Quote from: Lar on 12/27/2017 12:27 pmI suspect you didn't read ENOUGH Heinlein, actually. Or didn't pay attention.“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.” >"When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
I suspect you didn't read ENOUGH Heinlein, actually. Or didn't pay attention.
“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.” >"When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
A Mars colony will be the most despotic dictatorship ever. With any luck, it will be a benevolent despotic dictatorship, but it will be a dictatorship, nonetheless. This is a result of not being able to survive a nude walkabout for even 3 minutes. Everything it takes to survive beyond a few minutes will have to be, at least initially, imported from Earth. Returning to Earth is at the colonial agency's discretion, as is everything else. The colonial agency will have absolute life-or-death power over every person on Mars. Even a unanimous vote could be completely overturned in a matter of minutes (all ventilation, power and water shut off until populace changes its mind, for example).There can be no true freedom in any environment where the discontent cannot walk nude over the hill with their hand raised flipping the bird to the government they left behind, living off the land using only their wits and hands.Note, I am NOT predicting that Elon will grow a god complex and use Mars as his personal slave plantation. Just pointing out that based on Earthly experiences, Mars will be a precarious location vis-a-vis personal freedom.
Heinlein is NOT a good template to use. He had some strong authoritarian and militaristic tendencies. His pro-militarism stance is in spite of, and maybe because of the fact that although he joined the military, he was only in for a few years and never went to war.
Every section of the colony has it's own air and water recycling facilities or at the very least large buffer of several weeks.That way you don't get a situation like in Total Recall where a central authority could turn off the air and force people into compliance.
You won't survive more than a hour or so at the most walking around nude outside during the dead of winter in Iceland or Norway these are not dictatorships.
History has shown that a benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient, (king, emperor, or such). However, once they die the empire or country is thrown into problems. The next leader may be weak or evil.
History has shown that a benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient, (king, emperor, or such).
Quote from: spacenut on 12/28/2017 02:42 amHistory has shown that a benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient, (king, emperor, or such).War economies are the most efficient, look at the incredible production in the 2nd world war from all sides and political systems.Not that I'm advocating a war economy, there needs to be an existential threat and it would probably be unsustainable on timescales of a decade or more.
What I'd suggest early on is democratic socialism in that most stuff is collectively owned but that everyone has a say and all officials are elected and serve a limited term.There would be some limited capitalism.Think maybe like living in an eco village or arcology like Arcosanti.In theory this could be evolved to a semi direct democracy something similar to the that in Switzerland or even a republic like in Finland as the colony grows.
I think the beginnings of real settlement (beyond expeditionary outposts created by public and/or private initiative) will be when private ownership of 'stuff' begins. Collectivism is antithetical to the US essence and certainly Musk's way of thinking, IMO.
It's not necessarily anti ethical to the US essence as collectives and communes do exist within the US.It's pretty much a necessity for a small autonomous society.
IIRC, the American experience with collectivism has been almost uniformly disastrous. Most notably, the Pilgrims at Plymouth nearly wiped themselves out by collectivizing agriculture at a time when they were a small colony living on the edge of starvation. Roughly half of them died of starvation and diseases caused by it before they abandoned collective agriculture and started allowing families to keep the produce of their own labor. See also early Communist China and many other experiments associated with Communism.The lesson seems to be that the impulse to respond to the harshness of a frontier by exerting tight control over individuals' labor is a road to deadly failure.
QuoteIt's not necessarily anti ethical to the US essence as collectives and communes do exist within the US.It's pretty much a necessity for a small autonomous society.IIRC, the American experience with collectivism has been almost uniformly disastrous. Most notably, the Pilgrims at Plymouth nearly wiped themselves out by collectivizing agriculture at a time when they were a small colony living on the edge of starvation. Roughly half of them died of starvation and diseases caused by it before they abandoned collective agriculture and started allowing families to keep the produce of their own labor. See also early Communist China and many other experiments associated with Communism.The lesson seems to be that the impulse to respond to the harshness of a frontier by exerting tight control over individuals' labor is a road to deadly failure.
Everything it takes to survive beyond a few minutes will have to be, at least initially, imported from Earth. Returning to Earth is at the colonial agency's discretion, as is everything else. The colonial agency will have absolute life-or-death power over every person on Mars. Even a unanimous vote could be completely overturned in a matter of minutes (all ventilation, power and water shut off until populace changes its mind, for example).