> We already don't care about externalities here on Earth, there's no way we can police them on Mars. That depends very much on how the putative Martian societ

> We already don't care about externalities here on Earth, there's no way we can police them on Mars. That depends very much on how the putative Martian society is set up. There used to be an idea in cultural anthropology that a society becoming heavily dependent on technology and coordinated labour (specifically, sophisticated irrigation systems) went hand in hand with the evolution of a centralized authoritarian state to manage that. The idea has fallen out of favour, but you can see how something similar might apply in spades on Mars. Life there is going to be marginal at the best of times; living off-grid would be a truly daunting prospect. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire