Discussing Mars

First, I agree that with the ecological, financial and political disasters we have right here, right now, spending more then a trivial amount of money on space exploration and exploitation is a terrible idea. I've grown up with enough science fiction to want humans to thrive and achieve widespread dispersal. Practically, I think that such dispersal needs to start at the moon rather then Mars and don't understand why people are so hot to skip that step. All the same problem apply, but in the "Shallow end" or the solar system. We'd need to not only stabilize the earth but develop sustainable food and other technologies for such a colony to be at all effective.

Also, Fuck, Musk, Bezos and capitalism, I'm no fan of any of them.

As to a few of the points in the video:

Colonialism:

Equating the destruction of extraterrestrial microbes to the genocides that colonialism has wrought upon the earth seems iffy. Are microbial lives at all equivalent to human ones? Would the destruction of Polio or Smallpox or any other microbial disease also be bad? Extraterrestrial life might be unique, but I'm not sure that people are ready to flatten the hierarchy that far. There is also a bad reverse equivalency. I'm not about to tell indigenous people the genocide of their ancestors is at all comparable to the destruction of microbes. 

I agree that colonialism is a loaded idea, and has done horrible things on the planet. but I think that most people will see a difference between microbes that answer a binary question in an unsatisfying way, (Are there aliens? "Yes, they were single celled organisms on Mars.") and the suffering of human beings. I think that most people are going to see the colonizing of a planet as a colony without a genocide. They are going to see it a a triumph over nature or adverse conditions. Whereas Manifest Destiny that murders native peoples can be easily seen as wrong, Manifest Destiny over an "empty" planet won't have that stigma.

I get the argument of "If we do this, we make an irrevocable change. We destroy something and can never, EVER, get it back." But I just can't see that destruction being anything like the suffering that our colonial history has inflicted. Even getting into a vegan headspace, I just don't see it.

Safety and Conditions:

The people proposing this are ready for a crash program. They see the problem as existential are are more then willing to exceed existing safety parameters. Also for much of their program, they can cut those costs in half with one way trips. The first few landers might have to go and come back, but a intersystem shuttle would scale into a system to drop cargo (and colonists) on Mars and come back for more. 

“So what if you are more likely to develop cancer and die fairly young on Mars, in the mean time you’re labor will ‘save humanity.’ That’s a price worth paying.”

Further, imagine their recruiting possibilities. Die young of cancer on Mars, or struggle jobless here on Earth. With the right incentives they could have waiting lists of people ready to take a one way trip to Mars. People ready to work and die under harsh conditions. Just as those early North American colonies, or so many failed wagon trains across the continent. Or for an even more dystopian view, the idea of a space penal colony.

I could see a multi-tier (dare I say hierarchal?) systems that 'purchases' the young and healthy much like military recruitment with a promise of service building Mars results in a guarantee of space on Mars to live. Signing bonuses and such to family that are staying on Earth. 

"My daughter went to Mars, and all I got was $50k and a lifetime of Amazon Prime."

It'd be sold as the next Grand Adventure, and there are plenty who'd eat that up. Then you have the scientists, doctors and middle managers, people who would stay out of the sun and be eligible for return trips or short terms. At the top you have the paying customers, the billionaires and people who've built the systems. Those with unrestricted calorie rations and large, comfortable quarters. Obviously, they would not be visiting in the first few years. 

I agree the total control on information would result in the sort of lies that we see in the historical record, and while treaties might say that no one can own anything beyond Earth, the Musk/Bezos colony will certainly be a company town. It would be awful. Industrial accidents, the danger of the environment, restricted rations and supplies, and laughable medical care. Conditions would be horrible and human rights non-existent. The sort of people who support such a crash plan for the survival of humanity see these as luxuries anyways. 

But Why Go To Mars Anyways?

Spoiler alert, "It's Free Real Estate."

Seriously, megatons of gold would not make Mars profitable. The costs of moving mass in and out of gravity wells requires big money. Today a Kilo of gold is ~$60k. A conservative estimate of getting a kilo onto the Moon was $15k. Mars would likely be an order of magnitude more. If you were able to mine and process the gold, what would you do with it? Getting the gold back to Earth, would depress the price of gold. So why would you spend all that money to get Martian gold?

You don't, Every guide to wealth will talk about real estate at length. All colonialism was a platform for the acquisition of real estate. The rich aren't going to go to Mars to bring resources to Earth. They are going to Mars to develop room and resources on Mars. Real estate is a long game, interplanetary real estate even more so. The land rushes and Earthly frontiers are over. The new robber barons of Musk and Bezos don't have a place they can take over and shape from the ground up. There are already pesky residents and governments claiming everything. This is why you hear other Libertarians talk about "seasteading," floating or underwater cities. They want to create new land to control and exploit.

Musk, Bezos, and the rest of the "Go to Mars" brigade want to set themselves up as tyrants. They want to own the planet, or at least the colonies and life support infrastructure, to maintain control and build wealth. Those that aren't billionaires see opportunity in supporting their schemes. It's easier in their minds to be be well off on Mars then on Earth, simply because their is less competition. Also because they think the lack or laws, standards and other restrictions will empower their rise.

In conclusion, No we shouldn't go to Mars. Not for a long time. We need to solve the ecological, political and financial issues here first, because of the 2 planets, Earth is more likely to be able to host humans then Mars. One mistake on Mars can kill the entire colony, easier to survive on Earth.

Critiquing a Libertarian Response to Defunding the Police

Some responses to the linked video:

That people are using this event to frame an argument about the police being racists is not arguing police brutality doesn't happen to white people. (In fact, these organizations have taken up the cause of white victims of police brutality as well). There is a difference is scale between how it happens to white people and people of color. 

Further, even if this specific event is not racially motivated, it becomes a shorthand for the disproportionate amount of brutality that is leveled at people of color. Any particular case might not be racially motivated, but the trend that people of color are the victims of police violence far more often then white people exists.

A holistic approach to police brutality is fine, but if you look at it from a colorblind perspective, the differences in scale between ethnic groups is ignored.  For example, in New York City, white people got stopped-and-frisked, but people of color were stopped and frisked at a much higher rate even though they had a much lower rate of being found with a gun, which was the stated purpose of the program. "Getting past" race would be great, but it's not on the people harmed, it's on the structures, organizations and people doing the harm. 

Regarding privatizing the police: I can't imagine that working so well with police considering how its doing with prisons. Remember, you can forfeit your Constitutional rights to a private entity in a contract. For example YouTube/FaceBook is not beholden to the 1st Amendment. What would constrain private police to the Constitutional protections we enjoy now? We've had private police in history, see the abuses of the Pinkertons. Under our current system we the people have (notional) control over the government, and protections therefrom. We do not have protections against the depredations of corporations.

I don't think the market gives us the responsiveness that the speaker does. Consider "Right job at the right price," So you get top level courteous policing for the neighborhoods with large tax bases, and bargain basement "Screw your rights" policing for communities without the tax base? Considering that poverty is correlated with race, such a program would make these matters much worse. That budget operator can say "Well, your community can't afford a company that doesn't shoot first, what are you going to do?"

We have more power over governmental police because we have power of their their leadership, their budget and the laws that govern their behavior. Adding a layer of abstraction where the people control the government and the government contracts the police would make the police less accountable to the people. A solution is to grant more direct control of the police to the people. Create police review boards, have the policies and leadership of the police accountable to the people. Remove qualified immunity, And change the priority from cops coming home safely at the expense of the people, to the people being protected by the police, even the suspects.

Yes changing the law is important. And that is a part of the argument to defund or abolish the police. About the drug war, John Ehrlichman is on record saying the Drug war was started to harass black people and anti-war activists. Again, racism is at the root of these issues. We agree, that the over-policing is a big part of of the problem. Defunding the police in favor of programs to help people with problems, or abolishing the police to build something better in its place, these are ways to get to a more equitable world with less oppression.