What will move the hearts of men to go to Mars, the kinds of men that will go, the kinds of Martians they will become, and the society that they will build
Earth Lives Matter releases a statement decrying the Martian requirements to become a settler. They say that the absence of lower iq people is evidence of discrimination, racism and misogyny. Riots break out in major cities across the world, despite martial law being in effect, with rioters demanding the decolonization of Martian colonization. Spray painted messages stating the historical wrongs of the demographic makeups of the first settlers must be undone with new quotas of subsidized settlement groups.
On Mars, as the news of this reached, a few old settlers made their way out of the spacepub, drew a raised fist in the red earth, and pissed on it. They looked at one another, clapping hands on backs, and sternly saying "Never" as they went in for a final round before returning to their homesteads.
Let them come. If the tyrants on earth want to subsidize a colony, welcome them. Diversity Settlers, in their own colony, probably won't last long. Those thar survive will only do so by taking up the Martian ethos, thus becoming Martin's themselves.
Thank you for a brilliant and thought provoking article. The issue of colonization of Mars has been well studied and thought out for at least the last 50 years. This is not including all of the Science Fiction novels that were written in the 1930s and 40s. The best way to protect our species is for us to explore the cosmos as it separates out the best and the brightest and the strongest genes from the remaining pool of society. Those that can withstand the vigor of space, travel, exploration, and colonization will lead the human race into the future and protect it from the petty men and women that have small minds left on earth. Hope you and your family have a happy Thanksgiving, even though you may be in Canada.
It's amazing how Pierce Brown's Red Rising novels and your optimistic space-futurist articles have completely re-awoken my capacity to dream about the possibilities of man's future with a sense of awe instead of dread. I do hope that some of my descendants will make the journey across the ink, and play their part in spreading human flourishing to the stars for generations to come.
Agreed, the way I see it the reason the setting is dystopic at all is due to tyranny of a ruling class that has lost its way. I think he paints a clear and intellectually honest picture that the only way humanity was going to get out of the mire we find ourselves in now was for a class of man possessing requisite iron will to rise up and conquer our baser desires, symbolized by the planet Earth. I think it's hard to sell the effectiveness of hierarchical order to "modern audiences," so it needs to be shown in an evil light.
A lot of this reminds me of Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", from the decadent Earth, to the hyper-libertarian(the good kind) ideology, to every bit of oxygen being treasured. It necessitates a gruff, practical sort of man than can be both very social and willing to destroy everyone who gets in his way.
Great stuff! My family of mostly sci-fi readers from age 6, is totally supportive of Mars exploration, though I have cautioned that the technology isn't quite there yet...
BTW, the meteor that exploded over southern Canada 12,900 years ago, leaving a layer of iridiulm like the Dinosaur killer, melte most of the ice sheet....it didn't set humanity back, it advanced humanity by creating access to most of North America...I totally agree that the disfunctional rights and customs now prevailing in the West will rapidly disappear....A very interesting view of this is contained in Heinlein's Hugo award winning The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which includes throwing rocks at a tyrannical Earth in the move to secure the Moon colony's independence....
Technology isn't quite there, but it's getting very, very close.
The ice sheet would have melted in any case, in all probability. The immediate effects were to abruptly drop global temperatures while setting much of North America on fire. Most likely a lot of people died. So it was certainly a setback, even if in the long run we rebounded (and are now probably a lot more advanced than they were).
Since mr Carter mentions Tunguska, for a fun time, look at a map to see what lies on or almost of the 60th parallel North, same as the impacted area in Siberia. Just a few hours difference and no more St. Petersburg, f.e.
Currently reading von Däniken's 1969 "Erinnerungen an die Zukunft: Ungelöste Rätsel der Vergangenkeit", and he mentions Tunguska quite a lot in the latter parts. His greatest contribution will always be daring to ask awkward questions, so that others too may dare.
Tunguska was a meteor that exploded over Siberia, leveling hundreds of square miles of forest.It wasn't known before that meteors could explode..There were few human casualties..The light from the explosion and fires was apparently visible from London...If it had exploded over London, hundreds of thousands would have died....
As an old prospector myself, my favourite meteor was the Manicouagan Event, which created an eponymously named lake in northern Quebec about 214 min years ago. It was an asteroid about 3 miles in diameter and left a crater 60 miles across. If you google it, NASA has some great pics.
Check out Mackey Chandler’s ‘April’ series. It postulates a scenario similar to the above, where the orbital residents declare independence from what they call the Slumball down at the bottom of the gravity well. The series is up to 14 books now, and touches on many of the issues discussed here. Plus it’s a hoot. Recommended. I liked it so much I re-read the whole series every time a new one comes out.
But if you want to accelerate the process, you can use manure to make topsoil for grasses, then bring in dairy cattle. Less regenerative agriculture and more generative. Expand the fields as you clear out perclhorates.
Cattle probably won't be available for quite some time. Early protein sources more likely to be fish. That said, fish effluvia is an excellent fertilizer - this is the basis of aquaponics.
Smaller animals might be better. Rabbits, chickens, other creatures you can use for some meat stock. Low cost to get going, low cost to get a few breeding pairs to a place where they can experiment with how viable it would be.
Portugal was the initiator of the Age of Exploration, at least above the level of random fishing boats or outlawed Vikings. Then they pulled back for domestic reasons which is why they are a world power. :>). Ming China did much the same leading to hundreds of years of decline. Only about 50 years kept the two from colliding in the Indian Ocean.
The Chinese treasure fleet is one of history's great cautionary tails. If they hadn't lost their nerve and turned their backs on the world, it's possible the century of shame would never have happened.
Arguably America's current woes are related to turning its back on space in the 70s. Imagine what the country would look like by now if it hadn't.
Good point...In fact, Portuguese fishermen were fishing the Grand Banks off Canada long before Columbus arrived ...and of course the Norse were there far earlier, but couldn't survive the natives' hostility...
Minor nitpick: I believe Martians will be LESS agreeable than the general population.
Agreeableness is one's tendency to conform, even when one doubts the rules; on Mars obeying a stupid order can get you killed. I did a quick check with Gab.AI and it confirmed that military personnel are more disagreeable than the norm.
Agreeable people are easy to dominate temporarily, but tend to follow the drift of the crowd. Disagreeable people are harder to convince, but easier to lead once you do.
This essay is much, much more important than the title would imply. One would do well to consider it in the context of a program in History and Moral Philosophy. It discusses those who had little, controlled even less, and conquered, conquered, conquered.
That has been bred out of us, for now, or certainly set to a very slow simmer.
Experience with new environments always sparks innovation. If asteroid mining becomes a thing, lots of really smart people will be scrambling to find ways to do it faster, cheaper, better....
One thing for sure, wherever hard working WHIMs go to find their fortunes, alcohol and prostitutes soon follow. There will still be demand for distilleries and bordellos in our glorious future. I'm not a woman, and I don't think I'd make a good pimp, but my expertise in chemistry and my homebrewing experience might just be the ticket.
Let's hope we can get our asses there before it's too late. The artwork alone is almost enough to inspire great men to take the leap, but the post is what brings it all together. Absolute banger, mate.
"This does however point to a profound difference between Musk and the money-grubbing financiers who manage our miserable vaisya-dominated bazaar of a social order. To the merchant class, money is the only possible point of doing anything; to Musk, money is merely a means to a higher end."
That right there is a very important point that needs highlighting even more. Money? Has no value at all, intrinsically. Water, air, food, shelter does. A Mars settlement (I'd argue for using settlement over colony, since a colony is beholden to a place of origin having dominion over the colony) would quite probably use some version of social credits rather than money, credits based on a combination of need and contribution. The reason for this is equally simple:
Fairness. You work and do your best and you do it right, or others suffer due to you being delinquent. In such an environment, hoarding or even having arbitrary tokens are nothing but a cause for conflict. I do not, however, mean social credits the way it is used in China and (informally, so far) the Americanised-Sinofied West. Your labour, not your opinions, will determine your worth.
And since the settlement needs your labour, and you needs the settlement, and there's a minimum of material needs everyone must be supplied with and supply the energy and materials for, some form of communal economy will evolve as the most stable form.
If. If the settlements do not make themselves dependent on Earth currencies and units of "worth". If they stay on a "dollar-standard", they can't do anything but fail, as they'll become locked in the same trajectory towards totalitarian capitalism, so close to communism you'd be excused to mistake one for the other in poor light.
And here's where Spirituality enters the game: what authority will underwrite the ideals of the settlers? You can't worship toil alone, and we need only look at our present to see where making Greed God leads, and atheism has mutated into High School contrarianism and "goth" vulgarisation of nihilism. What idol, what avatar, what higher notion then, since all the old ones (not /the/ Old Ones, though) are Earth-bound and will bring their Earth-problems with them?
(You do not want jewish and arab settlers behaving as per their respective races on a Martian colony, which they inevitably will if allowed there.)
The Engineer Hero is too human and too vague, as well as too inhumane in cold logic and emotionless rationale. The God-Machine needs a degree of ignorance preventing further technological development. Martial ability? Maybe, but sooner or later it will need an out against someone, and being a good fighter does not equal being a good steward. Technical prowess? Difficult to judge, and lead back to a leading guild stifling advancement.
What spiritual need, forceful need, can make it work and can we make work for us?
Islam simply could not be replicated on Mars. The fundamentalists among them believe that human beings cannot ascend “beyond the (Copernicus-style) sphere of the Moon”. For that reason Khomeini declared the Moon landing a fake and the Iranian Ministry of Information said “Capricorn One” was really a documentary(!) There could be no fixed direction of prayer, no way to observe a lunar based calendar, no possibility of making the Hajj. My guess is that any person of Muslim descent forward looking enough to go to Mars would already have mentally left Islam behind. Nonetheless whoever is recruiting volunteer settlers would have to screen out anyone whose religious or nationalistic attachments would pose a threat to settler solidarity.
I watched Capricorn One in a movie theatre in Tehran in the early 1980s and there actually was a Persian language message posted at the beginning of the film that said the events depicted in the film were real and not fiction.
Islam can be molded: all it takes is that a recognised council of the imams, kadis, whatever declare it a sacred duty to spread the Dar al Islam to Mars.
A compass of sorts can easily be made so that it point towards Earth; it's not as if moslems far from Mekka bother with being exact with the direction of prayer - a general "South and East" (from where I am) is sufficient.
And a monotheistic and monocultural settlement would be plenty more stable than any multicultural one, as evidenced on Earth already. Plus, you can't screen for religion and culture without being racist and supremacist in some way, a big no-sell in the West at present and for any foreseeable future. Any non-Westerners going along to Mars would be the fully assimilated and naturalised ones.
As all the Abrahamic faiths, islam is at its core inherently pragmatic if it comes down to brass tacks - the priests, rabbis, imams /will/ declare as sacred whatever it is they realise they simply cannot do without, and find workarounds. Just look at how salafis and jews handle interest on loans: usury is haram, but fees aren't. And as if by magic, the monthly fees paid match what the interest rate would have been.
While the jews simply reasoned that that rule only apply to their fellow sons of David, not the goyim, and the Christians simply started to ignore it when it became too incovenient.
The whole "religion vs tech"-bit is a misunderstanding: the Abrahamic faiths oppose /all/ tech that threatens to upend their current powerbase, but once they realise they can't stop it, or that one of the other sects are using the tech to their advantage, they pivot and change their tune.
No reason settling space won't follow the same pattern they have kept up for more than two millennia.
Having lived in an Islamic nation for three years I can tell you that you are flat out wrong about Muslims non-chalantly not being fussy about the direction of prayer. The evidence from Mosques built since the eighth common era century to the present is not only are mosques built with the exact t direction of prayer but that their knowledge of geography encompassed the belief that the Earth was round. If you ever stayed in a modest hotel in Indonesia or Malaysia the direction of prayer is posted on the ceiling so guests know the correct direction. A man and his family in Seattle were murdered because the father had published an article claiming that the traditional method of determining the qibla was a degree off. Pragmatic indeed
The Red Rising reference is both apt and extensively interesting. Remarkable how Pierce Brown imagined a world so realistic given his leftist priors. His dystopia is our utopia, and he must be a very brave man to look it in the face. Never rooted for the Villains more in a book series though they do get ghoulish at times (except ones where the villain is the Englishman's racial sense for decency).
I wonder if the future Martians will engage in extreme ritualistic violence like the Society does in the book series. Chaotic, opportunistic violence is enormously dangerous in space, but I believe suppressing violence permanently is a recipe for disaster (see our current state). The solution might very well be duels, arenas, organized group combats for solving disputes, entertainment, and social/eugenic effects (like burning off excess males). I train fencing. I'll be ready for space combat.
It's notable that the Society actually places certain cultural restrictions on military technology, eg banning robots.
I sometimes wonder if Brown is really a commie, or just understood that the only way he could present these ideas was through a communist lens. By any reasonable evaluation, a ruling caste that terraforms every body in the solar system is a boon to mankind.
Yeah I wonder the same. He’s either a totally banal, self aware communist or he’s been cynical about the whole series to present the counter facts. It would be an amazing rug pull to have the actual good guy (Lysander) win in book 7. Reddit would die.
I disagree, he merely outflanked you to the right. What happens? Lysander betrays his traitorous/left-wing friends and accepts his destiny/right-wing friends. In doing, he destroys the better part of a perverted subculture on the belt, separatist and alien.
Men still cry over the Vandal's sack of Rome, but what was left of Rome in 476? Just the marble and gold. The vigorous and mighty people were gone. In their place were nearly a million southern imported slave peoples sucking up the resources of Europe. The Vandals did better than loot; they killed these parasites and weakling parasites. Sometimes you have to burn before you can build.
You're describing both the early pioneers, who faced conditions while not as harsh as Mars would present, were plenty tough and The Dosadi, in the Dosadi Experiment. The human part of the planet looked down on normal humans. And there might be another even more amazing reason why Mars. Not only is it the most accessible, as you rightly point out, but, if Richard C. Hoagland and a number of scientist astronomers are right (he had a team of scientist from various disciplines assist him in his research), then what is on Mars might be an ancient civilisation.
No reason not to go. For me, being a bit earthbound, I'm just happy we're going to go out there.
As a long time fan of his (happy memories of those Art Bell shows), and after reading his book, Monuments of Mars, I concluded he’s onto something. He, and a team of scientists, did a rigorous study using a variety of methods, primarily on the Face on Mars, as well as other structures. The TL:DR from his book is that the Face, and surrounding apparent artifacts all exhibited redundant mathematical formulas found in monoliths on earth, and calculated that the chance that they are random and not built by intelligences was astronomically against a natural origin.
One of his team members, an expert in satellite surveillance, used a method to detect artificiality, even if it’s hidden, and discovered artificiality.
Carl sagan argues that all cultures seem to have myths and legends that speak of an intelligence contacting them. Yup, the arch skeptic himself. Hoagland argues that a cosmic war occurred in a distant past, and that we were either involved in it or the result of it, possibly a kind of prisoner species.
Long ago I concluded something that resonates with what you said about what would happen to people on Mars and that was, we, as a species, that may be millions of years older than we thought, or inherited genes from a previous race, have survived a cosmic war, got stuck on one planet and in spite of short lifespans and such, have clawed our way back to something that can go out there again.
We are tough as fuck. We’re bad asses in a big way and we’re heading out there again. Me, I’ll not be going, too old, but damn if don’t make my heart and spirit feel fine to think we’re going to, with luck, do the most difficult thing ever.
And that is only good for all of us. A little hope.
Personal note and I’ll get out of your way: we might even be going home.
A very wise friend of mine looked at hominid evolution and said it is almost like the DNA was designed with "OFF" switches, when the genetic engineers figured they were ready for the next step.
The idea that weak, frail homo sapiens could defeat the Neandethrals seemed an impossiibility, and, frankly, still does.
Tree of Woe did a useful piece on this in his substack, and postulates that genetic memory is why we (reasonably!) fear certain hominids, especially at night.
And if the genetic engineers were on Mars, they might still be there, waiting for us to pass the IQ test and develop an off-planet Civilization on some place that is quite challenging.
As I was told Cairo is Arabic for Mars, I guess the name "Mars" is already taken.
The Bible tells us the Earth existed first as a matter of Form, and only in Time, as a matter of Substance.
So, let's pick a name for Mars The Idea, the Matter of Form.
The current, ongoing “space race” began with the dawn of the age of nuclear power which was a relatively long time ago, around the middle of last century, conventionally speaking, so do the math on the actual, if undisclosed, progress.
Metaphysically, spiritually, I believe the “space race” is more ancient than our universe.
Anyway, within the current secular paradigm, the biggest threat to off-world buildout is earthly political trappings which are all-too human in their terminal folly, so maybe that’s the best justification for the media blackout and disinformation campaign on the subject, although full disclosure is the most direct and practical approach in my eyes, because blind alleys breed, well, the darker sides of humanity.
Earth Lives Matter releases a statement decrying the Martian requirements to become a settler. They say that the absence of lower iq people is evidence of discrimination, racism and misogyny. Riots break out in major cities across the world, despite martial law being in effect, with rioters demanding the decolonization of Martian colonization. Spray painted messages stating the historical wrongs of the demographic makeups of the first settlers must be undone with new quotas of subsidized settlement groups.
On Mars, as the news of this reached, a few old settlers made their way out of the spacepub, drew a raised fist in the red earth, and pissed on it. They looked at one another, clapping hands on backs, and sternly saying "Never" as they went in for a final round before returning to their homesteads.
Pretty much how that would go down.
Let them come. If the tyrants on earth want to subsidize a colony, welcome them. Diversity Settlers, in their own colony, probably won't last long. Those thar survive will only do so by taking up the Martian ethos, thus becoming Martin's themselves.
Speaking of our Ancestor's ancestral home, and THEIR colony:
https://www.404media.co/nanopasta-is-200-times-smaller-than-human-hair-3/
I just KNEW all of this stuff sounded familiar!
I would rather die in a failed Mars colony than ride out Imperial decline back here on yeast-Earth.
We must become our own Antarctic Space Nazis, or die trying.
Also, the first colony must be Carter City.
I was thinking Carterville, Vulcan would also be nice.
Or perhaps Hopium. Helium is taken.
John,
Thank you for a brilliant and thought provoking article. The issue of colonization of Mars has been well studied and thought out for at least the last 50 years. This is not including all of the Science Fiction novels that were written in the 1930s and 40s. The best way to protect our species is for us to explore the cosmos as it separates out the best and the brightest and the strongest genes from the remaining pool of society. Those that can withstand the vigor of space, travel, exploration, and colonization will lead the human race into the future and protect it from the petty men and women that have small minds left on earth. Hope you and your family have a happy Thanksgiving, even though you may be in Canada.
That's exactly the idea.
I'm Canadian, so we celebrated Thanksgiving over a month ago ;)
I wonder if Martians will celebrate Thanksgiving? Their year is 2 Earth years long…
It's amazing how Pierce Brown's Red Rising novels and your optimistic space-futurist articles have completely re-awoken my capacity to dream about the possibilities of man's future with a sense of awe instead of dread. I do hope that some of my descendants will make the journey across the ink, and play their part in spreading human flourishing to the stars for generations to come.
Thank you for another terrific article!
The only problem with Red Rising was that he insisted on it being a dystopia. The Golds were a spectacular ruling class.
Agreed, the way I see it the reason the setting is dystopic at all is due to tyranny of a ruling class that has lost its way. I think he paints a clear and intellectually honest picture that the only way humanity was going to get out of the mire we find ourselves in now was for a class of man possessing requisite iron will to rise up and conquer our baser desires, symbolized by the planet Earth. I think it's hard to sell the effectiveness of hierarchical order to "modern audiences," so it needs to be shown in an evil light.
A lot of this reminds me of Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", from the decadent Earth, to the hyper-libertarian(the good kind) ideology, to every bit of oxygen being treasured. It necessitates a gruff, practical sort of man than can be both very social and willing to destroy everyone who gets in his way.
Libertarianism has been a long-standing tradition in sci-fi for a very good reason.
Is I just me or does Libertarianism in Sci-fi seem way cooler than real life? Lol!
Happy Thanksgiving! 🍁👍
Much cooler.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Great stuff! My family of mostly sci-fi readers from age 6, is totally supportive of Mars exploration, though I have cautioned that the technology isn't quite there yet...
BTW, the meteor that exploded over southern Canada 12,900 years ago, leaving a layer of iridiulm like the Dinosaur killer, melte most of the ice sheet....it didn't set humanity back, it advanced humanity by creating access to most of North America...I totally agree that the disfunctional rights and customs now prevailing in the West will rapidly disappear....A very interesting view of this is contained in Heinlein's Hugo award winning The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which includes throwing rocks at a tyrannical Earth in the move to secure the Moon colony's independence....
Technology isn't quite there, but it's getting very, very close.
The ice sheet would have melted in any case, in all probability. The immediate effects were to abruptly drop global temperatures while setting much of North America on fire. Most likely a lot of people died. So it was certainly a setback, even if in the long run we rebounded (and are now probably a lot more advanced than they were).
Since mr Carter mentions Tunguska, for a fun time, look at a map to see what lies on or almost of the 60th parallel North, same as the impacted area in Siberia. Just a few hours difference and no more St. Petersburg, f.e.
Currently reading von Däniken's 1969 "Erinnerungen an die Zukunft: Ungelöste Rätsel der Vergangenkeit", and he mentions Tunguska quite a lot in the latter parts. His greatest contribution will always be daring to ask awkward questions, so that others too may dare.
Interesting. What's his take on Tunguska?
See above: too long comments overlap the one below, causing the "Reply"-button to not register.
Tunguska was a meteor that exploded over Siberia, leveling hundreds of square miles of forest.It wasn't known before that meteors could explode..There were few human casualties..The light from the explosion and fires was apparently visible from London...If it had exploded over London, hundreds of thousands would have died....
As an old prospector myself, my favourite meteor was the Manicouagan Event, which created an eponymously named lake in northern Quebec about 214 min years ago. It was an asteroid about 3 miles in diameter and left a crater 60 miles across. If you google it, NASA has some great pics.
Check out Mackey Chandler’s ‘April’ series. It postulates a scenario similar to the above, where the orbital residents declare independence from what they call the Slumball down at the bottom of the gravity well. The series is up to 14 books now, and touches on many of the issues discussed here. Plus it’s a hoot. Recommended. I liked it so much I re-read the whole series every time a new one comes out.
Damn! You scooped my Heinlein reference.
Regarding the critical role of manure in making topsoil, I have a question that simply MUST be asked:
How much shit can a Starship ship, if a Starship must ship shit?
You don't load the ship with shit. You load it with people and food. The people convert the food into shit, which you then use as fertilizer.
But that’s not as funny. Jeez.
But if you want to accelerate the process, you can use manure to make topsoil for grasses, then bring in dairy cattle. Less regenerative agriculture and more generative. Expand the fields as you clear out perclhorates.
Cattle probably won't be available for quite some time. Early protein sources more likely to be fish. That said, fish effluvia is an excellent fertilizer - this is the basis of aquaponics.
Smaller animals might be better. Rabbits, chickens, other creatures you can use for some meat stock. Low cost to get going, low cost to get a few breeding pairs to a place where they can experiment with how viable it would be.
Guinea pigs.
Portugal was the initiator of the Age of Exploration, at least above the level of random fishing boats or outlawed Vikings. Then they pulled back for domestic reasons which is why they are a world power. :>). Ming China did much the same leading to hundreds of years of decline. Only about 50 years kept the two from colliding in the Indian Ocean.
The Chinese treasure fleet is one of history's great cautionary tails. If they hadn't lost their nerve and turned their backs on the world, it's possible the century of shame would never have happened.
Arguably America's current woes are related to turning its back on space in the 70s. Imagine what the country would look like by now if it hadn't.
We had to pay for The Great Society after all.
Oh, we've paid all right.
The difference was that the Portuguese voyages were turning a profit, whereas the Chinese treasure fleet was an expensive prestige project.
This is true. Sailing around to give away treasure is a very weird thing to do.
Good point...In fact, Portuguese fishermen were fishing the Grand Banks off Canada long before Columbus arrived ...and of course the Norse were there far earlier, but couldn't survive the natives' hostility...
Minor nitpick: I believe Martians will be LESS agreeable than the general population.
Agreeableness is one's tendency to conform, even when one doubts the rules; on Mars obeying a stupid order can get you killed. I did a quick check with Gab.AI and it confirmed that military personnel are more disagreeable than the norm.
Agreeable people are easy to dominate temporarily, but tend to follow the drift of the crowd. Disagreeable people are harder to convince, but easier to lead once you do.
That's a very good point.
Throw low agreeableness into the mix along with the rest of the profile and you've got a very high proportion of natural geniuses.
This essay is much, much more important than the title would imply. One would do well to consider it in the context of a program in History and Moral Philosophy. It discusses those who had little, controlled even less, and conquered, conquered, conquered.
That has been bred out of us, for now, or certainly set to a very slow simmer.
For now.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-147720773
Mindset, Brothers and Sisters, Mindset!
Experience with new environments always sparks innovation. If asteroid mining becomes a thing, lots of really smart people will be scrambling to find ways to do it faster, cheaper, better....
Who knows what might develop as a result of that!
Exactly.
One thing for sure, wherever hard working WHIMs go to find their fortunes, alcohol and prostitutes soon follow. There will still be demand for distilleries and bordellos in our glorious future. I'm not a woman, and I don't think I'd make a good pimp, but my expertise in chemistry and my homebrewing experience might just be the ticket.
Martian vodka will be distilled from Martian potatoes within three months of the settlers planting the first potato. Count on it.
Now this is the plan: get your ass to Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAX2H0hpOc4
Let's hope we can get our asses there before it's too late. The artwork alone is almost enough to inspire great men to take the leap, but the post is what brings it all together. Absolute banger, mate.
Cheers.
We're on the path. The species will do this glorious thing.
"This does however point to a profound difference between Musk and the money-grubbing financiers who manage our miserable vaisya-dominated bazaar of a social order. To the merchant class, money is the only possible point of doing anything; to Musk, money is merely a means to a higher end."
That right there is a very important point that needs highlighting even more. Money? Has no value at all, intrinsically. Water, air, food, shelter does. A Mars settlement (I'd argue for using settlement over colony, since a colony is beholden to a place of origin having dominion over the colony) would quite probably use some version of social credits rather than money, credits based on a combination of need and contribution. The reason for this is equally simple:
Fairness. You work and do your best and you do it right, or others suffer due to you being delinquent. In such an environment, hoarding or even having arbitrary tokens are nothing but a cause for conflict. I do not, however, mean social credits the way it is used in China and (informally, so far) the Americanised-Sinofied West. Your labour, not your opinions, will determine your worth.
And since the settlement needs your labour, and you needs the settlement, and there's a minimum of material needs everyone must be supplied with and supply the energy and materials for, some form of communal economy will evolve as the most stable form.
If. If the settlements do not make themselves dependent on Earth currencies and units of "worth". If they stay on a "dollar-standard", they can't do anything but fail, as they'll become locked in the same trajectory towards totalitarian capitalism, so close to communism you'd be excused to mistake one for the other in poor light.
And here's where Spirituality enters the game: what authority will underwrite the ideals of the settlers? You can't worship toil alone, and we need only look at our present to see where making Greed God leads, and atheism has mutated into High School contrarianism and "goth" vulgarisation of nihilism. What idol, what avatar, what higher notion then, since all the old ones (not /the/ Old Ones, though) are Earth-bound and will bring their Earth-problems with them?
(You do not want jewish and arab settlers behaving as per their respective races on a Martian colony, which they inevitably will if allowed there.)
The Engineer Hero is too human and too vague, as well as too inhumane in cold logic and emotionless rationale. The God-Machine needs a degree of ignorance preventing further technological development. Martial ability? Maybe, but sooner or later it will need an out against someone, and being a good fighter does not equal being a good steward. Technical prowess? Difficult to judge, and lead back to a leading guild stifling advancement.
What spiritual need, forceful need, can make it work and can we make work for us?
The obvious answer is the Sky Father.
Suitably updated to reflect our understanding of just how deep the sky really is.
Islam simply could not be replicated on Mars. The fundamentalists among them believe that human beings cannot ascend “beyond the (Copernicus-style) sphere of the Moon”. For that reason Khomeini declared the Moon landing a fake and the Iranian Ministry of Information said “Capricorn One” was really a documentary(!) There could be no fixed direction of prayer, no way to observe a lunar based calendar, no possibility of making the Hajj. My guess is that any person of Muslim descent forward looking enough to go to Mars would already have mentally left Islam behind. Nonetheless whoever is recruiting volunteer settlers would have to screen out anyone whose religious or nationalistic attachments would pose a threat to settler solidarity.
The ones I'd be worried about would be those who viewed living in the firmament a blasphemy, and were ultimately going there to destroy it.
I watched Capricorn One in a movie theatre in Tehran in the early 1980s and there actually was a Persian language message posted at the beginning of the film that said the events depicted in the film were real and not fiction.
Notice I don't say "moslems" but arabs.
Islam can be molded: all it takes is that a recognised council of the imams, kadis, whatever declare it a sacred duty to spread the Dar al Islam to Mars.
A compass of sorts can easily be made so that it point towards Earth; it's not as if moslems far from Mekka bother with being exact with the direction of prayer - a general "South and East" (from where I am) is sufficient.
And a monotheistic and monocultural settlement would be plenty more stable than any multicultural one, as evidenced on Earth already. Plus, you can't screen for religion and culture without being racist and supremacist in some way, a big no-sell in the West at present and for any foreseeable future. Any non-Westerners going along to Mars would be the fully assimilated and naturalised ones.
As all the Abrahamic faiths, islam is at its core inherently pragmatic if it comes down to brass tacks - the priests, rabbis, imams /will/ declare as sacred whatever it is they realise they simply cannot do without, and find workarounds. Just look at how salafis and jews handle interest on loans: usury is haram, but fees aren't. And as if by magic, the monthly fees paid match what the interest rate would have been.
While the jews simply reasoned that that rule only apply to their fellow sons of David, not the goyim, and the Christians simply started to ignore it when it became too incovenient.
The whole "religion vs tech"-bit is a misunderstanding: the Abrahamic faiths oppose /all/ tech that threatens to upend their current powerbase, but once they realise they can't stop it, or that one of the other sects are using the tech to their advantage, they pivot and change their tune.
No reason settling space won't follow the same pattern they have kept up for more than two millennia.
Having lived in an Islamic nation for three years I can tell you that you are flat out wrong about Muslims non-chalantly not being fussy about the direction of prayer. The evidence from Mosques built since the eighth common era century to the present is not only are mosques built with the exact t direction of prayer but that their knowledge of geography encompassed the belief that the Earth was round. If you ever stayed in a modest hotel in Indonesia or Malaysia the direction of prayer is posted on the ceiling so guests know the correct direction. A man and his family in Seattle were murdered because the father had published an article claiming that the traditional method of determining the qibla was a degree off. Pragmatic indeed
And having lived and worked in the most islamised city in Sweden for 20 years, I stand by my assessment, as that is based on experience.
I lived a traditionally Muslim country where the norms are observed rigorously. What sloppy Muslims do in Sweden is of no consequence.
There is no good reason not to try.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving! (It was over a month ago in Canada).
I was trying to form of joke of you guys having turkey every day with Justin Trudeau, but I can't get it to sing.
You're not helping me enjoy the taste of turkey (I'm already not a fan).
You're not necessarily supposed to relish it---but to be grateful for the tradition.
This is also my position on the turkey question.
The Red Rising reference is both apt and extensively interesting. Remarkable how Pierce Brown imagined a world so realistic given his leftist priors. His dystopia is our utopia, and he must be a very brave man to look it in the face. Never rooted for the Villains more in a book series though they do get ghoulish at times (except ones where the villain is the Englishman's racial sense for decency).
I wonder if the future Martians will engage in extreme ritualistic violence like the Society does in the book series. Chaotic, opportunistic violence is enormously dangerous in space, but I believe suppressing violence permanently is a recipe for disaster (see our current state). The solution might very well be duels, arenas, organized group combats for solving disputes, entertainment, and social/eugenic effects (like burning off excess males). I train fencing. I'll be ready for space combat.
It's notable that the Society actually places certain cultural restrictions on military technology, eg banning robots.
I sometimes wonder if Brown is really a commie, or just understood that the only way he could present these ideas was through a communist lens. By any reasonable evaluation, a ruling caste that terraforms every body in the solar system is a boon to mankind.
Yeah I wonder the same. He’s either a totally banal, self aware communist or he’s been cynical about the whole series to present the counter facts. It would be an amazing rug pull to have the actual good guy (Lysander) win in book 7. Reddit would die.
Unfortunately he turns Lysander into a hard villain at the end of Book 6.
I disagree, he merely outflanked you to the right. What happens? Lysander betrays his traitorous/left-wing friends and accepts his destiny/right-wing friends. In doing, he destroys the better part of a perverted subculture on the belt, separatist and alien.
Men still cry over the Vandal's sack of Rome, but what was left of Rome in 476? Just the marble and gold. The vigorous and mighty people were gone. In their place were nearly a million southern imported slave peoples sucking up the resources of Europe. The Vandals did better than loot; they killed these parasites and weakling parasites. Sometimes you have to burn before you can build.
You're describing both the early pioneers, who faced conditions while not as harsh as Mars would present, were plenty tough and The Dosadi, in the Dosadi Experiment. The human part of the planet looked down on normal humans. And there might be another even more amazing reason why Mars. Not only is it the most accessible, as you rightly point out, but, if Richard C. Hoagland and a number of scientist astronomers are right (he had a team of scientist from various disciplines assist him in his research), then what is on Mars might be an ancient civilisation.
No reason not to go. For me, being a bit earthbound, I'm just happy we're going to go out there.
Yeah I didn't bring up the Hoagland stuff directly because it's a bit of a longshot, but if there's anything to it…
As a long time fan of his (happy memories of those Art Bell shows), and after reading his book, Monuments of Mars, I concluded he’s onto something. He, and a team of scientists, did a rigorous study using a variety of methods, primarily on the Face on Mars, as well as other structures. The TL:DR from his book is that the Face, and surrounding apparent artifacts all exhibited redundant mathematical formulas found in monoliths on earth, and calculated that the chance that they are random and not built by intelligences was astronomically against a natural origin.
One of his team members, an expert in satellite surveillance, used a method to detect artificiality, even if it’s hidden, and discovered artificiality.
Carl sagan argues that all cultures seem to have myths and legends that speak of an intelligence contacting them. Yup, the arch skeptic himself. Hoagland argues that a cosmic war occurred in a distant past, and that we were either involved in it or the result of it, possibly a kind of prisoner species.
Long ago I concluded something that resonates with what you said about what would happen to people on Mars and that was, we, as a species, that may be millions of years older than we thought, or inherited genes from a previous race, have survived a cosmic war, got stuck on one planet and in spite of short lifespans and such, have clawed our way back to something that can go out there again.
We are tough as fuck. We’re bad asses in a big way and we’re heading out there again. Me, I’ll not be going, too old, but damn if don’t make my heart and spirit feel fine to think we’re going to, with luck, do the most difficult thing ever.
And that is only good for all of us. A little hope.
Personal note and I’ll get out of your way: we might even be going home.
I've often wondered if we - or some of us - might have come from Mars, a long time ago…
A very wise friend of mine looked at hominid evolution and said it is almost like the DNA was designed with "OFF" switches, when the genetic engineers figured they were ready for the next step.
The idea that weak, frail homo sapiens could defeat the Neandethrals seemed an impossiibility, and, frankly, still does.
Tree of Woe did a useful piece on this in his substack, and postulates that genetic memory is why we (reasonably!) fear certain hominids, especially at night.
And if the genetic engineers were on Mars, they might still be there, waiting for us to pass the IQ test and develop an off-planet Civilization on some place that is quite challenging.
As I was told Cairo is Arabic for Mars, I guess the name "Mars" is already taken.
The Bible tells us the Earth existed first as a matter of Form, and only in Time, as a matter of Substance.
So, let's pick a name for Mars The Idea, the Matter of Form.
Barsoom seems pretty good!!
The current, ongoing “space race” began with the dawn of the age of nuclear power which was a relatively long time ago, around the middle of last century, conventionally speaking, so do the math on the actual, if undisclosed, progress.
Metaphysically, spiritually, I believe the “space race” is more ancient than our universe.
Anyway, within the current secular paradigm, the biggest threat to off-world buildout is earthly political trappings which are all-too human in their terminal folly, so maybe that’s the best justification for the media blackout and disinformation campaign on the subject, although full disclosure is the most direct and practical approach in my eyes, because blind alleys breed, well, the darker sides of humanity.
Case in point:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider