This may seem a little abstract – hence the reason its in the dreaming/speculation section. I thought we could have some dialogue that I think is very central in the quest to expand and colonize places that are not yet permanently settled.
Who owns the Moon? when someone reaches the Moon and settles it (if; not when) they will claim territory which will then mean no one else can occupy that same exact place. Who gets to claim the resources? There are trillions of tons of resources in the Solar System. Before there are wars about who owns the rights to them, we should maybe ask ourselves, “Who owns the Moon?”.
I believe the answer to this question could have a major impact on how we approach seasteading.
Alright well – heres how I personally feel about it. No one should be entitled to claim the moon – or the ocean for that matter. The person(s) who might attempt to lay claim to its resources will have to use technology to get there – technology that they did not develop. They will have to use financial resources also, financial resources they aquired by simply playing the economic game that evolved to what it is over many centuries way before they were ever conceived.
In my opinion, this is why we need to have competitive governments here on Earth. We need them to develop to the point where they can effectively (a) protect humanity, (b) account for the collective will of the people, and (c) protect the individual rights and liberties of people. To me it’s important that we have such governance in place well enough before people ever start to colonize space. This is why the perfect place to develop them is on the oceans, and the perfect time is right now. Weapons technology is FAR too powerful already. It will only get more powerful – therefore the only thing for us to do is figure out how to deal with each other. We need growth. But we need peace. We need humanity to be healthy. (by the way, if you dont know Carl Sagan, you need to learn about him)
Imagine that one day there is 50 quadrillion humans spread throughout the Solar System. Would “trickle down economics” work then? Who do you think would own the Moon?
I believe Pink Floyd owns the rights to the Dark Side of the Moon while Universal owns the rights to the Man on The Moon.
STOP posting while stoned. I would suggest munchies instead.
Shred, i think the need to clarify who owns the moon or the oceans comes from a equivocation in the theorical approach. In practice you do settle first and clear the legal stuff later. It is not necessaryly the one who puts a flag and claims it, who makes the land his own – it is the one who puts a permanent presence on it.
It might come to a surprise to a “urban fellow” of our days but here in south america it is still a dayly practice to settle on “unclaimed land” although it might be claimed on paper. If you can show that you have settled here for 5 years built your house and planted your yuca and potatoes you get a “land title” and the “paper owner” – if there is one – can not kick you out anymore.
It is a priciple that the law in general tends to accomodate the “de facto” situation as legally ok. So if you settle on earth or on the moon if you can make a spot “your own” for 5 years you will probably be ok legally…
So the best way to board seasteading would be to establish “de facto settlement” in a sea area, it is not very probable that someone can kick you out after a decade – the right of “not being driven out of your home” is among the most protected by most human legal sistems.
So i am sure that we can focus just on the technical challange to settle on the ocean. Once we can do it – we will be ok by the legal power of the “de facto” situation of the settlement. The important thing is to choose a spot where you have a chance to settle undisturbed for the first 5 years. So it might be in agreement with the existing neighbours or so far from them that they can not interfer. In both cases you will be “entitled to stay” after establishing your settlement – no matter what the “paper situation” will be.
Wil
concretesubmarine.com
When I drop my pants, the moon you see is all mine.
but my primary interest is in what’s inside of it, so people are free to use the surface as they see fit.
Shred’s points touch on the ideas of Henry George, a self taught economist who published a book, Progress and Poverty in the late 1800s. George was libertarian in most respects, but advocated a single tax on land value instead of taxes on productivity, like income, sales, tariffs, and improvements to land. His theory is based on the idea that as unclaimed land diminishes in value, a rent arises based on the difference between the most and least productive land in use. The government would collect the rent based on land value and redistribute it equally in the form of royalties or services to the community instead of real estate speculators keeping it for themselves.
Since most of the ocean is pretty equivalent in value, it could be a very long time before this principle would apply to seasteading, but it could apply to a given colony where some locations become more desirable than others, like centrally located ones for commercial use. Dr. Fred Foldvary, of Santa Clara University, has written some articles along these lines. Dr. Foldvary spoke at one of the Seasteading Social events a couple of years ago.
While my anarcho capitalist preference is no taxes at all, if there is to be taxes, I could live with taxes on land value, raw materials extraction, electromagnetic spectrum, and intellectual property claims. There is some sense to the idea that in the first three cases, no one created these things so why should anyone own them, as Shredder suggests. In all four cases, those individuals who are receiving a privilege from government, like the exclusive use of land, frequency and surrounding bandwidth, raw materials from a specific site, an idea, or composition of text, sounds, or colors, pay the rest of the community for that exclusive privilege.
This guy says he does, and will sell you some land if you want….
http://www.lunarembassy.com/
He points out that by treaty, govts can’t own it, but private citizens can. that is why i pointed out you can open your own lunar embassies here on Earth as flags of luna if you want a flag of convenience. Hugo Chavez will prob allow it right now.
ETs own the moon.
We’ve already got plenty of Terrestrials; do we really need any EXTRA Terrestrials?
Ba-Da Bump!
Dont forget to tip your waitresses
There is some sense to the idea that in the first three cases, no one created these things so why should anyone own them, as Shredder suggests.
Exactly. No-one created them, so why should a body claiming to be the “government” be allowed to steal them?
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Seasteading is to Boat Living what Traction Cities are to Vandwelling – simply a matter of scale.
Terraformer 1 year, 6 months ago.
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