4 ms·
All they would need to do is threaten to stop sending any of a thousand essential commodities that make life tolerable (never mind what makes it possible), and
by moloch-hai 4y ago
All they would need to do is threaten to stop sending any of a thousand essential commodities that make life tolerable (never mind what makes it possible), and any resistance collapses instantly. Mars colonists would be more directly under the thumb of Earth government than anybody outside of prison, an antarctic base, or navy ship.
- tsimionescu 4y agoI imagine the GP included "in the long run" to refer to a hypothetical future where the colony were truly self-sufficient (so able to produce any good that they want or need).
- nine_k 4y agoNot any good they want, maybe, but any good needed for their indefinitely long survival.
- moloch-hai 4y agoAnything they just want badly suffices to enforce control.
- nine_k 4y agoExactly! This is why it eventually would need to become produced locally. It's not entirely unlike an overseas colony in an inhospitable but not empty place. Start small and dependent, develop the land around you and become autonomous.
- moloch-hai 4y agoLacking control, how do you bring about diversion of resources to local production?