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Sorry, but why would a Mars colony only work with indentured servitude and/or slavery, as proposed by Elon Musk? Not disputing this, just curious what his propo

by Gud 2y ago

Sorry, but why would a Mars colony only work with indentured servitude and/or slavery, as proposed by Elon Musk? Not disputing this, just curious what his proposal looks like. He doesn't exactly strike me as a democrat, but I would like to know his plans?

giraffe_lady 2y ago
Well just extremely basically, what are you gonna get when "not a democrat" forms a brand new & fully independent polity, completely outside the international system, virtually impossible to have any external insight into, not a signatory to any treaties or conventions, with no peers at all to provide any sort of mechanism for economic or humanitarian pressure and not even the realistic possibility of emigration if you're born inside it. It may not be exactly slavery as we know it historically but there are very few ways this could go I think. Indentured servitude I believe he proposed himself actually, though I can't find it now I think it was in a twitter thread and I don't think he used those words precisely. But the idea of people taking loans for the transit costs and then working them off on mars he endorses. That could be called a few different things based on implementation I guess but given the other information we have I find it alarming. At the very least it's company town + 21st century state surveillance apparatus + the above paragraph. And well but anyway the larger point I was making was just that his extreme political views predate covid or his daughter coming out or democrats being mean to him or several other hypotheses that are regularly asserted. If you don't find that one compelling just skip it and check the others.
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palmotea 2y ago
> Sorry, but why would a Mars colony only work with indentured servitude and/or slavery, as proposed by Elon Musk? Isn't there a saying that companies/startups are all dictatorships? That's exactly what a privately-run space colony would actually be, but without any of the outlets that make working for a company tolerable (the theoretical possibility of getting a job elsewhere, being free outside of work hours, etc.). I don't think it's helpful to use terms like "slavery" or "indentured servitude" to describe the situation, since those are legal concepts for polity where freer statuses are possible. It'd be more like North Korea. Are North Koreans slaves? Not really. Are they free? No. Do you want to be a North Korean? Probably not.

by Gud 2y ago

giraffe_lady 2y ago

Well just extremely basically, what are you gonna get when "not a democrat" forms a brand new & fully independent polity, completely outside the international system, virtually impossible to have any external insight into, not a signatory to any treaties or conventions, with no peers at all to provide any sort of mechanism for economic or humanitarian pressure and not even the realistic possibility of emigration if you're born inside it. It may not be exactly slavery as we know it historically but there are very few ways this could go I think. Indentured servitude I believe he proposed himself actually, though I can't find it now I think it was in a twitter thread and I don't think he used those words precisely. But the idea of people taking loans for the transit costs and then working them off on mars he endorses. That could be called a few different things based on implementation I guess but given the other information we have I find it alarming. At the very least it's company town + 21st century state surveillance apparatus + the above paragraph. And well but anyway the larger point I was making was just that his extreme political views predate covid or his daughter coming out or democrats being mean to him or several other hypotheses that are regularly asserted. If you don't find that one compelling just skip it and check the others.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

palmotea 2y ago

> Sorry, but why would a Mars colony only work with indentured servitude and/or slavery, as proposed by Elon Musk? Isn't there a saying that companies/startups are all dictatorships? That's exactly what a privately-run space colony would actually be, but without any of the outlets that make working for a company tolerable (the theoretical possibility of getting a job elsewhere, being free outside of work hours, etc.). I don't think it's helpful to use terms like "slavery" or "indentured servitude" to describe the situation, since those are legal concepts for polity where freer statuses are possible. It'd be more like North Korea. Are North Koreans slaves? Not really. Are they free? No. Do you want to be a North Korean? Probably not.