A Mars Colony

[steve_bank]

A self sustaining Mars colony is being established with 10,000 colonists. How do you pick them and what structure do you have?

Do you have racial and religious diversity?

Is sexual reproduction controlled?

Do you have a legal system with courts and jail? Would there be an armed police?

What are the work requirements and compensation? What do you do when people slack and goof off? Or refuse to do something?

How are decisions made?



Consider you will be drawing on humans as they are today.

 

[DBT]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

 

[4321lynx]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

A "team" of 10,000 "humans as they are now"? You're joking,surely?

 

[fromderinside]

Oh, I think a psychologist can find common thread somewhere comprising the attribution applied to all 10,000 'team of 10,000'.

 

[steve_bank]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

There is always economics. Allocation of resources and how much each pepsin gets and how work is allocated. There will be greed, some will want more of whatever is available and so on.

On STNG food replicators had a max energy allocation for individuals.

 

[steve_bank]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

A "team" of 10,000 "humans as they are now"? You're joking,surely?

I suppose that is my point. A large scale colony or generational ship will have the same range of problems. Some imagine a Mars colony as a paradise free from troubles.A few years back somebody announced he was funding a one way trip to colonizing Mars and was taking applications. There was a large response.

 

[skepticalbip]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

A "team" of 10,000 "humans as they are now"? You're joking,surely?

I suppose that is my point. A large scale colony or generational ship will have the same range of problems. Some imagine a Mars colony as a paradise free from troubles.A few years back somebody announced he was funding a one way trip to colonizing Mars and was taking applications. There was a large response.

Mars One? That was a Dutch group that got investors to finance a one-way colonization trip to Mars by 2023. As I understand, the courts determined (early this year) that it was a scam so it has been scrubbed.

However, Elon Musk still seems determined to make a go with his Mars-SpaceX project.

https://www.spacex.com/mars

MISSIONS TO MARS

Our aspirational goal is to send our first cargo mission to Mars in 2022. The objectives for the first mission will be to confirm water resources, identify hazards, and put in place initial power, mining, and life support infrastructure. A second mission, with both cargo and crew, is targeted for 2024, with primary objectives of building a propellant depot and preparing for future crew flights. The ships from these initial missions will also serve as the beginnings of the first Mars base, from which we can build a thriving city and eventually a self-sustaining civilization on Mars.

ETA:
Oh yeah, the last I heard is that NASA is back on with its Mars mission but that they have dropped the Mars Direct and gone back to setting up a Moon base first then on to Mars. Apparently, by the time NASA gets there Elon Musk will have a Mars-hotel in operation for the NASA crew to stay in.

Of course the Chinese immigration authorities may be there waiting to check that they have properly approved visas before they are allowed to land.

 

[DBT]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

A "team" of 10,000 "humans as they are now"? You're joking,surely?

What they are and what they are supposed to be are two different things, hence my remark.

 

[James Brown]

Some imagine a Mars colony as a paradise free from troubles.

Really? Who?

 

[DBT]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

There is always economics. Allocation of resources and how much each pepsin gets and how work is allocated. There will be greed, some will want more of whatever is available and so on.

On STNG food replicators had a max energy allocation for individuals.

Economics, how a society is organized and how it functions can take many forms.

 

[steve_bank]

Being part of a team, it would seem strange to be charging each other for doing whatever it is that their work entails within the team.

There is always economics. Allocation of resources and how much each pepsin gets and how work is allocated. There will be greed, some will want more of whatever is available and so on.

On STNG food replicators had a max energy allocation for individuals.

Economics, how a society is organized and how it functions can take many forms.

Yes but it comes down to who gets what and why regardless of the system.

In light of the communist and capitalist systems we have seen and still exists how should a Mars colony be structured?

 

[DBT]

Economics, how a society is organized and how it functions can take many forms.

Yes but it comes down to who gets what and why regardless of the system.

In light of the communist and capitalist systems we have seen and still exists how should a Mars colony be structured?

Presumably in a way that benefits all members of that society so there is little or no resentment because no one has to struggle to make a basic living while others accumulate most of the colonies wealth and resources, becoming 'Lords of the Land' with their needs and wants attended to by a servile underclass.

 

[steve_bank]

Economics, how a society is organized and how it functions can take many forms.

Yes but it comes down to who gets what and why regardless of the system.

In light of the communist and capitalist systems we have seen and still exists how should a Mars colony be structured?

Presumably in a way that benefits all members of that society so there is little or no resentment because no one has to struggle to make a basic living while others accumulate most of the colonies wealth and resources, becoming 'Lords of the Land' with their needs and wants attended to by a servile underclass.

That is probably what the Russian revolutionaries said about communism.

You are IMO idealizing. I said choosing from current humans and 10,000 people for a reason. It is the size of a small town and large enough for factions and disputes to emerge. Who says what is fair and equitable? I am not being argumentative, but pragmatic given human behavior through history through today.

Part of our heritage is genetic.

The Soviets and Maoists thought they could create a fair society by fiat. Both failed.

 

[Elixir]

Presumably in a way that benefits all members of that society so there is little or no resentment because no one has to struggle to make a basic living while others accumulate most of the colonies wealth and resources, becoming 'Lords of the Land' with their needs and wants attended to by a servile underclass.

That is probably what the Russian revolutionaries said about communism.

You are IMO idealizing.

You asked for an idealism: "how should a Mars colony be structured?"

 

[DBT]

Presumably in a way that benefits all members of that society so there is little or no resentment because no one has to struggle to make a basic living while others accumulate most of the colonies wealth and resources, becoming 'Lords of the Land' with their needs and wants attended to by a servile underclass.

That is probably what the Russian revolutionaries said about communism.

You are IMO idealizing. I said choosing from current humans and 10,000 people for a reason. It is the size of a small town and large enough for factions and disputes to emerge. Who says what is fair and equitable? I am not being argumentative, but pragmatic given human behavior through history through today.

Part of our heritage is genetic.

The Soviets and Maoists thought they could create a fair society by fiat. Both failed.

What Russians said about communist or what Capitalists say about capitalism is related to the fundamental issue of work/function, status and satisfying our hierarchy of physical needs and psychological wants.

If we can't come up with anything better than one or the other of two extremes, we probably deserve to fail.

 

[bilby]

Some imagine a Mars colony as a paradise free from troubles.

Really? Who?

Good question.

All the speculation I have seen - particularly in fiction - seems to concentrate on the conflicts that might arise, and/or the disasters that might befall the people there.

 

[bilby]

The most plausible structure for an attempt to colonize Mars IMO is a quasi-military one, with strict rules, clear chain of command and rank structure, and headed by a commanding officer who has wide powers, presumably responsible to a national government on Earth.

Typically that's how remote colonies on Earth started out too.

How it evolves from there depends on a lot of factors - also just like terrestrial colonies.

And whether it's the best structure is likely not going to get much consideration, at least not from those who will ultimately decide.

From a sociological perspective, Mars today is perhaps closer to Earth than were places like French Polynesia, the Dutch East Indies, New Zealand, or New England, from the powers that led their colonisation.

All of those earthbound governors would have been very impressed with the idea that a message to or from their masters back home could arrive in as little as 24 days, much less 24 minutes, of being sent.

And the transit time for emergency supplies, once a request for them were received, would likely be lower, and definitely more certain, for a governor of Mars than for one at Port Jackson hoping for supply from England in the 1780s.

 

[fromderinside]

The most plausible structure for an attempt to colonize Mars IMO is a quasi-military one, with strict rules, clear chain of command and rank structure, and headed by a commanding officer who has wide powers, presumably responsible to a national government on Earth.

.......

And the transit time for emergency supplies, once a request for them were received, would likely be lower, and definitely more certain, for a governor of Mars than for one at Port Jackson hoping for supply from England in the 1780s.

Examples of military-like organizations building viable, long lasting self sufficient, societies suggest parroting military organization is not the way to go.

Alaxander's civilisations died shortly after did Alexander. Roman conquered societies took with hem Roman culture. engineering and law which proved the glue via roadway links whereby such conversions and startups survived. It definitely was not Roman army organization or discipline that could be credited with whatever survival resulted.

Fast forward, British organized cultures depended on British law, culture, governance, and they all wound up breaking away form british rule keeping aspects of british culture for some period of time.

American military only succeeded in Europe and Japan because american policy permitted organic reconstruction of existing cultures with some American/British governance precepts inplace. They are now evolving under pressure of external migration closer to pre-existing governance, tribal for the most part, dropping egalitarian aspects of A/B culture as they do. In fact even America and Britian are responding to Tribal tendencies as well.

Recent american military attempts to reorganize more primitive nativist cultures seem to be falling by the wayside with the end of american money and military presence.

So, no. Military organization of new states will pretty much revert to what local conditions dictate for survival on places where no previous governance existed as it seems all civilizations do over time. My best guess is that a Jamestown, a dead colony after less than a generation, result will be the outcome of Mars immigration whatever governance is brought along in establishment. Physical communication with existing cultures will be tenuous thereby bringing on rapid decay because of poor intellectual commerce maintenance.

 

[Elixir]

Since it can be assumed that the first Mars settlers will all be very exceptional individuals of great intelligence and ability, let 'em have a rock-paper-scissors tournament for the leadership position.

I am reminded of Clarke's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", where the lunar colony revolted against earth. Most of the human dynamics of a successful Mars colony were imagined in that story (iirc - it's been over 50 yrs since I read it). The main difference was that earth was within throwing distance of the lunar colony (they threw rocks at the earth). Mars... not so much.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since it can be assumed that the first Mars settlers will all be very exceptional individuals of great intelligence and ability, let 'em have a rock-paper-scissors tournament for the leadership position.

I am reminded of Clarke's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", where the lunar colony revolted against earth. Most of the human dynamics of a successful Mars colony were imagined in that story (iirc - it's been over 50 yrs since I read it). The main difference was that earth was within throwing distance of the lunar colony (they threw rocks at the earth). Mars... not so much.

Mars could throw rocks at Earth, they just would need a bit more in the way of guidance. Luna had radar all the way in, they were using command guidance with no seeker capability on their rocks. I don't think Mars could do that, though.