From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sat May 01 1999 - 09:01:01 MDT
I recently posted here (ExI's "LawNode" mail list) an inquiry concerning the
Mars Society and its "Law and Governance Task Force". I received one
private, off-list reply that proved to be quite prophetic in characterizing
the Mars Society as being essentially a "Kim Stanley Robinson fan club", with
all that that implies about a statist willingness to engage in authoritarian
social engineering. I posted a neutral inquiry to the Mars Society list a
week or so ago, asking about general attitudes there regarding central
planetary-scale control, and the role of the state in the kinds of Martian
settlement envisioned there. Not surprisingly, the focus of the discussion
was the "Martian Constitution" featured in the Robinson novels. The
following is a post I sent to the Mars Society law and governance list this
morning:
* * *
Rather than responding in detail to each of the interesting posts regarding a
possible Martian constitution (a task that would take all day, I'm afraid),
I'll offer my observations here in thematic terms.
First, the physical circumstances under which Martian political entities
would be formed will obviously strongly influence their character. Will
colonies be heavily dependant on Earth for resupply, or will they be largely
able to support themselves? Will Mars offer resources to Earth that will be
considered strategically important to Terran governments? How easy will
immigration be in physical terms? Will Martian political entities be created
in a technological milieu that creates a significant economic surplus, or
will colonists at that time be largely concerned with simple physical
survival and will they consist largely only of the technicians necessary to
support life at Mars? And will early Martians be traditional humans at all,
or will colonization only become a reality at a time when the human animal is
subject to more or less complete biological reengineering?
The importance of each of these factors separately and all of them together
should be obvious. To look at just a few of these factors, consider that a
Martian constitution formed by a small group of highly educated, largely
technically- and scientifically-oriented people (perhaps made up in
significant part by people with a military background) (i.e. the sort of
people who currently characterize humanity's cadre of spacefarers),
significantly dependant on a constant and expensive channel of resupply from
Earth, would be very different from one formed by a larger, more diverse
group of humans whose technology liberates them from economic dependance on
Earth.
Consider that humans have maintained an outpost in Antarctica for three
generations now but, except for relatively minor questions of local
governance, have made no attempt to establish any sort of unique or
independent cultural and political identity. Contrast this with various
groups of European colonists in the New World in a previous era: Able to
support themselves and having reached a critical level of cultural breadth
and self-sufficiency, they asserted independence and expressed a new
synthesis of the elements of their cultural heritage.
I believe the bare physical circumstances of establishing a human presence at
Mars provide limiting values for some of these parameters. I am a space
enthusiast (see: http://users.aol.com/gburch1/space.html) and a near-extreme
techno-optimist (see: http://users.aol.com/gburch2/scnrio1.html and
http://users.aol.com/gburch3/thext.html), but I try to also be a realist.
Even if the most clever plans of the Mars Underground are realized, human
presence at Mars will be a very limited and tenuous proposition with current
and next-generation technologies. Employing technologies I see as likely
through 2020-2050, human outposts at Mars will be just that; scientific
research installations very much like ones we now find at Antarctica. There
will only be two types of people at such installations: Scientists and
technicians to support the scientists. They will be employed nearly 100% of
their time with the task of learning about Mars and staying alive, and they
will be nearly completely dependant on costly resupply from Earth for crucial
support for their survival.
To the extent that there will be a political element to the lives of these
first-generation Martians, it will likely be more akin to the politics of a
scientific institution or a high-tech military base than of a general
parliament. The first Martians will be more concerned with grant money than
taxation and issues relating to plumbing supplies will probably predominate
over questions of general human rights. The cut-throat competition within
academia and stereotypes of testosterone overload notwithstanding, PhDs and
test pilots tend to be among the portion of the human population least in
need of rules of governance, because they are self-selected and
institutionally sifted for intelligence, cooperativeness and critical
rationality. Far more than the "First Hundred" will be further filtered in a
way that ensures that few true political problems will arise at Mars that
will require a real constitution.
(A personal aside: I've known a few graduates of the U.S. Navy's nuclear
submarine corp, both officers and enlisted men. A more intelligent,
well-educated, rational and cooperative lot it would literally be impossible
to find, IMHO, because of the unique screening process to which they are
subjected. I believe they probably provide a good example of the kind of
people we'll see in the "First Thousand").
All of this having been said, I do believe quite firmly that there will be a
"population explosion" of immigration to Mars, perhaps as early as the first
part of the second half of the 21st Century. This will only be possible,
however, once the technology for comfortable and secure self-sufficiency has
been developed. In my mind there is one key to this technology, the kind of
advanced molecular nanotechnology (MNT) envisioned by Eric Drexler in his
books "Engines of Creation" and "Nanosystems" (see: http://www.foresight.org,
a citation I'm sure I need not offer to this list).
This opinion leads to the conclusion that we will not see a steady curve of
socio-economic factors underlying Martian settlement. Early scientific
exploration by humans in situ will be just barely possible with the most
clever engineering before MNT, and significant emigration to Mars and other
extraterrestrial points will be relatively inexpensive once a "mature MNT" is
developed. This is a very different profile than was presented by the
technological milieu of 16th-18th century technology and the settlement of
the New World, where there were no significant discontinuities of settlement
between the first explorers and the formation of new and independent
polities. In the historical experience, a slow, steady improvement of
technology and growth of global trading infrastructure supported a steady
stream of immigration to the New World and a fairly continuous development of
colonial economic and cultural self-sufficiency and independence.
These points lead to some conclusions for me about the physical parameters
that will influence the formation of the first real Martian (and other
extraterrestrial) polities. The first "government" at Mars will be extremely
local and will concern the minutiae of life in small, isolated scientific and
military installations. I imagine that the kind of ad-hoc democratic
behavior characteristic of well-educated, rational modern people will
generate a host of small "institutions" for the governance of things like
duty rosters, assignment to hazardous activities and the consumption of rare
and expensive "luxuries" like open living space and the occasional leisure
activity of amateur entertainments and like. To the extent that larger
political and legal issues may arise, they will almost certainly be dealt
with as such matters are dealt with now in similar circumstances, through a
case-by-case application of "home country" laws and institutions. (See, for
instance how "flag" law is applied to ships at sea, a general military code
of justice is applied in foreign military installations and general "home
country" law is applied in offshore oil installations). To the extent that
minor property rights issues or the unlikely and exceedingly rare criminal
issue might arise, the early scientific settlers would almost surely look to
a case-by-case application of the laws of their home countries -- almost
certainly through the mechanism of courts and governing bodies on earth. (As
much as I'd like to think that I could get an early ride on the strength of
offering my legal services, I believe I'm more likely to represent an early
Martian settler via telepresence, something I already do with my
international clientele.)
A very different situation will be presented by the settlement of Mars with
advanced molecular nanotechnology and a mature genetic science. From a
society characterized by tiny, isolated scientific installations, tens of
thousands and then millions of people might descend on Mars, but with the
technology to be independent from Earth and each other, except in terms of
information. I see this discontinuity as being not only possible but highly
probable for reasons of simple economics: Before MNT, it will cost a lot to
get to Mars and stay there and the only return on the investment will be
scientific knowledge. Mars is, by definition, at the bottom of a gravity
well far from Earth. The only reason to go there is to be there. This will
be true after a "nanotech revolution", with the only difference being the
cost and ease of getting there and staying there. So who will go to Mars
after the development of MNT? Two kinds of people: Tourists and "ideological
settlers", people who want to leave Earth and start a new life for strong
personal and philosophical reasons.
So I conclude that any real, distinct "Martian constitution" will almost
certainly be formed in the physical circumstances of a recent overwhelming
technological revolution and by people who move to Mars for two very
different sets of reasons and ones not typical of the motivations of average
citizens of Earth today: On the one hand (1) commerce in the form of (a)
operators of resorts and "high-tech wilderness travel" businesses and (b)
settler-oriented business (land speculation and development and
infrastructure supply) and, on the other hand, (2) ideology in the form of
(a) settlers intent on forming communities with specific ideological and
philosophical identities and (b) high-tech hermits.
Now, what sort of polities might grow out of such physical circumstances?
Let me first say that I have a lot of respect for Kim Stanley Robinson and
his three books, especially for the depth of knowledge about Mars evidenced
there. But I have a fairly harsh judgment of the "futurology" upon which the
books are based and the political ideas and projections that one finds in the
story line. I share the idea that there will be a sudden, large wave of
settlement of extremely diverse types of people and that the greatest
conflicts will center around terraforming. However, as I try to explain
above, the physical circumstances of the settlement of Mars will be very,
very different from what Robinson projects. IMHO, there is a near-zero
probability that significant numbers of people could ever find themselves at
Mars without the physical wherewithal to be self-sufficient and independent.
Accordingly, given the wide disparity of motivations for emigration we will
likely see, environmental issues seem to be essentially the only ones that
would require any kind of planetary-scale governance. Unless the early
settlers in a post-nanotech era make the mistake of creating government for
its own sake (which creates a group of people whose product is legislation),
there will be no ECONOMIC constituency favoring planetary governance for any
purpose other than regulating the planetary environment.
Some of the ideological settlers will very likely have a planetary-scale
utopian vision they would seek to impose on all immigrants. But there will
likely be multiple such global ideologies, and just as many, if not more, of
the ideological settlers will hold values antithetical to any kind of broad
universal social construct. In such a circumstance, it seems most probable
that a minarchist polity would develop whose primary function would be to
oppose any sort of attempt to establish a global social order. Thus I see
the most probable planetary constitution to be one which only prohibits
inter-group use of force and establishes and maintains whatever global
environmental consensus might be reached. Given the economic independence
possible with a mature molecular nanotechnology, I see very little chance
that the diverse groups that will descend on Mars will accept anything more
elaborate as a planetary government.
Having said all of this, I agree with Robinson that the knottiest problem
will be questions arising from terraforming. I find it unlikely that purist
"Reds" will dominate the consensus that might be reached. Only aerologists
and the most extreme "wilderness aesthetes" would hold such a position and
they will be in a tiny minority. The vast majority of settlers will be
fairly avid technophiles and adventurers, the kinds of people who are willing
to "tinker with nature". (The discovery of indigenous active life forms
might influence this factor somewhat, though it seems unlikely that it would
forestall significant terraforming for long.)
Given the diversity of settler motivations, it seems probable that diverse
approaches to terraforming would likely develop, with multiple engineered
ecologies growing outward from different settlements. This would give rise to
challenges of social order the like of which we have never seen before and
which might make the conflicts between ranchers and farmers in the settlement
of the American West seem tame. I will end this very long post by offering
my own general view of how I think such conflicts would be best resolved.
Given the complexity and unforeseeability of the development of a new and
artificial planetary ecology, I think it is unlikely that a centralized
planning bureau for terraforming could manage the process any better than an
ad-hoc, "bottom-up" approach of multilateral spontaneous ordering. In this
respect, I commend Virginia Postrel's recent book, "The Future and Its
Enemies" (see:http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/gbcurrent.html and
http://www.dynamist.com) as a view of how "local knowledge" and spontaneous
social orders can provide satisfactory solutions to complex problems -- even
ones as complex as managing the terraforming of Mars.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Civilization is protest against nature;
progress requires us to take control of evolution."
-- Thomas Huxley
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