A City On Mars

[Terwin]

Not all companies do or are even allowed to make money.

SpaceX is a private company and could readily spend every dollar they earn on the owners pet projects if they so choose.

As far as I can tell, the entire purpose of SpaceX is to make a mars colony a reality, and if they go bankrupt the day after the colony reaches self-sufficiency, then that will be considered a win.

Funding that colony is the reason starlink exists, and if needed, other space-based companies may be founded to help.

 

They are even getting government funding for some of the development costs by bidding on side-projects that NASA wants done which are within the capabilities of the planned interplanetary craft.

 

I expect there to be major financial issues, but the richest man in the world seems intent on using both his fortune and his business accumen for this purpose and I am not going to complain about that.

[tater]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

SpaceX is a company though, and companies need to make money.

They need to stay alive, the launch business will never make anyone meaningful amount of money right now. The total global launch market is chump change. Anyone thinking they are pushing Mars for money, this is underpants gnome level nonsense...

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Some SpaceX documents WSJ found revealed that the launch business was never intended to be profitable. Starlink is what they hope will become their main cash cow.

It took a "skilled" reporter to figure this out? Starlink has a nonzero chance of making more money than the launch market, which can NEVER make large amounts of money until something like mass tourist spaceflight is a thing (airline level prices and airline level traffic volume—so incredibly unlikely). Total available launch market is on the order of $10B. That's it, about a week of Amazon revenue—so of COURSE "anything else" would be a revenue stream. The goal is to make money to pay for Mars.

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

There is a limit to how much money can be made on internet- it can easily be seen in the current profits of existing big internet companies. Taking into account what it takes to build and maintain a city on Earth, I’m skeptical SpaceX will ever make enough money to build a city of a million people and build all the rockets needed to get it there, while also still maintaining their internet service. And build all the robots needed to build the city and whatever other costs there may be.

Of course. It's crazy. But if they wanna spend money on Mars, good for them—I'm happy to watch.

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

All of my posts have been trying to allude to the fact that we need to be prepared for that possibility. Space colonization is not something that should be done because it is affordable or profitable. It should be done because of the potential benefits it offers to humanity.

If it's not economical to do it, it's not going to happen unless someone does it with their own money. I tend to think it'll be a combo of stuff like SpaceX, and the somewhat more prosaic goals of Bezos. Moving some industry to space, getting resources from asteroids, etc. This creates some economic incentive for capability in space, which can bootstrap efforts to move humanity off Earth (any who wish this) assuming such a move makes economic sense. The longer such a move takes, the less required people are, however—automation.

Course what comes with intelligent automation is the ability to build stuff so that humans need only show up.

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Based on everything what we know about the labour conditions in his companies, and mass dismissals, definitely no.
Definitely the opposite.

Companies have to exist to make money at all, which requires cleaning house sometimes, and optimizing.

 

Edited April 24 by tater

[mikegarrison]

There is a whole class of companies that do not "exist to make money". These are called "non-profit companies".

(Yes, OK, I do know that a non-profit can make a profit. The important part is they do not return any profits to their owners/members/shareholders. But the point is that companies exist for many reasons, and making a profit is not always one of them.)

[PakledHostage]

15 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

But the point is that companies exist for many reasons, and making a profit is not always one of them.

Richard Branson's quip about how to become a millionaire ("Simple: first become a billionaire and then start an airline") springs to mind about airlines...

[mikegarrison]

4 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

Richard Branson's quip about how to become a millionaire ("Simple: first become a billionaire and then start an airline") springs to mind about airlines...

AKA the "small fortune" joke.

How do you make a small fortune running a winery? Start with a large fortune.

(For "running a winery", you can also insert any other notoriously hard-to-profit-from task.)

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

AKA the "small fortune" joke.

How do you make a small fortune running a winery? Start with a large fortune.

(For "running a winery", you can also insert any other notoriously hard-to-profit-from task.)

Serious question, what are the easy-to-profit-from ways?

Things with lower margins but near guaranteed markets.  Long game.  Food,  shelter, (alcohol, tobacco, and firearms?)

[SunlitZelkova]

12 hours ago, darthgently said:

I've never seen people as a whole appreciate anything that is free.  Not as a rule.  We are built psychologically to earn victories, to deserve victories, in our own hearts and minds, from what I can tell.  Once past the infant stage anyway

Also trying to hold the idea that Musk (or anyone) is so wrong in my mind alongside the idea that we should magically get what his team achieves for free is hurting my brain.  Much cognitive dissonance 

Well the societies where people work together for the betterment of all rather than themselves alone have been dead for four centuries so it would make sense you’ve never seen them.

If there’s a certain way we’re “built” psychologically it’s because there was a builder, and it occurred based on how we’re educated in youth.

Advances in human history have been built on people thinking beyond what they were taught or what they had seen. No one told Columbus to go sail west, and no one told any settler to move somewhere else. The way they were raised told them to stay put as their fathers and forefathers had, but they ignored what they knew and made a decision of their own.

If we can’t grow beyond the behaviors and systems that were set up and indoctrinated a few centuries ago I don’t think we’re going to last long at all, whether on Earth or on Mars.

7 hours ago, Terwin said:

Not all companies do or are even allowed to make money.

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

There is a whole class of companies that do not "exist to make money". These are called "non-profit companies".

I never said all companies exist to make money. But money would be required to build a Mars colony, thus I assumed SpaceX is the type of company that needs to make it.

And there are things they already have to pay for. Support infrastructure, paying their workers, maintaining and refurbishing rockets. Contracts in LEO and on the Moon. What will be left over for Mars?

The colony, that is.

7 hours ago, Terwin said:

I expect there to be major financial issues, but the richest man in the world seems intent on using both his fortune and his business accumen for this purpose and I am not going to complain about that.

I don’t know why you’d see what I write as a complaint. He can try, but if he fails, we shouldn’t give up.

That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying he shouldn’t, I’m saying we can’t limit ourselves to simply hoping a billionaire will do it all for us.

When I say “we” I mean humanity. Not specifically you or I.

7 hours ago, tater said:

If it's not economical to do it, it's not going to happen unless someone does it with their own money. I tend to think it'll be a combo of stuff like SpaceX, and the somewhat more prosaic goals of Bezos. Moving some industry to space, getting resources from asteroids, etc. This creates some economic incentive for capability in space, which can bootstrap efforts to move humanity off Earth (any who wish this) assuming such a move makes economic sense. The longer such a move takes, the less required people are, however—automation.

Course what comes with intelligent automation is the ability to build stuff so that humans need only show up.

I’m skeptical industry will ever be moved to space. It makes no economic sense either, because it’s easier to build factories on Earth. The cost of shipping something across the land or sea is much lower than shipping stuff to and from space.

If governments signed off on regulations banning industry on Earth, then they’d do it. But corporations don’t really do massive “save the Earth/environment” type stuff unless they’re forced to. Otherwise they largely prefer the little things that look good for PR but don’t incur too much cost.

The issue with automation is that it would leave people with nowhere to go. Eventually robots would be building robots, writing code, and repairing robots, and those robots would replace all jobs except government and management. There would be no need for humans. How are people supposed to pay for Starlink if they have no job? And then companies wouldn’t be making money and it would all collapse.

There’s talk of UBI and what not, but at that point people would more or less be receiving necessities for free, obviating the money. Corporations would have the power to do things simply based on whether they have the resources to produce enough robots to do it, gained by cooperation with another corporation, which also just needs to produce enough robots to harvest the resources. If people are getting necessities for free and don’t have any way to work, because robots are doing everything, corporations wouldn’t really be making money off people by selling goods and services, they’d just be providing it with no return. A Mars colony suddenly becomes feasible not “economically” but simply on whether people want to do it or not.

At which point it seems you’ve brought us to my point: How can we think beyond our existing economics in support of space colonization?

It goes back to my original post when this thread was revived: thinking about profitability and affordability (both in terms of money) as a means of making space colonization feasible is silly.

[darthgently]

9 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Well the societies where people work together for the betterment of all rather than themselves alone have been dead for four centuries so it would make sense you’ve never seen them.

It is true that I hadn't considered Shangri-La, Brigadoon, Wakanda, or the Undying Lands.  But even you have to admit that  Numenor, Narnia, and Neverneverland were problematic and had self-induced rough times

[tater]

14 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I’m skeptical industry will ever be moved to space. It makes no economic sense either, because it’s easier to build factories on Earth. The cost of shipping something across the land or sea is much lower than shipping stuff to and from space.

The cost DOWN the gravity well is actually pretty low. I think it's only possibly economical for certain manufacturing, not everything, and ALL the inputs for whatever that stuff is need to come from space. for those. Finished product deorbited to parachute down (winged return vehicles?).

[tater]

17 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

At which point it seems you’ve brought us to my point: How can we think beyond our existing economics in support of space colonization?

There's nothing beyond existing economies I'm interested in being part of, least until post-scarcity—automation makes everything in space at ~0 cost in human labor, so "cost" has no meaning. In a scarcity economy, the system that automates the value of scarce resources most effectively (markets) is fine by me.

 

20 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I never said all companies exist to make money. But money would be required to build a Mars colony, thus I assumed SpaceX is the type of company that needs to make it.

And there are things they already have to pay for. Support infrastructure, paying their workers, maintaining and refurbishing rockets. Contracts in LEO and on the Moon. What will be left over for Mars?

The colony, that is.

That's what Starlink is supposed to be for, that and little contracts (launches, HLS, etc) to offset raising the TRLs they need.

The above regarding scarcity is ALSO relevant to Mars colonization. 10 years ago, I'm sure the idea was send people to Mars, where people then do work on Mars to make the new city (New Donner?). I'd say now, they might want to send some people to Mars (because people on Mars is cool), but instead of 100k people a year for 10 years, I'd think sending 66k robots a year makes more sense. (1/3 charging any given time, the other 2/3 working, so working 25 hours a day (erm, Sol)).

Solar panels? Check, they have a company making those. batteries for night? Yep. Tunnels? Yep. Regolith moving vehicles? Check. Robots? Check. Send everything automated, and a few people around to run the robots.

[SunlitZelkova]

57 minutes ago, darthgently said:

It is true that I hadn't considered Shangri-La, Brigadoon, Wakanda, or the Undying Lands.  But even you have to admit that  Numenor, Narnia, and Neverneverland were problematic and had self-induced rough times

I suggest reading The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow and for a good overview of societies like the Wendat (Huron) Indians who did not have private property in the sense we know today but still functioned just fine.

Even humans 50,000 years ago were able to work together to build large structures without having to barter each other into doing it, or suppress people into slaves.

Looking at modern anthropological evidence is much better than parroting philosophical arguments made centuries ago. I can’t and won’t force you though, but if you prefer to adhere to dogmas instead of looking at facts, it’s your choice.

47 minutes ago, tater said:

There's nothing beyond existing economies I'm interested in being part of, least until post-scarcity—automation makes everything in space at ~0 cost in human labor, so "cost" has no meaning. In a scarcity economy, the system that automates the value of scarce resources most effectively (markets) is fine by me.

Well in the event that doesn’t prove up to the task of space colonization, I sure as heck hope the next generation is more flexible and imaginative.

49 minutes ago, tater said:

That's what Starlink is supposed to be for, that and little contracts (launches, HLS, etc) to offset raising the TRLs they need.

The above regarding scarcity is ALSO relevant to Mars colonization. 10 years ago, I'm sure the idea was send people to Mars, where people then do work on Mars to make the new city (New Donner?). I'd say now, they might want to send some people to Mars (because people on Mars is cool), but instead of 100k people a year for 10 years, I'd think sending 66k robots a year makes more sense. (1/3 charging any given time, the other 2/3 working, so working 25 hours a day (erm, Sol)).

Solar panels? Check, they have a company making those. batteries for night? Yep. Tunnels? Yep. Regolith moving vehicles? Check. Robots? Check. Send everything automated, and a few people around to run the robots.

I think they will definitely have the money to build a small, dependent colony (population in the hundreds). But it will never be self sustaining unless something changes with humanity itself.

I would be very interested to know how compact those constructions robots could be made. Kinda like how the battle droids unfold in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. There’s also the possibility of avoiding a folding mechanism and sending the robots in pieces and assembling them on the surface.

Edited April 24 by SunlitZelkova

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I suggest reading The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow and for a good overview of societies like the Wendat (Huron) Indians who did not have private property in the sense we know today but still functioned just fine.

Even humans 50,000 years ago were able to work together to build large structures without having to barter each other into doing it, or suppress people into slaves.

Looking at modern anthropological evidence is much better than parroting philosophical arguments made centuries ago. I can’t and won’t force you though, but if you prefer to adhere to dogmas instead of looking at facts, it’s your choice.

New history.  Huh.  Quiet part out loud.

All peoples had peaceful times at times.  All peoples have been slavers and been enslaved at times.  

The Huron and other peoples in the Iroquois Confederacy also had their darker moments.  If you only want to look back and see the good times, that is your prerogative.  But I just can't fit the many highly corroborated facts into the tiny box you are handing to me.

[tater]

25 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Well in the event that doesn’t prove up to the task of space colonization, I sure as heck hope the next generation is more flexible and imaginative.

That's like saying there should be some other way to find truth than the scientific method. Even in prison people use markets (oddly enough, the most free economies are "black markets"). Markets automatically assign value to scarce resources. In some made up system ("Do what we say, or we throw you out the airlock!") I imagine a market forms anyway. Also, they might want to buy stuff from Earth, so solving the trade issue is something they'll have to come up with if they want literally anything not home grown on Mars.

Like I said, I'm not a Mars person, I don't actually see it closing. The old O'Neill ideas were predicated on a workforce in space building solar power sats for Earth needing someplace to live—but I tend to think automation ends much of this. I wanna see some cool SF future, just not sure how it ever works out.

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

Serious question, what are the easy-to-profit-from ways?

Things with lower margins but near guaranteed markets.  Long game.  Food,  shelter, (alcohol, tobacco, and firearms?)

Selling addictive substances tends to be profitable. Ask Starbucks about that.

[SunlitZelkova]

26 minutes ago, darthgently said:

New history.  Huh.  Quiet part out loud.

They say history is studied for a reason. We learn new things all the time.

27 minutes ago, darthgently said:

All peoples had peaceful times at times.  All peoples have been slavers and been enslaved at times.

This is not the case. Slavery is a very new invention.

Obviously murder and arguments have existed throughout all history.

I don’t know what your definition of peace is.

28 minutes ago, darthgently said:

The Huron and other peoples in the Iroquois Confederacy also had their darker moments.  If you only want to look back and see the good times, that is your prerogative.  But I just can't fit the many highly corroborated facts into the tiny box you are handing to me.

I’m not saying it was a utopia. I’m not saying we should adopt their form of society either.

I’m saying what we have now is not the end all be all of what society can look like.

If it is, we have peaked and humanity will cease to exist by the year 3000.

6 minutes ago, tater said:

That's like saying there should be some other way to find truth than the scientific method. Even in prison people use markets (oddly enough, the most free economies are "black markets"). Markets automatically assign value to scarce resources. In some made up system ("Do what we say, or we throw you out the airlock!") I imagine a market forms anyway. Also, they might want to buy stuff from Earth, so solving the trade issue is something they'll have to come up with if they want literally anything not home grown on Mars.

Not really. There’s only one way to observe the world, but human society can be organized however we want.

Unless we really are dumb, unthinking animals with no free will or consciousness, as I once argued we were when debating how humans are responding climate change, comparing it to dinosaurs seeing a twinkle in the sky hours before the asteroid hit and being physically incapable of doing anything about it.

I’m of the opinion we aren’t. We certainly have a society that tells us that though, what with famous quotes like “war never changes” from video games.

[mikegarrison]

I tend to doubt that many human societies larger than, say, nuclear families have truly not had any concept of personal ownership. People spend time and calories making tools and gathering food, and it is unlikely they would just have no concept that the results of their labor belong to them.

A small Mars colony may well start out with most things just being community property, but I would bet that once it got to be enough, people would start claiming their own spaces and possessions.

[PakledHostage]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

No one told Columbus to go sail west,

As an aside, they kind of did. Almost 2000 years earlier, Eratosthenes correctly estimated the size of the Earth, within about 1%. Then 300 years after that, Ptolemy redid the calculation incorrectly, but his answer stood as valid for 1500 years because the church liked Ptolomy better than Eratosthenes. So when Columbus came along and wanted to reach Asia via a "shorter way" than by going east, it was reasonable to go west. It was only after Magellan's flotilla first sailed across the Pacific 25 years later that they realized the Earth was a lot bigger than Ptolemy had estimated.

[darthgently]

25 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

This is not the case. Slavery is a very new invention

There are accounting records in cuneiform involving slave trading from ancient Sumeria.   Some of the oldest written records involve accounting all over the world and chattel slavery was common everywhere at one time or another. 

You know what, just roll with what you want, but you are actually being quite the opposite of persuasive.   I don't want you trying to convince me of your wishful thinking through sheer walls of words. 

This is not a good faith discussion on your part, I am disengaging.

Edited April 25 by darthgently

[tater]

47 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Not really. There’s only one way to observe the world, but human society can be organized however we want.

At gunpoint.

I want a market (imaginary me on Mars ), so "we" can organize it some other way, but I will sell stuff—how does Mars stop me from this unsanctioned economy? Throw me out the airlock, or disallow my choice? That's the thing, in a market, if a group wants to live collectively—go for it! More power to them. I'm unaware of other economic models that can exist without prohibiting a market.

Regardless, they might want stuff from Earth, so I hope dank memes sell well, dunno what else they do for money sans sandworms and spice

 

Edited April 25 by tater

[tater]

I should add that I get that a space society has a necessary for of collectivism that Earth lacks—you can't easily hang out outside, so infrastructure is literally life. I suppose you could simply build a tunnel/whatever elsewhere at some point once the colony is more mature.

I honestly can't imagine wanting to move to Mars.

[darthgently]

I'll just drop this here;

What cultures in history never engaged in slavery?

Grok @grok:

Well, it seems that finding a society or culture in history that never engaged in slavery is like searching for a needle in a haystack, but with the added challenge of the needle being invisible and the haystack being on fire. In other words, it's a difficult task.

Judging from the information provided, it appears that slavery has been a part of many societies throughout history, from the Romans and Vikings to various African societies and Native American tribes. Even societies that didn't practice slavery on a large scale or were more egalitarian in nature, like the Comanche and the Tehuelche of Patagonia, still engaged in some form of enslavement, albeit on a smaller scale.

So, to answer your question, while there might have been societies that didn't engage in slavery on a large or institutionalized scale, it's challenging to find a culture in history that never engaged in slavery at all. It's like trying to find a unicorn in a field of horses - you might see something that looks different, but at the end of the day, it's still a horse."

 

 

[tater]

On topic for a Mars—or deep space— colony and related to humans forced to do labor ^^^ what happens when there are people who do not meaningfully contribute, but take resources?

Ie: The Cold Equations (https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/), alternately TANSTAAFL! from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

We see such people here all the time now (far more than in even the recent past, least here in ABQ, or last time I was in LA or San Francisco). They are effectively allowed to expire outside, it just tends to be in slow motion compared to chucking them out the airlock on Mars (or an O'Neill colony). If instead there is such a thing as a free lunch! for all, what happens if too many stop doing the work required to survive?

Edited April 25 by tater

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

 

I tend to doubt that many human societies larger than, say, nuclear families have truly not had any concept of personal ownership. People spend time and calories making tools and gathering food, and it is unlikely they would just have no concept that the results of their labor belong to them.

 

People worked together to slay a mammoth and then shared the results.

Maybe if someone kills something really small like a squirrel they keep it to themselves, but it’s hard to meaningfully share a squirrel anyways.

I wouldn’t say private property never existed, but in the gargantuan form it takes today, it certainly did not at some point.

2 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

As an aside, they kind of did. Almost 2000 years earlier, Eratosthenes correctly estimated the size of the Earth, within about 1%. Then 300 years after that, Ptolemy redid the calculation incorrectly, but his answer stood as valid for 1500 years because the church liked Ptolomy better than Eratosthenes. So when Columbus came along and wanted to reach Asia via a "shorter way" than by going east, it was reasonable to go west. It was only after Magellan's flotilla first sailed across the Pacific 25 years later that they realized the Earth was a lot bigger than Ptolemy had estimated.

What I meant is that no one told him to find a shorter route.

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

There are accounting records in cuneiform involving slave trading from ancient Sumeria.   Some of the oldest written records involve accounting all over the world and chattel slavery was common everywhere at one time or another. 

That goes back 6,000 years. Humans have been around for 300,000.

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

You know what, just roll with what you want, but you are actually being quite the opposite of persuasive.   I don't want you trying to convince me of your wishful thinking through sheer walls of words. 

This is not a good faith discussion on your part, I am disengaging.

What would make you happy? That we have a brief witty exchange and I bow to your opinion?

You claim humans have always had slavery. I say it’s a new invention. You say there are records dating back to Sumer of it. I say that’s only 6,000 years out of 300,000. I await your response.

If you don’t want to discuss anymore that’s fine, but please don’t accuse me of being unreasonable. We can recognize we disagree, but saying that I lack “good faith” because I don’t bend to your opinion is not good.

1 hour ago, tater said:

At gunpoint.

I want a market (imaginary me on Mars ), so "we" can organize it some other way, but I will sell stuff—how does Mars stop me from this unsanctioned economy? Throw me out the airlock, or disallow my choice? That's the thing, in a market, if a group wants to live collectively—go for it! More power to them. I'm unaware of other economic models that can exist without prohibiting a market.

Regardless, they might want stuff from Earth, so I hope dank memes sell well, dunno what else they do for money sans sandworms and spice

 

You could trade stuff of your own for something else, but would you try to force someone to build your product for you? And if they’re the one building it, why should they get less than you?

If it’s an import from Earth maybe that changes it.

This would apply to non-necessities.

When I question market economics in a Mars colony, it mainly is about ensuring people have a minimum level of sustenance, something that hasn’t really been implemented well in modern societies on Earth.

A city on Mars is basically a giant space station on the surface of the planet. It can’t just be a replication of an Earth city. How would the ISS fare if some of the astronauts had less food based on how many experiments they did or what they contributed to maintenance?

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

I'll just drop this here;

What cultures in history never engaged in slavery?

Grok @grok:

Well, it seems that finding a society or culture in history that never engaged in slavery is like searching for a needle in a haystack, but with the added challenge of the needle being invisible and the haystack being on fire. In other words, it's a difficult task.

Judging from the information provided, it appears that slavery has been a part of many societies throughout history, from the Romans and Vikings to various African societies and Native American tribes. Even societies that didn't practice slavery on a large scale or were more egalitarian in nature, like the Comanche and the Tehuelche of Patagonia, still engaged in some form of enslavement, albeit on a smaller scale.

So, to answer your question, while there might have been societies that didn't engage in slavery on a large or institutionalized scale, it's challenging to find a culture in history that never engaged in slavery at all. It's like trying to find a unicorn in a field of horses - you might see something that looks different, but at the end of the day, it's still a horse."

 

 

These all date to the last 2,000 years or so.

I was incorrect though, as I intended to imply some recent societies did not engage in slavery. So thank you for the correction.

52 minutes ago, tater said:

On topic for a Mars—or deep space— colony and related to humans forced to do labor ^^^ what happens when there are people who do not meaningfully contribute, but take resources?

Ie: The Cold Equations (https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/), alternately TANSTAAFL! from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

We see such people here all the time now (far more than in even the recent past, least here in ABQ, or last time I was in LA or San Francisco). They are effectively allowed to expire outside, it just tends to be in slow motion compared to chucking them out the airlock on Mars (or an O'Neill colony). If instead there is such a thing as a free lunch! for all, what happens if too many stop doing the work required to survive?

Interesting question, although I think there is a difference between the one raised in the story- stowaways exceeding the capacity of a vessel’s safe operating standards- and actual crew members who refuse to work.

I think the flaw is that we are conditioned to believe work is something you do in return for someone else’s things in the first place. People should want to work for the Mars colony’s benefit, not for food. There’s food on Earth if they want that.

Ideally, everyone would be trained to do everything with the colony’s systems. You don’t want an accident taking out all your nuclear specialists and having no way to run the reactor.

So everyone does their part for each job on a shift system. This would improve safety as no one would get bored with their job and slack or make mistakes.

I think splitting colonies into smaller hubs would be better than a single monolithic dome, as this would help stave off potential future internal conflicts- give them the freedom to make their own decisions about what they want to do.

Each hub sends a selected colonist, again on a shift system, to work on and maintain key modules like power or factories for whatever stuff. Farms too.

Now you might say “Of course, people are naturally greedy and will just slack off if they aren’t threatened with death to work!” I would respond by saying that’s only because they’ve been conditioned in a society where everyone is taught the ideal life is not working. Become the manager and have people do the hard stuff for you.

Realistically, there’s not much flexibility in what you can do on a Mars colony. Take care of the inhabitants and expand it as the population grows is about it.

So why not remove human managers? Obviously you’d need team leaders for certain tasks, but these team leaders would actually partake in the activities they’re directing, unlike some managers on Earth.

If there is no position you can rise to in which others do stuff for you- everyone is needed to maintain the colony, to maintain every part because of the shift system- there will be no incentive not to work.

Edited April 25 by SunlitZelkova

[tater]

22 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

When I question market economics in a Mars colony, it mainly is about ensuring people have a minimum level of sustenance, something that hasn’t really been implemented well in modern societies on Earth.

If someone on Mars is a deatbeat, maybe they don't deserve sustenance. In a necessarily closed system like a small domed colony (whatever shape it takes ), the resources are much more obviously finite than on Earth. If everyone needs to pull their weight you're stuck with a market punishing them somehow, or them eventually tossed out the airlock.

A very "hard sci fi" take on this sort of future would be an interesting one.

[tater]

Thinking of the science fiction describing such a colony got me thinking about colonist selection...

Spoiler