I’ll wipe a tear from my eye as I wave off the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B.
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I mean, Joseph Smith found plenty of willing women to follow him. Elon just needs to declare himself a god/messenger and he’ll be fine. Honestly, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to regulate reproduction. Indentured servitude is an easier sell than chattel slavery. And what do you do with all of those native-born inhabitants when they start demanding rights?
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oh horseshit - fine, build spaceships but don’t let this horse’s ass screw up the future.
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They have rights. Including the right to waive certain rights in favor of binding arbitration in the venue of the colony’s choosing in the contract for their air subscription.
Remember; if it looks like a contract, it’s Freedom™.
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Oh, I am sure that once all of the labor value has been extracted they can be processed into food and nuritional supplements.
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“…if we can send a man to the moon…”
as mumsie is fond of saying!
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Musky - if you’re outside of law in your new dystopian colony - right to private property doesn’t exist and contracts are not enforceable.
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Instead of the problem being bears, it’s little things, like the air they breathe…
The weird thing is, he’s apparently an avid reader of Iain M. Banks and his “Culture” novels… which are all about space socialism. He just completely and utterly missed the point of all his books, apparently.
It isn’t, though. Theoretically this doesn’t work. Leaving aside the various problems with the idea if it was possible, the international Outer Space Treaty covers the actions of private corporations. Musk can’t just unilaterally decide that Earth laws won’t apply to Mars, should he ever get there - they already do. (Self-determination for Martian colonists is a separate issue.)
There’s also the little issue of the trip to Mars, which is even worse. We simply don’t currently have the technology to get people there - if we actually want them to survive for any length of time afterwards, that is.
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And none of them military trained (or not many of them at least), but more likely libertarian minded, anti-government types.
Apples and oranges, I’d argue, for a number of reasons.
Nope! 
Why? Because women are especially susceptible to that kind of thing unlike rational men? I don’t think so. As for Joseph Smith, the reasons women joined the religion wasn’t just due to their own ignorance or irrationality. They might have had good reason for joining the religion. Laurel Ulrich Thatcher, a pioneer of writing histories of the “well-behaved women” who have often been neglected as ahistorical figures compared to their more radical sisters, laid out some interesing findings in her book on Mormon women up to the abolishment of polygamy:
Mormon women were often political active and pretty capable and able women who freely chose to join the faith, not unwitting dupes.
Can we not do this?
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sorry. understood and deleted. apologies, that was thoughtlessly presented abd unnecessary to the conversation…
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Fascinating Paper. Thanks.
Thhe footnoote on Provo Wallis proved especially interesting.
Died at the age of 100, after serving 96 years in the Royal Navy.
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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Mars will be even harsher.
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Survival, aye, that’s the rub. Why bother?Take the Marching Morons approach to population control. Offer contests for Free Trips To Mars! Rig them so Libertarians win. No problem. /s
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That really doesn’t have a lot to do with it I think. Adherence to the mission, to a degree sure, but the success of the system was more to do with aligning incentives: simple and obvious rules coupled with harsh penalties for non-compliance plus independent reporting that is itself incentivised to report failure (in order to advance) but not to lie about failure (in order to not be held back). None of that is intrinsically military, and aligning incentives has been all the rage in management for quite a while - although of course the corporate world has spectacularly failed in this because they seem to have absurdly settled on “the next quarter” as the only meaningful measure.
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It was all very well for Provo but as long as he was alive, he would be the Admiral of the Fleet, holding up the promotion of everyone below him on the admirals’ list. As Provo climbed into his late 90s with no signs of slowing down, the Admiralty became somewhat concerned and sent him a polite letter pointing out the problem and asking him to retire voluntarily, despite the fact that as an officer who commanded a warship between 1793 and 1815, he had the right to remain on the active list. Provo sent a polite reply that he was content with the current arrangement. The Admiralty then sent Provo another (perhaps less polite) letter pointing out that, as he was technically on full pay as an active officer, he was liable for sea duty. Provo responded by stating that he was, of course, obedient to whatever Her Majesty Queen Victoria would wish, and expressed his great pleasure at going to sea once more but noted that, as Admiral of the Fleet, he would immediately command any ship or group of ships in which he sailed and unfortunately all his experience had been with sailing vessels and he knew nothing about modern steam warships – although he was quite willing to learn. This put a lid on the matter and Provo Wallis sailored on as the navy’s oldest active service officer.
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So who is going to invade first? China, Russia, India, USA or somebody else?
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C’mon, Musk must obey The Law of the Briney Deep.
tumblr_nlos8vx5Ug1tzgg1ao1_1280.jpg (1280×1366)
So, what you are saying is that Elon Musk is a diaper baby?
Who do you think will be choosing people for the mission? Why would Musk pick anyone who wouldn’t kowtow to him?
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Thank you. It’s good to know that I can let people know that something is hurtful and that they take it seriously. I wish it were the case in the rest of reality…
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