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If Mars "secedes", I'm sure looking forward to a possible real life battle of worlds, something thus far only enjoyed through scifi and games.

by marze 10y ago

samstave 10y ago
How do you expect me to feed these five mouths?
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  What happened to the other one, Benny?
api 10y ago
If that happens we better hope it never escalates to physical conflict at any scale. Google "hypervelocity kinetic weapon" then factor in that adding a hydrogen bomb warhead wouldn't be much harder and would give it that much more punch. Have fun deflecting an inbound going 500k mph. Interplanetary war between players that advanced would be a really fast path to extinction.
aerovistae 10y ago
Laughable. What would they fight over? I love sci-fi too, but let's be realistic. If Musk succeeds, and I believe he will, it will still be quite a long time, possibly hundreds of years, before there's any notable population on Mars beyond a single city. They won't have any resources we don't have here, aside from Martian tourist trinkets, and the cost of getting resources from Mars to Earth would defeat any potential profit anyone could make. Musk has said this more than once. In scifi, this plot flaw is usually undone by having the alien planet possess a resource that can't be found or made anywhere else, like Avatar's unobtainium or Dune's Melange. But in the real world, that's not a thing. If we're not fighting over resources, then what? So what if the Martian colonists declare independence? Independence from who, anyway? "Earth"? Because it won't be an extension of any existing country, it won't just be "US territory on Mars." It'll be its own entity, with inhabitants from a variety of the countries on Earth. And it's not like Earth is going to be demanding "tribute" from it, that makes no sense on any level. In Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," the Earth demands grain shipments from the Moon to feed its overgrown population. But....is that likely, really? Are we really likely to be dependent on grain shipments from Mars? It's a fun scenario, but I doubt it. It seems more likely to me that they'll find ways to scale grain production with existing land, as they have done for decades and continue to do today.
- Crespyl 10y ago
  The one thing that I can think of which Mars has in abundance and is limited on Earth is plain old real-estate. In a century's time (give or take), being able to build sprawling, cheap (for certain values of cheap), polluting factories without having to worry about poisoning the local rivers or running afoul of environmental regulations might start to look like a decent deal.

If Mars "secedes", I'm sure looking forward to a possible real life battle of worlds, something thus far only enjoyed through scifi and games.

by marze 10y ago

If Mars "secedes", I'm sure looking forward to a possible real life battle of worlds, something thus far only enjoyed through scifi and games.

samstave 10y ago

How do you expect me to feed these five mouths?

logfromblammo 10y ago
What happened to the other one, Benny?

api 10y ago

If that happens we better hope it never escalates to physical conflict at any scale. Google "hypervelocity kinetic weapon" then factor in that adding a hydrogen bomb warhead wouldn't be much harder and would give it that much more punch. Have fun deflecting an inbound going 500k mph. Interplanetary war between players that advanced would be a really fast path to extinction.

aerovistae 10y ago

Laughable. What would they fight over? I love sci-fi too, but let's be realistic. If Musk succeeds, and I believe he will, it will still be quite a long time, possibly hundreds of years, before there's any notable population on Mars beyond a single city. They won't have any resources we don't have here, aside from Martian tourist trinkets, and the cost of getting resources from Mars to Earth would defeat any potential profit anyone could make. Musk has said this more than once. In scifi, this plot flaw is usually undone by having the alien planet possess a resource that can't be found or made anywhere else, like Avatar's unobtainium or Dune's Melange. But in the real world, that's not a thing. If we're not fighting over resources, then what? So what if the Martian colonists declare independence? Independence from who, anyway? "Earth"? Because it won't be an extension of any existing country, it won't just be "US territory on Mars." It'll be its own entity, with inhabitants from a variety of the countries on Earth. And it's not like Earth is going to be demanding "tribute" from it, that makes no sense on any level. In Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," the Earth demands grain shipments from the Moon to feed its overgrown population. But....is that likely, really? Are we really likely to be dependent on grain shipments from Mars? It's a fun scenario, but I doubt it. It seems more likely to me that they'll find ways to scale grain production with existing land, as they have done for decades and continue to do today.

Crespyl 10y ago
The one thing that I can think of which Mars has in abundance and is limited on Earth is plain old real-estate. In a century's time (give or take), being able to build sprawling, cheap (for certain values of cheap), polluting factories without having to worry about poisoning the local rivers or running afoul of environmental regulations might start to look like a decent deal.