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#1 2021-07-01 07:23:12

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,039

Social Structures: Financial - Ownership - Responsibility - Risk

For SpaceNut ... there was no topic containing the words: social and structure

This new topic is offered for those who might wish to add to a body of knowledge about social structures for various purposes, on Mars, on Earth or anywhere humans venture in times to come ...

The collapse of a 12 story building in Florida recently is revealing a weakness of a social structure in the United States, called "condominium".

This social structure was invented (I suspect) to solve the problem of one individual carrying all the risk of managing a large building occupied by hundreds of people for decades.

It is natural and understandable that the individual who arranged financing for this building would like to make a clean profit for construction, and then escape responsibility by finding another individual or an entity to accept responsibility.

The social structure created in the United States to permit the builder to escape responsibility is called "condominium".  The concept is that the ownership of the structure is distributed over a large number of people, and the management of the complex is assumed by a board of directors who come from the membership. The membership are the owners of shares of the property.

In the case of the Florida condominium, the design was flawed, so that the building was deteriorating more rapidly than it should have.  According to early news reports, the nature of the increased risk was made known to the board, and a number of them resigned. 

The costs of repairs were (reported to have been) quite large, and it is understandable that those who had invested their life savings to acquire a share of this building were unable to assume the costs of maintenance.

There is a possibility that the original builder can be held responsible for the design failure, but in defense, the builder may be able to argue that the building stood for 40 years, and that any responsibility on the part of the builder should have been retired after some reasonable number of years.

In the case of an automobile, a guarantee may last for three years.  In the case of a condominium, I would imagine a warranty of 10 years would be worth considering.

The point of this new topic within Civilization and Culture is to provide a way for forum members with posting privileges to add to collective wisdom about how best to arrange social structures to build and then maintain complex physical structures.

The physical structures to be constructed on Mars will be even more complex than those on Earth, because of the life threatening consequences of failure that come with pressure loss, energy loss, water loss and many other threats not faced by builders on Earth.

(th)

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#2 2021-07-01 09:28:26

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Social Structures: Financial - Ownership - Responsibility - Risk

We have a similar problem in the UK regarding responsibility for cladding of apartment block buildings (following a hugely lethal fire caused by non fire retardant cladding). It's too easy for central government, owners, builders, building managers,  local authority building control, Fire Service and others to pass responsibility one to the other and disclaim any responsiblity.

For Mars I think rather than create an economic sector around insurance, it would be better to have the Mars Consortium or Mars Government cover a range of risks, which would be in a published schedule. This would be backed up by law/regulation making clear the responsibility of various persons and organisations.

tahanson43206 wrote:

For SpaceNut ... there was no topic containing the words: social and structure

This new topic is offered for those who might wish to add to a body of knowledge about social structures for various purposes, on Mars, on Earth or anywhere humans venture in times to come ...

The collapse of a 12 story building in Florida recently is revealing a weakness of a social structure in the United States, called "condominium".

This social structure was invented (I suspect) to solve the problem of one individual carrying all the risk of managing a large building occupied by hundreds of people for decades.

It is natural and understandable that the individual who arranged financing for this building would like to make a clean profit for construction, and then escape responsibility by finding another individual or an entity to accept responsibility.

The social structure created in the United States to permit the builder to escape responsibility is called "condominium".  The concept is that the ownership of the structure is distributed over a large number of people, and the management of the complex is assumed by a board of directors who come from the membership. The membership are the owners of shares of the property.

In the case of the Florida condominium, the design was flawed, so that the building was deteriorating more rapidly than it should have.  According to early news reports, the nature of the increased risk was made known to the board, and a number of them resigned. 

The costs of repairs were (reported to have been) quite large, and it is understandable that those who had invested their life savings to acquire a share of this building were unable to assume the costs of maintenance.

There is a possibility that the original builder can be held responsible for the design failure, but in defense, the builder may be able to argue that the building stood for 40 years, and that any responsibility on the part of the builder should have been retired after some reasonable number of years.

In the case of an automobile, a guarantee may last for three years.  In the case of a condominium, I would imagine a warranty of 10 years would be worth considering.

The point of this new topic within Civilization and Culture is to provide a way for forum members with posting privileges to add to collective wisdom about how best to arrange social structures to build and then maintain complex physical structures.

The physical structures to be constructed on Mars will be even more complex than those on Earth, because of the life threatening consequences of failure that come with pressure loss, energy loss, water loss and many other threats not faced by builders on Earth.

(th)


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#3 2021-07-01 09:39:03

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,039

Re: Social Structures: Financial - Ownership - Responsibility - Risk

For Louis re #2

First, thanks for giving this new topic a solid running start!

Second, thanks for adding insurance to the mix ... I debated including it in Post #1, but decided the post was already too busy.

Third, your suggestion for a Mars situation is interesting (to me for sure) and it ought to provoke other members to contribute posts to the topic.

I am ** not ** looking for emotion here, tempting as it might be to indulge in it.

The intent of this topic is to attempt to collect useful insight, the occasional fact, and above all, practical advice for those who will be creating the actual social structures that will be needed.

At some point, after the physical structure of the Large Ship is well along, I expect that RobertDyck will turn his attention to the social structures that will provide for financing, construction, deployment, operation, maintenance and mothballing of each of the many Large Ships that (I hope) spring from his creativity.

Oldfart1939 will be designing social structures for his expedition.  In that he will (I trust) be assisted by peers he has requested to join him in laying out the design of the expedition from start to safe return of all personnel with samples from Mars.

(th)

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#4 2021-07-01 17:34:42

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,825

Re: Social Structures: Financial - Ownership - Responsibility - Risk

If the lot is still owned by the person that had it built they are still responsible for the structure as thats part of the governance of the sales for the individual condo's as they are only a paid up front lease thats financed...

Mars built means you the person that built it would be the occupant, so its going to be your problem.

The world is not prepared for large building collapses no matter what there cause to fall is or even where they are in the worlds many nattions that have experienced these sorts of collapses..

The site in Florida is becoming unstable and engineers are needing to pay close attention to the remaining structure as its making cracking noises.

The heavy equipment vibrations are most likely the cause as the rocks are dropped into trucks to be hauled away.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: … ted_States

Here is another that happened before it was completed

5 injured after building under construction collapses in DC

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