Political/Religious Space Colonies?

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I can't really agree.

 

Your privilege.

 

Planned economies are perfectly functional' date=' and have certain advantages over market economies (most importantly, they can adjust prices arbitrarily, making social ills more expensive and social goods cheaper).[/quote']

 

Lovely in theory, once again. A lot depends on who or what gets to make those arbitrary price changes, of course. And how they are enforced - which can indeed make some social ills ... "disappear".

 

Would you be so kind as to provide a few examples besides Russia? I am not so sure that China would count as a good example in this regard. They started out planned (sort of, in a very messy fashion, at a horrific cost in lives) but their economy only took off once the controls were eased up some, and free enterprise could come out of the closet (it never totally ceased - lots of action behind the scenes, from what I hear)..

 

For example' date=' Russia's economy pre-1928 most closely resembled Latin America (less the southern cone), but by 1970 had an economy half again as large in terms of GDP per capita.[/quote']

 

I'm not inclined to see pre-1928 Russia as a great starting point for anything, least of all economics. So, by my interpretation of your statement, it grew from Next-To-Nothing to 50%-Better-Than-Next-To-Nothing in a bit over forty years. What about the comparitive growth rate of various other messy, arguably less planned countries / economies over the same period? I very strongly suspect a number of them grew by a helluva lot more. Germany (the Western half, anyhow) comes to mind as perhaps doing better.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I once started a story postulating that "Purist" humans who didn't believe in contact with alien species fled an increasingly cosmopolitan Earth to set up their "human utopia" on a world that nobody had been to before, only to find that other people had gotten their first. Unfortunately for them, the Purists had superior technology and was able to enslave and exile the people who were there before. There were Purist leaders who even wanted the people who were there first utterly exterminated so they could have the new world to themselves.

 

I never finished it, mainly because I couldn't figure out how to defeat the Purists.

[amanojaku]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I think that would be Totalitarian' date=' not Communist. Communism is when the people own the means of production. It was meant as a way for people to throw off the chains of the feudal system. Which was the way that many countries were still being governed. Also in many "free" nations, the corporations were treating their workers like it was a new feudalism. Which is how things are starting to look again in the US with wages so low and much of the real jobs being shipped off to where people will work for slave wages.[/quote']

 

Sad, but tragically true.

[amanojaku]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

They're not' date=' and never have been. Their motivations are quite secular.[/quote']

 

Actually there's nothing to stop a christian organization from being a terrorist one as well. In fact, jesus himself was a terrorist. If you read Leviticus 26:21-22 he vows to inflict plague and suffering on those who do not follow him, and to send animals to kill the children of people who don't follow him.

 

http://api.ning.com/files/rQI-FV2jku1-QBnVlNFnc4rVscT3JxBMs7xS8TO0GfHCVyTS9pKeEjznXSxCAKQ2/Jesusloveschildren.jpg

 

 

Also, of course, he constantly threatened eternal agony on any who did not call him lord and bow to him.

 

Sounds like terrorism to me.

[amanojaku]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I once started a story postulating that "Purist" humans who didn't believe in contact with alien species fled an increasingly cosmopolitan Earth to set up their "human utopia" on a world that nobody had been to before, only to find that other people had gotten their first. Unfortunately for them, the Purists had superior technology and was able to enslave and exile the people who were there before. There were Purist leaders who even wanted the people who were there first utterly exterminated so they could have the new world to themselves.

 

I never finished it, mainly because I couldn't figure out how to defeat the Purists.

If may offer a suggestion, the purists end up defeathing themselves thru division and inability to reconcile their internal differences. Perhaps a disagreement over a fairly minor issue eventually explodes into conflict as neither side will give one solitary nanometer due to their arrogance and certainty of righteousness.

 

With people like the ones you posit, such an outcome is hardly implausible.

[amanojaku]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Bit of a shotgun post here.

 

In re to the OT, don't forget that it would not just be religious/racial groups seeking isolation from the masses. One could imagine a libertarian group seeking to establish it's own utopia. See the game "Bioshock" and it's sequel for a look at how that might go. Really, if you haven't played bioshock you're missing something, just playing thru on easy mode and studying the game world, playing the diary tapes, etc, is a fascinating look at hos quickly a libertarian community might disintegrate.

 

All sorts of people might want to found their own communities in isolation. Perhaps there would be those who believe in genetic engineering who wanted to pursue transhumanism in a society that limited genetic modification. Likewise those who believed in not doing so might flee a society that allowed genetic mods.

 

In "revelation space" there were the "Demarchists", democratic anarchists, who established a system of democratic anarchy where the only overall law was the respect of democracy no matter what it lead too. That might make a good candidate for an independent society.

 

Not to be contrary without cause, but how about imagining a society that did not allow people to leave it and form their own? In some of his work, golden age SF author A.E. Van Voght postulated a society that would not allow any humans to exist outside it, and actively hunted down such. The justification was to end all wars by having only one government. (Shades of "Ein reich, ein volk, ein fuehrer!" or megatron's motto: "Peace through tyranny".)

 

In another SF story, the government refused to allow humans to exist outside it due to the fear of alien contact and the belief humanity had to be unified to survive in the face of the alien boogeyman.

 

The "golden rule" was mentioned somewhat here. This might be of interest to those bringing it up:

http://www.atheistcartoons.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/thegoldenrule.jpg

 

The idea of people founding their own colonies to live their own lifestyles is an interesting one, as is the idea that eventually some group is going to issue "JOIN US OR DIE!" ultimatums.

[Tornado]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Lovely in theory' date=' once again. A lot depends on who or what gets to make those arbitrary price changes, of course. And how they are enforced - which can indeed make some social ills ... "disappear".[/quote']Indeed, the way an economy works depends on who is managing it. If a free market economy is left unmanaged, one gets rapid monopolization as companies absorb each other (monopolization Is A Very Bad Thing in a free market). If it is managed, then it needs to be managed properly, or you get things like the recent financial crisis. The same goes for a socialist economy: you can get exceptional growth, as occurred under Khrushchev and Stalin*, or shitty stagnation, as occurred under Brezhnev.

 

*: It should be noted that the gulag system was not a net positive for the economy of the USSR. It cost a lot of money to maintain that large of a prison system and the income from penal labor did not compensate for it. For research on the subject, see The Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag.

Would you be so kind as to provide a few examples besides Russia? I am not so sure that China would count as a good example in this regard. They started out planned (sort of' date=' in a very messy fashion, at a horrific cost in lives) but their economy only took off once the controls were eased up some, and free enterprise could come out of the closet (it never totally ceased - lots of action behind the scenes, from what I hear)..[/quote']Another good example would be modern Belarus; it's GDP per capita (PPP) in 2009 was 285% of its 1992 level, while Russia's was 190%. The two countries have similar economic structures, except that Belarus has an economy which is 80+% state-owned and operated, while Russia is quite neo-liberal. Even the World Bank admitted that economic growth from 1996 to 2004 was due in large part to government intervention in the economy and its careful operation (See here).

 

There was also some crazy fast industrialization/urbanization in socialist Albania during the early years, but I don't have a book with me with quotes on it.

I'm not inclined to see pre-1928 Russia as a great starting point for anything' date=' least of all economics. So, by my interpretation of your statement, it grew from Next-To-Nothing to 50%-Better-Than-Next-To-Nothing in a bit over forty years. What about the comparitive growth rate of various other messy, arguably less planned countries / economies over the same period? I very strongly suspect a number of them grew by a helluva lot more. Germany (the Western half, anyhow) comes to mind as perhaps doing better.[/quote']Germany in 1928 (or 1871) was very close to Western Europe, that's hardly a fair comparison. Looking at the way GDP changed over the course of the 20th century, its pretty clear that the rich got richer at a vastly greater rate than the poor got richer (excepting Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay). The GDP per capita of Western Europe increased 8.5 times from 1820 to 1970, while Latin America's (less southern cone) increased only 4.6 times, and South Asia's increased 1.6 times.

 

Russia in 1970 was 167% as large in GDP per capita in comparison to Latin America in 1970; not in comparison to its position in 1928. In 1928, its GDP per capita was 103% of Latin America's (and had floated around being equal to Latin America's since 1800). Again, less the southern cone of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, since the southern cone started off in the richer countries (79% of W. Europe in 1900) and wound up in the poorer countries (38% of W. Europe in 1989).

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I don't want to post any spoilers here, but you'll find rather a lot of the above ideas (or variations on them) in the Terracide setting. The future history, descriptions of the star systems of human space, and most of the organizations are finished now. In a nutshell, there's a very diverse society, and there are those trying to impose conformity among the extra-solar colonies, while the 'great powers' on earth just try to keep the peace so they can sell the masses on the idea of emigrating.

 

Then Terra is destroyed and all bets are off....

[McCoy]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

In fact' date=' jesus himself was a terrorist. If you read Leviticus 26:21-22 he vows [/quote']

Huh?

 

Jesus? In Leviticus?

 

Oh Kay *backs out of room slowly, smiling and nodding*

[dmjalund]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Actually there's nothing to stop a christian organization from being a terrorist one as well. In fact, jesus himself was a terrorist. If you read Leviticus 26:21-22 he vows to inflict plague and suffering on those who do not follow him, and to send animals to kill the children of people who don't follow him.

 

http://api.ning.com/files/rQI-FV2jku1-QBnVlNFnc4rVscT3JxBMs7xS8TO0GfHCVyTS9pKeEjznXSxCAKQ2/Jesusloveschildren.jpg

 

 

Also, of course, he constantly threatened eternal agony on any who did not call him lord and bow to him.

 

Sounds like terrorism to me.

Jesus doesn't say ANYTHING in leviticus, you must be referring to God the Father. And saying God is a terrorist is kinda funny.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Jesus doesn't say ANYTHING in leviticus' date=' you must be referring to God the Father. And saying God is a terrorist is kinda funny.[/quote']

 

Most Christians consider the Father and Jesus different aspects of the same personage, or at the very least parts of a single Godhead. Thus everything the Father says Jesus says and vice versa.

 

Then again, one of the most important events of the New Testament is Jesus going into a garden outside Jerusalem to have a long heart-to-heart with the Father about whether he should follow through with getting himself crucified. So while they may both be part of the Godhead they do have somewhat different personalities.

[dmjalund]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Most Christians consider the Father and Jesus different aspects of the same personage, or at the very least parts of a single Godhead. Thus everything the Father says Jesus says and vice versa.

 

Then again, one of the most important events of the New Testament is Jesus going into a garden outside Jerusalem to have a long heart-to-heart with the Father about whether he should follow through with getting himself crucified. So while they may both be part of the Godhead they do have somewhat different personalities.

Makes it kinda difficult when the Old Testement says something and Jesus says something else

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Makes it kinda difficult when the Old Testement says something and Jesus says something else

 

That happens A LOT.

[Markdoc]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Well traditionally, you then pick whichever part suits the argument you are making at the time.

 

cheers, Mark

[Nolgroth]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I know I do. Wait a minute. Dang. Foiled again!

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

"Lo, and the way of the wise shall be as this: the leafing through the texts until the finding or the making up of the vaguely relevant reference, and the wide trumpeting of it onto the Interwebs. For, saith the Trollist, of reading and contemplation there is no end; but of disputation, the blink of the eye, and it is good to go." (Jehoshaphat, 4:11)

[Ranxerox]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Beautiful non-quote. I can't rep you for it at this time, but I am tempted to add it to my sig.