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This sounds ridiculous, but lately I've been of the opinion that this planet is borked. I hold out serious hope for Elon Musk and his Mars colony. I seriously b

This sounds ridiculous, but lately I've been of the opinion that this planet is borked. I hold out serious hope for Elon Musk and his Mars colony. I seriously believe that we as a species need a fresh start in a new place. We need a new planet so we can try new things, create new ideas, and generally liberate ourselves of traditional conventions. It sounds pie-in-the-sky, but people are actively working on it and I hope to one day count myself among them. America used to be the place where things like this could happen, but that's not so much anymore. There's still innovation, but the trend doesn't look good and most of the world just doesn't care.

flyinRyan 13y ago
What do you imagine will happen if Musk lands on Mars? Various countries will be claiming jurisdiction before he lands (assuming they don't already). They could simply call mars an extension of their country and hold him accountable to their laws for anything he does on Mars.
- el_zorro 13y ago
  They could, but I'd like to see them enforce it. The worst they could do on Earth would be to stop rocket launches to Mars (which would be bad) but rockets can be launched in a variety of places. They represent a large injection of wealth into an area, and the economic benefits of hosting rocket infrastructure outweighs the cost of dealing with a loud but ultimately toothless colony. By the time Mars would represent a 'threat' it will be essentially self-sufficient and then there is little hold Earth would have over it.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    Those on earth would still have the biggest military and as soon as the martian colony made it clear that they didn't submit to which ever overlords claimed them, that army would be in space on its way to Mars.
adventured 13y ago
Fleeing earth doesn't instantly change human nature. The risks to liberty will remain no matter where you go. The George Washington willing-to-cede-his-throne type will be just as rare on Mars in 2095 as it is today, as it was throughout history.
- el_zorro 13y ago
  True, but it might allow the freedom to implement alternative methods that clamp down on such things. Just as the New World allowed for the political innovations that has lead to modern democracy (however flawed), Mars would be a new frontier that could be used to create a better government with all the lessons the past 400 years has taught us. It would be an even better frontier, as Mars doesn't have the pesky problem of people already living there with all the historical baggage that accompany it. It doesn't have the terrible legacy of slavery and the social problems that that implies. It is a fresher start than we as a species have ever had, and we now how the proper perspective to avoid the pitfalls that we're currently saddled with. In time, much as democracy filtered its way back to Europe, a better system of governance could find its way back to Earth. In any case, it would be a bold experiment. To go in with the intention of building a better social contract, or to rethink what that even means, is something that we should keep in mind. Mars shouldn't just be a joyride in 0.4 g, but an intentional effort to rethink society.
- sneak 13y ago
  "You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once." —Heinlein
gizmo686 13y ago
I think a better bet would be to create a nation in international waters.
johnbm 13y ago
So you've moved to Mars. Through a stunning feat of engineering, humanity has designed a ship that can make the journey, land tons of people and equipment without crashing, and has deployed a habitat of some kind intact. Well congratulations. You now live in a tube or box in a freezing, unbreathable, radiated, barren desert. The only way you can go outside is by donning a bulky environmental suit and breathing apparatus. You may have brought a dune buggy of some kind along for exploration, but you can't go very far. If something happens to it, your spare parts are numbered and you probably won't survive the night out there, spending your last moments staring at yet more sand and rocks. You don't have real mining or manufacturing capabilities and a resupply takes years. At best, you might have a high-end industrial 3D printer for parts, but your (specialty!) raw materials will run out very quickly, and you can't 3D print truly complicated things. The remainder of your life now depends on you maintaining a delicate, miniature artificial ecosystem inside, so you can produce food and oxygen indefinitely. This is a feat which, when we tried it back here on Earth, failed miserably (Biosphere 2). That was with the luxury of Earth-based construction, at atmospheric pressure, without having to ship materials out and in of two enormous gravity wells. Environmental integrity was a question of science, not one of life and death. Besides, there is no reason to believe that Earth's ecosystem itself is stable long-term, never mind an artificially picked subset of it. Once the honeymoon period is over and you've settled in, you will slowly come to understand what it means to be truly alone. You will never again see the people you left behind. You cannot move away if you get into irreconcilable conflict. Your survival depends on maintaining social cohesion above else, despite none of the usual comforts being available. If, above all odds, people manage to not go insane on their own, there's always Dunbar's number: a suggested upper limit on the size of stable social groups. In case of ideological rifts, it is impossible for people to move away and start over: unlike on Earth, a new colony can only be started with the full and unconditional cooperation of an existing one. If you want to try new things, Mars is the last place to do so. Whoever goes there will be clinging to the way things were. We already have a vague approximation of colonizing Mars anyway: Antarctica. Go read about life on McMurdo base for example, or this: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/big-stink-brews-in-antarctica-20090902-f8fq.html http://www.theage.com.au/environment/big-stink-brews-in-anta...
- el_zorro 13y ago

flyinRyan 13y ago

What do you imagine will happen if Musk lands on Mars? Various countries will be claiming jurisdiction before he lands (assuming they don't already). They could simply call mars an extension of their country and hold him accountable to their laws for anything he does on Mars.

el_zorro 13y ago
They could, but I'd like to see them enforce it. The worst they could do on Earth would be to stop rocket launches to Mars (which would be bad) but rockets can be launched in a variety of places. They represent a large injection of wealth into an area, and the economic benefits of hosting rocket infrastructure outweighs the cost of dealing with a loud but ultimately toothless colony. By the time Mars would represent a 'threat' it will be essentially self-sufficient and then there is little hold Earth would have over it.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  Those on earth would still have the biggest military and as soon as the martian colony made it clear that they didn't submit to which ever overlords claimed them, that army would be in space on its way to Mars.

adventured 13y ago

Fleeing earth doesn't instantly change human nature. The risks to liberty will remain no matter where you go. The George Washington willing-to-cede-his-throne type will be just as rare on Mars in 2095 as it is today, as it was throughout history.

el_zorro 13y ago
True, but it might allow the freedom to implement alternative methods that clamp down on such things. Just as the New World allowed for the political innovations that has lead to modern democracy (however flawed), Mars would be a new frontier that could be used to create a better government with all the lessons the past 400 years has taught us. It would be an even better frontier, as Mars doesn't have the pesky problem of people already living there with all the historical baggage that accompany it. It doesn't have the terrible legacy of slavery and the social problems that that implies. It is a fresher start than we as a species have ever had, and we now how the proper perspective to avoid the pitfalls that we're currently saddled with. In time, much as democracy filtered its way back to Europe, a better system of governance could find its way back to Earth. In any case, it would be a bold experiment. To go in with the intention of building a better social contract, or to rethink what that even means, is something that we should keep in mind. Mars shouldn't just be a joyride in 0.4 g, but an intentional effort to rethink society.
sneak 13y ago
"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once." —Heinlein

gizmo686 13y ago

I think a better bet would be to create a nation in international waters.

johnbm 13y ago

So you've moved to Mars. Through a stunning feat of engineering, humanity has designed a ship that can make the journey, land tons of people and equipment without crashing, and has deployed a habitat of some kind intact. Well congratulations. You now live in a tube or box in a freezing, unbreathable, radiated, barren desert. The only way you can go outside is by donning a bulky environmental suit and breathing apparatus. You may have brought a dune buggy of some kind along for exploration, but you can't go very far. If something happens to it, your spare parts are numbered and you probably won't survive the night out there, spending your last moments staring at yet more sand and rocks. You don't have real mining or manufacturing capabilities and a resupply takes years. At best, you might have a high-end industrial 3D printer for parts, but your (specialty!) raw materials will run out very quickly, and you can't 3D print truly complicated things. The remainder of your life now depends on you maintaining a delicate, miniature artificial ecosystem inside, so you can produce food and oxygen indefinitely. This is a feat which, when we tried it back here on Earth, failed miserably (Biosphere 2). That was with the luxury of Earth-based construction, at atmospheric pressure, without having to ship materials out and in of two enormous gravity wells. Environmental integrity was a question of science, not one of life and death. Besides, there is no reason to believe that Earth's ecosystem itself is stable long-term, never mind an artificially picked subset of it. Once the honeymoon period is over and you've settled in, you will slowly come to understand what it means to be truly alone. You will never again see the people you left behind. You cannot move away if you get into irreconcilable conflict. Your survival depends on maintaining social cohesion above else, despite none of the usual comforts being available. If, above all odds, people manage to not go insane on their own, there's always Dunbar's number: a suggested upper limit on the size of stable social groups. In case of ideological rifts, it is impossible for people to move away and start over: unlike on Earth, a new colony can only be started with the full and unconditional cooperation of an existing one. If you want to try new things, Mars is the last place to do so. Whoever goes there will be clinging to the way things were. We already have a vague approximation of colonizing Mars anyway: Antarctica. Go read about life on McMurdo base for example, or this: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/big-stink-brews-in-antarctica-20090902-f8fq.html http://www.theage.com.au/environment/big-stink-brews-in-anta...

el_zorro 13y ago