Mars Colony Governance

[Doug_G]

As you say, most psychopaths aren't violent, which is a good thing because a good chunk of the population qualifies. Just because you can't empathize with others doesn't mean that you want to attack people. Or that you can't decide it isn't in your own best interests to do so. Or that it's wrong to do it.

It will take a certain kind of individual to actually go to Mars to stay. How many of us would want to live out our lives in a cold, airless desert? Or living essentially underground since that's what it would take to avoid excessive radiation exposure. It would no doubt be decades before Mars would be a comfortable place to live.

 

[mgdurand]

Right, the danger of having psychopaths isn't that they'll murder everyone, it's more their hard-wired inability to function as part of a social unit. Humans could only survive on Mars through intensively coordinated group efforts. Even the non-violent psychopaths are the opposite of that.

 

[woof]

Assume that mental screening works. Those that came from Earth are safe(ish), but what about those born on Mars? Eventually the founding Earther's are going to be overtaken by the Mars born, even with a robust Earth/Mars shuttle program in place. Does the colony banish to Earth the ones that don't cut the muster?

 

[mgdurand]

Assume that mental screening works. Those that came from Earth are safe(ish), but what about those born on Mars? Eventually the founding Earther's are going to be overtaken by the Mars born, even with a robust Earth/Mars shuttle program in place. Does the colony banish to Earth the ones that don't cut the muster?

Great question!

Cutting down on what could be a very lengthy discussion, basically science is very close to solving the ages-old problem of good vs. evil, at least if you can accept "evil" as an innate propensity to performing evil acts, with as much or more chance of repeating those acts. We all think about, and occasionally perform acts intended to harm others or a social group, however we have guilt, innate (not just cognitive) hesitation, empathy and other mechanisms which prevent the human organism from decreasing his social group's survivability. Put another way, there is a consistent 2% of the population which has no hard-wired inhibition against harming the group. On Earth, this 2% gets diluted out by a large population of other people who can perform the same function as someone harmed by a psychopath, or of the psychopath himself. The environment (biosphere) can absorb a lot of punishment as well. On Mars it will not be an option to include a psychopathic personality, no matter how high-achieving they might be. Or, at least until the social and environmental systems have enough homeostasis to absorb the effects of someone behaving adversely against them.

By saying that science is "close to" solving the good/evil problem I mean that you can put a person's head into an MRI machine and give them some labelled glucose, then use some standard tests to evoke an empathic response. Some areas of the brain light up, others don't, in accord with clinical observations of psychopathy. So it's hard science, and cannot be tricked, even by a high-functioning and intelligent psychopath. It also can't be treated, or cured.

There is probably no genetic marker, so all solutions will have to happen - and be appropriate for - the time after birth, or at least after the first trimester (some controversy on in-utero hormonal balance being causative, but probably not.) Banishment to earth where their influence would be diluted, is certainly one option for a psychopath born on Mars.

 

[Twiddler]

mgdurand I really enjoy your comments, and am ashamed of my own lack of relative expertise on this subject. While this is skewing the discussion a little off topic, I am wondering whether there is data to suggest that sociopathy (specifically Clusters A and B) actually tends to cluster in higher-functioning portions of the population, which if so would suggest an even bigger issue with regard to selection of the first colonists (which would hypothetically need to consist of high-functioning individuals). From a purely anecdotal perpective, many of the high-functioning people that I know do seem to possess at least traits within these clusters, but I may just be picking up on the inherent eccentricity of genius.

Also, just curious as to the sensitivity/specificity of the aforementioned fMRI findings to their relevant psychopathies by neuropsych testing. So often we deal with imaging anomalies that don't fit a clinical scenario, I am just wondering how good a screen that this test would be.

 

[mgdurand]

This is a really interesting problem, since the incidence of Psychopathic traits is pretty consistent around the world at 1-2%. So there must be some selective pressure to maintain it. If you consider that all social groups go through periods of stress, and that one of the first things human groups do when stressed, is to differentiate a leader out of their group to make bold, risky decisions - than you may want psychopaths at times. But while you can imagine how this would give an advantage to a small band of hunter-gatherers, it had become relatively disadvantageous by teh 20th century with longer human lifespans, very complex social groups despite the homeostatic systems; and would be a total non-starter on Mars. So we may have "evolved" to allow a small incidence of psychopathic variation, however as technology and complexity increase it becomes less useful and more disadvantageous.

Psychopathic individuals might be higher-functioning for some tasks because they are not distracted by teh "noise" of conscience and emotions. Apparently the military selects them for certain things (see On Killing, by Gorman). Psychopaths are unaffected by the fear factor, for example they even pass polygraphs because they don't get nervous. Which would make them a short-term asset to a Mars team and maybe attractive to recruiters; but including them would be a mistake because of the long-term viability problem and their inability to integrate. Strong leadership can still be selected for amongst individuals who don't have a strongly positive MRI.

Also a good point about the sensitivity/specificity of MRI testing for clinical correlation. It's not an either/or problem, and there is a lot of variation for example in how developed the psychopath's amygdala is, or how much communication occurs between the amygdala/frontal lobe, or how successful they are at emulating emotional affect with the other side of their brain when responding, etc. Some thresholds would need to be defined and this hasn't been done yet. You would have to codify what is appropriate for a Mars mission, leadership position on earth, etc - anything where these individuals can cause problems. Then in codifying what traits a mission will want to include in their leaders, the dangerous psychopathy-and-leadership mix will need to be taken into account and hopefully passed over.

 

[Beckler]

Policing and security is one thing - it's going to be needed, and will always be for the forseeable future anyway. What we really want to avoid in space and Mars in particular, is the emergence of groups, allegiances, nations, leaders and militaries which then degrade into warfare and genocide. In other words the continuation of what has plagued humans on Earth (and continues today) for the last 10,000 years. It's definitely not too early to be planning for this. It's somewhat of a difficult problem and yet completely preventable in my opinion, if done beforehand. I think a clear and absolute declaration of sorts needs to be formulated before it's too late - work needs to begin on this now. Otherwise history will repeat itself because planets are nothing more than continents of the solar system. But this time the end result will be a massive Earth-Mars war.

Of course one problem I see is, what happens when an Earth country doesn't agree to follow this 'declaration'? So I think the stage is unfortunately set for space violence, the same as on Earth. The only reason something hasn't happened yet is because it's still such a fringe activity that no one cares about and there's still plenty of physical room still. But 40 years from now, different Earth nations competing for resources and lunar or martian land...well the outcome is certain unless we begin something now. We can learn from the stupid, animal-like territorial behavior of human history and decide not to repeat it.

 

[roblab]

Policing and security is one thing - it's going to be needed, and will always be for the forseeable future anyway. What we really want to avoid in space and Mars in particular, is the emergence of groups, allegiances, nations, leaders and militaries which then degrade into warfare and genocide. In other words the continuation of what has plagued humans on Earth (and continues today) for the last 10,000 years. It's definitely not too early to be planning for this. It's somewhat of a difficult problem and yet completely preventable in my opinion, if done beforehand. I think a clear and absolute declaration of sorts needs to be formulated before it's too late - work needs to begin on this now. Otherwise history will repeat itself because planets are nothing more than continents of the solar system. But this time the end result will be a massive Earth-Mars war.

These solar "continents" are quite distant from each other, sort of like Europe and the New World, or Australia. Will Mars end up like a penal colony as they tried to make Australia at one time?

And no one wants to touch on low IQ, or people who just can't function for some reason or another. We used to let nature take care of these people: They died because they couldn't cope. Now we protect them for very long terms just because we have become -- what? How is this going to work on Mars? Limited resources, harsh environment. But we can't allow them to die!!!

 

[rolosrevenge]

So I think the stage is unfortunately set for space violence, the same as on Earth.

Unfortunately? You mean AWESOMELY!!! Hopefully my son can be a starfighter pilot... :tongue:

 

[woof]

The FAA: regulating business on the moon: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/03/us-usa-moon-business-idUSKBN0L715F20150203

The Federal Aviation Administration, in a previously undisclosed late-December letter to Bigelow Aerospace, said the agency intends to “leverage the FAA’s existing launch licensing authority to encourage private sector investments in space systems by ensuring that commercial activities can be conducted on a non-interference basis.”

Can Mars be far behind?

 

[rolosrevenge]

If they really want to spur investment in space colonization, have an international treaty that gives all land and commercial rights to that land for a 100 km radius from any manned landing site on the moon, mars, etc. All legacy sites count, so the US would have 4 already. That would get companies and countries moving.

 

[woof]

If they really want to spur investment in space colonization, have an international treaty that gives all land and commercial rights to that land for a 100 km radius from any manned landing site on the moon, mars, etc. All legacy sites count, so the US would have 4 already. That would get companies and countries moving.

Interesting idea...but 100 km? If I did the math right that's 31416 km^2, or 7763045 acres! That's a bit more than 40 acres and a space mule... Seems a tad big. Also, there should be some qualifications about building habitats and selling the rights too quickly, else it'll just be a land grab with no actual development taking place.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Remember that the Apollo program cost about $150 billion (in current dollars). So, @rolo's proposal would imply a value of $4830/acre. Considering that the land isn't good for much, that doesn't seem to be an unreasonably low price for land. You'd have to have some tight rules to prevent someone "skipping" across the landscape, landing at a number of sites along the way.

The real challenge is this: what body has the authority to grant exclusive development rights on an extraterrestrial object?

 

[jerry33]

The real challenge is this: what body has the authority to grant exclusive development rights on an extraterrestrial object?

I'd guess whomever creates a viable colony first.

 

[ecarfan]

The real challenge is this: what body has the authority to grant exclusive development rights on an extraterrestrial object?

No existing body has any authority over anything off earth. It's wide open out there...

 

[rolosrevenge]

Remember that the Apollo program cost about $150 billion (in current dollars). So, @rolo's proposal would imply a value of $4830/acre. Considering that the land isn't good for much, that doesn't seem to be an unreasonably low price for land. You'd have to have some tight rules to prevent someone "skipping" across the landscape, landing at a number of sites along the way.

The real challenge is this: what body has the authority to grant exclusive development rights on an extraterrestrial object?

I envision that you can only have 1 landing site per earth rocket launch, so there's couldn't be any hopping. I imagine that this rule would be established through international treaty, like the Outer Space Treaty.

 

[Beckler]

No existing body has any authority over anything off earth. It's wide open out there...

Or on Earth, but that's a different discussion... :biggrin:

 

[Ludus]

No existing body has any authority over anything off earth. It's wide open out there...

This is a major issue. Currently the governing law is the Outer Space Treaty http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty Everything in space including Mars has roughly the same status legally as Antarctica. Not only is it not "wide open" it's completely closed. Ownership of resources or development isn't legally allowed.

 

[ecarfan]

As much as I would like that treaty to work, I think that once humans actually start colonizing other planetary bodies or moons I doubt the treaty will be complied with. It's probably not enforceable on a practical basis.

 

[HVM]

As much as I would like that treaty to work, I think that once humans actually start colonizing other planetary bodies or moons I doubt the treaty will be complied with. It's probably not enforceable on a practical basis.

When there is permanent colony, they will declare independence (sovereign state under Ares) and announce those treaties nil.