Teutonic invaders. And the Romans didn't always win! At one point they lost some 80,000 men in a single battle. They lost the battle, but won the campaign because the Teutons of the time had a policy of turning aside if any people they encountered mounted a significant resistance.

For another, there were times when both the Eastern and the Western empires were threatened by the same migrations. The much weaker response of the Western Empire was surely due to internal weaknesses. A good example here is the resistance to the Huns.

Again, there is the reaction of people who were deep students of Mediterranean civilization. An example here is the work of Constantine Cavafy, an expatriate Greek who wrote a wonderful poem on this topic called "Waiting for the Barbarians". An excellent translation can be found in the book Six Poets of Modern Greece.

Not of an open society, no. Any society can in principle be an open society, even a non-democratic one, There is already an effective and omnipotent tool to control mind and spirit (read: Geist). It's called mass-media, presently in the hands of a limited same-thinking category of people, no one has elected. It produces and re-produces ways of seeing, not only restricted to the present but in relation to history and the future as well.

The media is certainly powerful, and in very deep ways. But perhaps not so strongly as some may think. And thank goodness for the internet (blogs, etc.)

The perspective I use here is a dialectic one: "there's only black and white in dialectics, you either hate or you love someone" in the words of Dennis Hopper, because you are trying to identify the decisive, qualitative essence.

Sounds like a basis for trouble to me. You either fail to recognize someone's faults or their good points. Same for ideas. Compromise is no longer a long-term possibility, only an expediency for temporary gain. This is getting to sound awfully familiar (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho). I think I'd rather just cut some deals and get on more or less amicably with others and life in general. That way we both make, and keep, our money and generate circumstances in which we can make more (or not, as we choose).

And the first law of dialectics is that everything turns into its own apparent opposite.

So Carl Jung tells us. That's because in our undifferentiated state we project our preferences onto all mankind and fail to understand the fundamental reality of the largely unconscious and unintegrated parts of ourselves. Yep, as I thought, always leads to trouble.

Morris · 2004-08-04 20:29:22

Not quite sure about the whole Survior-esque take on criminals. A giant popularity contest?

Yes, after the really bad ones are screened out and not even given a chance to apply. Then, I think it's only fair for people who will be living with them for decades to at least see a video of them.

Those same developments can be obtained at a fraction of the cost by forgoing actual exploration and settlement of Mars. We can do more and go further with the same resources by just pretending (as it were). We could learn to live at the bottom of the ocean and achieve just about all of the same results for an even wider population. So why Mars?

You think the cost of building hab domes at the bottom of the ocean, especially with all that pressure, will be cheap? But the bioadvances I had in mind depend on partial or microgravity.

But, the feeling of opportunity can be enhanced by basing settlement chances on scrupulously fair competitive examinations of knowledge, reliability and efficiency of performance, stability of behavior with respect to the requirements of the settler's environment, etc. Maximize actual knowledge and proven performance, minimize, or even eliminate, relatively insignificant formal certifications.
Sure, it works for college aps, why not mars immigration. :laugh:

Your capacity for "creative misunderstanding" is truly outstanding. What's the matter? The Gropenfuehrer not call you this evening. :laugh:

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-04-19 13:09:46

Musk plans 1,000-ship fleets to colonize Mars
https://newatlas.com/space/musk-mars-co … an-update/

The founder of SpaceX has never made a secret of his ultimate goal of colonizing Mars in order to make humanity a multi-planet species. Though he has previously made rather optimistic predictions about when he plans to send the first pioneering spacecraft to begin settlement, he has remained adamant about how he sees populating the solar system and beyond as a hedge against the fall of civilization or even human extinction.

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#51 2004-08-03 15:45:13

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#52 2004-08-03 15:47:05

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#53 2004-08-03 15:50:16

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#54 2004-08-03 16:02:43

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#55 2004-08-03 16:37:53

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#56 2004-08-04 09:51:27

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#57 2004-08-04 20:29:22

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

#58 2024-04-19 13:09:46

Re: Will Mars revitalize Terran society?

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