I can do the same thing for, say, a patch of property belonging to Boeing or Coca Cola. Does that means I’ve a legitimate claim to their land?
No, because they established ownership to that land first. Before I claimed the planet, Mars was unowned. So I’m the equivalent of global Coke. Remember, I own the planet, not Ares.
No, because they established ownership to that land first. Before I claimed the planet, Mars was unowned. So I’m the equivalent of global Coke. Remember, I own the planet, not Ares.
Let’s start with some facts:
Mars isn’t owned by anyone who can back up that claim. That is to say, no one has built anything on Mars, or planted crops, or added any value at all to the land there.
Various governments have carried out exploration of the planet. The knoeldge so gained indicates all sorts of potential value to be created on mars. As such, that knowledge is very valuable. Who owns it? I’ve no idea. Most of it, if not all of it, has been published and is easily obtainable.
Ok. Anyone can claim to own Mars, or the Sun for that matter, but no one can enforce such a claim. Simply put, if you can’t even visit your claimed property, nor send anyone or even enything else to do so, but others can, then those others can do as they please and you can’t stop them.
Now let’s see about ordinary Earthly properties. Take your house. It’s yours because you paid for it, and the land it sits on. What protects your right to it? The law, of course, which recognizes your proerty and does not allow others to make any use of it without your permission. Most people wouldn’t break the law by, say, defacing your house, entering it without permission, robbbing it, etc etc. But some would. To protect your rights against this tiny minority, you need whatever deterrent power the government has through the threat of reataliatory force.
So let us say tomorrow the US governmetn recognizes your claim. Mars is entirely yours. What happens then?
For starters, if you still can’t reach Mars and others can’t, you still can’t do anything about it. The government might arrest those people for breaking (or is it aerobraking) and entering a planet without the owners consent. But the government cannot reach Mars, either. They could seize any Earhtly properties of these people, sure. I don’t know if there is any legal jsutification for it, but they could do it anyway.
Other countries might not like your ownership of Mars. They could act against you. The American government would have to protect you from them.
So, where do we stand?
In actual fact, if America decided to award property of Mars to someone, they could make it stick because no one can really do anything about it. Harry Binswagner has suggested the US government award title to Mars to anyone who can travel there, stay there for a specific lenght of time, and return to Earth. I like that idea.
Mars isn’t owned by anyone who can back up that claim. That is to say, no one has built anything on Mars, or planted crops, or added any value at all to the land there.
Your argument seems to be, then, that a person cannot own anything unless they have built something on that property, or “added any value at all to the land there”. I’m not clear exactly what that last part means. There are numerous ways in which this contravenes the concept of ownership in the US (and most civilized countries). For example, there are large parts of the American west that are owned and used by ranchers, who grow beef on the range. Would you consider an exception based on the fact that these guys use the land, but don’t build on it? Second, and I fall into this category, some people own land but do nothing with it, because their intent is to sell it at an appropriate time. I own a few acres in prime wilderness recreational area, although it is totally undeveloped (wanna buy some recreational land? E me.) Does that mean that I don’t really own the land, despite holding title? I know that can’t fall under the “add value” clause, since by the same token I would “add value” to Mars by recognizing its worth qua real estate.
Anyone can claim to own Mars, or the Sun for that matter, but no one can enforce such a claim.
I’m not sure that I get your argument here. If you’re saying that – by myself, I cannot prevent aggressors from seizing my property – then I grant that that’s true (this was the earlier “does might make right” question). That’s even true of the land that I own in the US, including the land where my house is. If some bigger entity invades, I can’t enforce my property right without the aid of the government. Is your argument “If you cannot marshal sufficient force to protect the right, you don’t have the right?” I mean, this inability to protect my Martian colony would be true even if I had visited the planet.
It’s yours because you paid for it, and the land it sits on. What protects your right to it? The law, of course, which recognizes your proerty and does not allow others to make any use of it without your permission.
True indeed: the main question on the table is, what about the case where there is no rational government that protects my rights. Such is the case with Mars: we don’t have a government with the capacity and will to protect my rights. The question is whether this changes my property rights. By way of analogy, numerous American companies had their property historically taken forcibly by foreign thugs, because the US either could not or (more usually) would not protect those rights. Does that change the fact of ownership (I’m still granting that there is the fact of physical control). In other words, is it really the case, as my 4th grade teacher told me, that physical possession is 90%, or more, of what matters for the concept of “ownership” and “property right”?
The reason why I oppose the idea that the US government should be the arbitrer of who is allowed to own property off the planet Earth is that I predict it would simply declare that any other potential property is rightfully owned by “mankind”, not by any person, and that an international cooperative agency under the supervision of the UN would be established to assure that any use of off-planet resources best benefits all of mankind, and never any individual over another.
Are you arguing that a man only has a right to property when a sufficiently powerful government defines and enforces that right?
Your argument seems to be, then, that a person cannot own anything unless they have built something on that property, or “added any value at all to the land there”.
Not quite.
There’s property that’s already owned. Your house, for example. This kind belongs to its rightful owner and he can do with it as he pleases. He can make it productive, or he can leave it idle and unproductive.
Then there’s property that has no owner. Such as Mars, for example. I think any reasonable claims for such property must meet certain criteria, including doing something productive with it.
As for “adding value,” I mean doing somwthing with the land that makes it valuable. Without ranchers to herd cattle, a plain is just a fertile field inhabitted by wild animals and plants. With ranchers, the plain serves as a valuable piece in the process of meat production.
If you’re saying that – by myself, I cannot prevent aggressors from seizing my property – then I grant that that’s true (this was the earlier “does might make right” question). That’s even true of the land that I own in the US, including the land where my house is. If some bigger entity invades, I can’t enforce my property right without the aid of the government. Is your argument “If you cannot marshal sufficient force to protect the right, you don’t have the right?”
My position is that if you cannot, or will not, protect your rights, then those rights are meaningless for all practical purposes. Suppose I take your car, and neither you nor anyone else does anything about it but call my action immoral? They’re right, but what do thay gain by it?
I’m saying if you want to be a pionner in a new frontier, you’d best be prepared to defend your rights.
True indeed: the main question on the table is, what about the case where there is no rational government that protects my rights. Such is the case with Mars: we don’t have a government with the capacity and will to protect my rights. The question is whether this changes my property rights.
It doens’t change your irghts, no. But it may mean you won’t get to keep your property, etiher.
By way of analogy, numerous American companies had their property historically taken forcibly by foreign thugs, because the US either could not or (more usually) would not protect those rights. Does that change the fact of ownership (I’m still granting that there is the fact of physical control). In other words, is it really the case, as my 4th grade teacher told me, that physical possession is 90%, or more, of what matters for the concept of “ownership” and “property right”?
Again, no. Property rights don’t change. But the people who lost their property, well, lost their property. Would you accept a seized oil well as collateral for a loan to its rightful owner? Let the property remain seized, or endlessly “redistributed,” for long enough, and it won’t matter who rightfully owns it. Not in any practical sense.
The reason why I oppose the idea that the US government should be the arbitrer of who is allowed to own property off the planet Earth is that I predict it would simply declare that any other potential property is rightfully owned by “mankind”, not by any person, and that an international cooperative agency under the supervision of the UN would be established to assure that any use of off-planet resources best benefits all of mankind, and never any individual over another.
Oh, sure. Then they’ll even start subsidizing trips to Mars for nations that can’t afford them, or find some other way to waste what is, after all, stolen money.
And that just brings us back to an earlier point: if no government can or will protect property rights on Mars, what can you do about it?
I admit it’s not a pressing problem. We’ll be lucky if, by the end of the decade, we have a good-sized space hotel for wealthy tourists who can afford to pay a few million dollars for a week’s vacation. There are people and corporations who could afford to send people to Mars within, say, fiteen years. But why should they?
I own the planet
Are you:
A. Being facetious to set yourself up to prove a point about property?
B. Being facetious to set yourself up to bring up a problem you have with our current conceptions of property?
C. Being facetious for a good time?
D. Being facetious for some reason I can’t fathom?
or
E. Being completely serious?
Then there’s property that has no owner. Such as Mars, for example. I think any reasonable claims for such property must meet certain criteria, including doing something productive with it.
You are certainly entitled to your view, and I don’t think it’s totally unreasonable, but I think it’s mistaken because it leaves out the “recognizes value” aspect. Which view prevails would depend on how the law is written within the nation where a claim is laid on unowned land. But in this case, there is no nation containing that land and no government which articulates objective procedures for laying claim to the land (as were specified in the Homestead Act, for example).
My position is that if you cannot, or will not, protect your rights, then those rights are meaningless for all practical purposes. Suppose I take your car, and neither you nor anyone else does anything about it but call my action immoral? They’re right, but what do thay gain by it?
I think this is the crux of the matter. It was immoral of UAC to expropriate my land, but whatcha gonna do? When a man choses to exist outside of civilized society, he cannot expect ordinary concepts of “living qua man” to apply. He must expect that others will not respect his self-invented property rights, because in fact he doesn’t have them, especially when it comes to land. I’m now coming to see that the right to own land is fundamentally based on the prior existence of a rights-respecting and rights-protecting government, which will articulate the objective requirements for land ownership. Until such a government is established, it’s futile to talk of a right to land. The initial steps therefore must be Wild West-like: men who recognize the value of the planet and are capable of acting on that knowledge will do whatever is necessary to gain and keep that value, and because there is no government, than includes using force as needed to defend your claim. An early step should, therefore be, to create a civilized society and surrender your right to use force in defense of your life to that government. Ares may manage to get there first in your scheme, but if UAC gets there a bit later with bigger plans (mining for example, not the Ares real estate bus scheme) and takes land occupied by Ares – and defends their right to the land by force – the land is owned, rightfully, by UAC. It’s only when a government is established, for the purpose of objectively and peacibly stating the rules for claiming land and for settling disputes, that there is any real meaning to the concept of rightful land ownership.
In this respect, I now realize that the right to own land has a significant similarity to copyright. The basic principle behind copyright, that you have the right to the product of your mind, is not in question, but it is a very general right which does not lead to a rationalistic deduction of how the right is concretized in all cases. Copyright requires a government to state and enforce that right, and the details (such as duration) must be encoded by the government. In an anarchic situation, there can be no copyright. The same is true of property: with no government, the concept of “rightful ownership” is indistinguishable from the concept “physical possession, defended with whatever level of force is necessary”.
Are you:
I take it you’re not getting the point. The purpose is to explore the concept of “rights” and “property”, to see the extent to which they depend on the concept “government”. As a practical and less sci-fi application, all land that presently exists is part of some country, or claimed by some country (there are a number of tiny south-polar islands that are not “part of” France or NZ, but are sort of nominally “claimed” by those countries). What of some newly created land in the middle of the Pacific, not within any country? I could claim that land and (once it solidifies, 'cuz it’s gonna be loaded with molten magma) move there, so it would be “my property” in a rhetorical sense. But in fact, it would be the property of whatever country manages to assert and maintain physical control of the land.
The bottom line for the Ares project is that the supposed “ownership” that you would have of this land is contingent. You might hope that it would translate into actual legal ownership, when a government is established on Mars. Until then, what you are getting is, well, actually, just the ride. You can claim as much or as little land as you can take and defend against attackers. And as we know, UAC has some really powerful weapons that they are developing. I would completely disregard Ares’ claim that I get to “own” some land. But a $1 ride would be a bargain, though possibly suicidal. If Ares is incorporated under US law, I might get additional future benefits, but only under US law.
Not only are there Whole Food Markets in Texas, the chain actually got its start in Austin, Texas. In fact, last year they built a brand new headquarters and flagship store in Austin. See: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/pr_02-22-05.html I have been in it - it is pretty nice. However, I much prefer another Texas chain called Central Market which overlaps slightly with Whole Foods except that Central Market focuses more on gourmet and specialty foods wheras Whole Foods focuses on “natural” foods and goes after the hippie market more. Central Market also started out in Austin but now has locations in the other major Texas metro areas. Their stores are actually tourist attractions with their Austin stores being the city’s number 2 tourist draw after the state capital.
Whole food has organic products that are grown without the use of chemicals and pesticides. Why do you need to be a “Hippie” to care about how your food is grown and what you eat?
Oh and I don’t want one penny of my tax dollars going to the space program even if they found Elvis on Mars. Let private funding foot the bill.
I’m interested in the nature of life, in general. For example, is life possible based on silicon compounds rather than carbon; what are the means of encoding the properties of a life-form (we have DNA, but maybe other molecular structures serve the same function)? The root questions are “what is life?” and “what causes life?”; I don’t know whether a particular answer would have a profound impact on my philosophy of man. I have an idea about what makes life possible for humans and various other forms of life on Earth (though at the Monica level I’m clueless, and always fascinated to learn about the bizarre 1 cell stuff that’s out there). So I want to know if the concept “life”, as we know it here on Earth, is the same as or different from that on other planets.
IMHO, I feel that it would be reasonable to conclude that “life” on other planets would, indeed, differ from that which we’ve accustomed ourselves to here… The logic behind this presumption is based on our observations of both what constitutes life here, as well as the various environments in which we have discovered it.
What I mean is, here on our little planet alone we’ve learned that life is not limited/preempted by the environmental extremes in which we’ve found it, instead, it’s development and longevity is regulated by said environmental extremes, be they thousands of feet beneath the surface of our oceans clustered around a hydrothermal vent, or at the farthest reaches of our Arctic Circle in sub-sub-zero temperatures, sequestered away in some ice chip.
But it’s there, in some form or another, it’s development dictated by it’s environmental surroundings much the same as a youth brought up in the slums of, say, the Bronx, would be socially inclined to petty crime as compared to a youth brought up in the suburbs would be inclined to scholastic achievement, both due to their individual social environments (though I add the disclaimer that an individual’s outcome in life is ultimately dependent on the individual themselves and the choices in this life that they make…but that’s fodder for a different discussion).
Inasmuch as this is the demonstrative case, I’m inclined to the persuasion that life on another planet would be defined, tempered, and regulated by the environmental/social schema in which it found itself, though it would exist if for no other reason than individual persistence, drive, and determination…but then, such is the pre-dispostion of “life”…all life.