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Antarctica is a great idea as well. I am not sure what the political challenges would be if somebody with a sufficiently absurd amount of money to throw at the
by walrus01 5y ago
Antarctica is a great idea as well. I am not sure what the political challenges would be if somebody with a sufficiently absurd amount of money to throw at the project actually attempted it. The antarctic treaty is supposed to prohibit nation states from claiming pieces of it as sovereign territory, but those negotiations from the 1950s/1960s didn't really envision modern billionaires doing such things independently.
Whether somebody would have the early stages of their construction project shut down by a flown-in team of military forces from some major nation states (US, Russia, UK) is another question. Or simply blockaded and shut down at places like the ports in Chile, Argentina, Tasmania, mainland Austrlia, New Zealand, South Africa.
- _8j50 5y agoI mean, if the ISS can happen I am sure it can be worked out.
- walrus01 5y agoI suppose that one could consider a place like McMurdo as a proof of concept of such already, since its necessary annual inputs of cargo and life-support supplies (food, etc) are extremely well documented at a granular level in terms of the purchasing and procurement process and cargo manifests.
- spaetzleesser 5y agothe ISS is not self sustaining and you can resupply quickly. For Mars you need to be able to survive for years before some kind of rescue is possible.
- throwaway2048 5y agoI'm not sure why it needs to be done by billionaires independent of nation states, the trip to mars sure won't be.
- sgjohnson 5y ago> The antarctic treaty is supposed to prohibit nation states from claiming pieces of it as sovereign territory, but those negotiations from the 1950s/1960s didn't really envision modern billionaires doing such things independently. You've actually got the same exact problem with the Outer Space Treaty. It only prohibits countries from claiming sovereignty over outer space or any celestial body.
- sudosysgen 5y agoClaiming soveregnity automatically makes you a country, no?
- dane-pgp 5y agoI think it would be more accurate to say "having your sovereignty recognised by other countries automatically makes you a country", but obviously there are bootstrapping problems with that definition.
- sudosysgen 5y agoSure, but you'd be recognising yourself as a country at least to have sovereignty.
- charcircuit 5y agoIf you form a new country that country isn't a part of existing treaties.
- sudosysgen 5y agoSure, but unless you sign those treaties no one will recognize you and then it's fair game to take all of your assets.
- sgjohnson 5y agoNot really. There’s actually not a single thing that every country in the world agrees on. There are 2 non-signatories of the Vienna Convention in Diplomatic Relations.