> Will it be a Musk dictatorship? A corporate fiefdom? Rich people remaking society in their own image wasn't exactly the space dream I grew up with. i see th

> Will it be a Musk dictatorship? A corporate fiefdom? Rich people remaking society in their own image wasn't exactly the space dream I grew up with. i see the possibility, with corporations there is always the option of quitting the job - that's the limiting factor, so that it can't get really totalitarian as it doesn't have the teeth for that. However you don't have the option of quitting up on Mars. There will probably be shortages and huge problems during the initial stage, so you might end up with a highly stratified society (provided that there are no robots that could do all the work for us). Now there is always the option of a benevolent dictator who will actually quit after two terms; it has happened before. They might just as well put up reasonable institutions of government given that we have this tradition down here on earth. i guess the colonists will not just silently comply with a dictatorship (that's a key requirement for keeping this system), just because they are not used to this sort of governance.