How to quickly survey an exoplanet before colonization?

In summary, the question is how to check if a planet is habitable and what are the possible risks of errors. The answer is that they will need to do it with limited resources, and the colonists are on the way.
  • #71
Czcibor said:
Megafauna that strays towards a city is called BBQ. (it can be hunted using a spear thrower, a rifle is enough)
A few bandits yes, but no outright rebellion.

That's not something that I would bet on personally. Nature is nutty I would not bet on ther being 0 possibility of a some sort of Dinosaur with armor equivalent of bulletproof armor. The hides of these things would likely be pretty thick and making spears and bullets takes time and energy to essentially toss them away. And if they're not good eating then you are also out that amount of food that you could have gotten with those resources and you also have to figure a way to get rid of the carcas quickly either way because that attracts attention. And when you get there with no wall or defense perimeter that means that those creatures can come in wreck the place and take stuff too and that's going to happen a lot until you get a solid defense up.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #72
Durakken said:
That's not something that I would bet on personally. Nature is nutty I would not bet on ther being 0 possibility of a some sort of Dinosaur with armor equivalent of bulletproof armor. The hides of these things would likely be pretty thick and making spears and bullets takes time and energy to essentially toss them away. And if they're not good eating then you are also out that amount of food that you could have gotten with those resources and you also have to figure a way to get rid of the carcas quickly either way because that attracts attention. And when you get there with no wall or defense perimeter that means that those creatures can come in wreck the place and take stuff too and that's going to happen a lot until you get a solid defense up.
Our common hunter-gatherer ancestors that caused quaternary extinction event would be ashamed of you. :D

Honestly, I'd rather expect overhunting near main population centres.
 
  • #73
Czcibor said:
Our common hunter-gatherer ancestors that caused quaternary extinction event would be ashamed of you. :D

Honestly, I'd rather expect overhunting near main population centres.

Mammalian Mega Fauna are weak compared to things in the Dino branch of evolution up until you compare living birds to Mammalian Mega Fauna.

I would not bet humans with so weak an arsenol against most other forms of Mega Fauna. Terror Birds I'd put you at an even match and that is the weakest competitor of what we know of non-mammalian mega fauna. But I'd not want to go into combat with that because they're fast moving, scary, and can kill quickly... and they possibly hunted in groups. So consider you're colony demoralized, blood and guts all over the place, a few people with friendly fire wounds, you expending a couple hundred rounds to get these things dead and now you have 3 giant scary carcasses lying in the middle of your camp that isn't really useful because it's full of holes and now because you have them just sitting there you have to take volunteers to get them out of there before something smells them and comes to eat them which means you have to sends 10+ of your forces with arms out to drag these out while those who remain need to get to work on washing the blood of their family and friends... as well as burning or burying or something with the bodies before, again, scavengers, come eat them. And if you pick the wrong method well now you got more threat either from the smells of burning flesh or the animals that will come to dig the bodies out and eat them anyways which again brings danger to your group.

That's a scenario if you're closer to what you'd expect from a world closer to our level of evolution, but you said a warmer planet which implies one closer to the Dino eras which are far worse. Also, if you choose one closer to our level, that doesn't preclude danger as it possible that there is protohumanoid species around that would be as dangerous if not more dangerous than that.
 
  • #74
Czcibor said:
1 year and 7 months to produce as much steel product as it weights. Not bad, but it's far from an overkill.
It does not produce steel at all, it just changes its shape. And most of its part are plastics (or can be replaced with that) - plastic printers are faster. Heavy steel parts, if necessary, can be cast.
The laser and electronics cannot be printed.
 
  • #75
Czcibor said:
I've seen generally papers showing, that bigger cities tend to be more productive (yes, many million metropolises especially). Why do you think I shall spread those people in towns of 100k each?
You should. For sheer safety of redundancy.
Take Australian southeast coast. 1680 km Cairns to Brisbane. 988 km Brisbane to Sydney. 962 km Sydney-Melbourne (cutting inland rather than following the coast). 783 km Melbourne-Adelaide.

Importantly, they span different climates. Adelaide is mediterranean, dry summer wet winter climate. Melbourne and Sydney have year-round precipitation. Queensland is wet summer tropical.

Spreading your population across different climates would give you complementary plant produce. Spreading your population in several centres an appreciable distance from each other would diminish the chances of all or most of them being screwed simultaneously by a common weather pattern. E. g. a wet summer which causes simultaneous crop failures in Brisbane and Sydney might not afflict Adelaide that has dry summer as usual and relies on winter rain that was as usual. Note that if these population centres are connected by reasonably cheap water transportation, like ports and seacoast, then after crop failure becomes predictable, the food can be transported over several months. This way, you can avoid having already weak and famished people having to carry loads of food for several days to reach their mates and families.
 
  • #76
Durakken said:
snorkack said:
Durakken said:
genetically modified seeds that are programmed to grow into housing.
No such things exist
Right. They don't now, but the fundamental tech does exist and it is likely that they'll have something like this within the next 50 to 100 years and as such falls into any interstellar colonization scenario for me

This is a pretty dramatic departure from the "more or less contemporary technology" scenario you originally laid out.

I don't know what "fundamental tech exists" to program seeds to grow into houses, but with that as a technology precedent in your world, it opens up a whole bunch of 'we don't have it yet but we will by then' possibilities.

I'd start with:
- von Neumann devices for basic tasks such as desalinating water, clearing fields, planting crops, irrigating and tending to them.
- weather-proof domes
The list is endless.
 
Last edited:
  • #77
snorkack said:
You should. For sheer safety of redundancy.
Take Australian southeast coast. 1680 km Cairns to Brisbane. 988 km Brisbane to Sydney. 962 km Sydney-Melbourne (cutting inland rather than following the coast). 783 km Melbourne-Adelaide.

Importantly, they span different climates. Adelaide is mediterranean, dry summer wet winter climate. Melbourne and Sydney have year-round precipitation. Queensland is wet summer tropical.

Spreading your population across different climates would give you complementary plant produce. Spreading your population in several centres an appreciable distance from each other would diminish the chances of all or most of them being screwed simultaneously by a common weather pattern. E. g. a wet summer which causes simultaneous crop failures in Brisbane and Sydney might not afflict Adelaide that has dry summer as usual and relies on winter rain that was as usual. Note that if these population centres are connected by reasonably cheap water transportation, like ports and seacoast, then after crop failure becomes predictable, the food can be transported over several months. This way, you can avoid having already weak and famished people having to carry loads of food for several days to reach their mates and families.
With spreading the farmland - I fully agree, good point. But after achieving a working transport routes and freeing over 90% of from being needed in agriculture, then there would be not much point in spreading population. (I think about spreading population at start and later slowly concentrating it)
 
  • #78
I have 2 more questions:

1) crop rotation - in the past it used to be a reasonable idea to use some land for a few years and later leave it exploited. Would it be reasonable policy in such setting or using fertilizer would be more practical?

2) Wabbit pointed out that he would not be cooperative while dealing with a quite efficient authoritarian gov. How to deal with such problem?
2a) Selection process - (take more East Asians and less Americans) or test attitude of potential colonizers through some kind of psychological test?
2b) Grant moderate concessions to gain legitimacy in eyes of people who demand democracy?
3c) Make some big size conspiracy?
 
  • #79
Czcibor said:
1) crop rotation - in the past it used to be a reasonable idea to use some land for a few years and later leave it exploited. Would it be reasonable policy in such setting or using fertilizer would be more practical?
Even with an exact copy of Earth, the answer would be "it depends". And you are talking about a completely different planet!
Czcibor said:
Selection process - (take more East Asians and less Americans)
Take fewer stereotypes?
 
  • #80
Czcibor said:
I have 2 more questions:

1) crop rotation - in the past it used to be a reasonable idea to use some land for a few years and later leave it exploited. Would it be reasonable policy in such setting or using fertilizer would be more practical?
You know the mineral fertilizer requirements of the plants you have brought along. It would take some years to find out what the dangerous native weeds and pests are, and then figure out which farming practices and pesticides are effective and selective against these. Crop rotation makes sense.
 
  • #81
mfb said:
Take fewer stereotypes?
Why? Do you think in such scenario would anyone care about PC?

Because Wabbit pointed one serious, hard to measure directly feature - and one of possible proxy indicators is culture in which one was brought up and accepted its values.

snorkack said:
You know the mineral fertilizer requirements of the plants you have brought along. It would take some years to find out what the dangerous native weeds and pests are, and then figure out which farming practices and pesticides are effective and selective against these. Crop rotation makes sense.
Good point, thanks.
 
Last edited:
  • #82
Czcibor said:
Why? Do you think in such scenario would anyone care about PC?

We don't really know the scenario. What you have revealed is that humanity has within the next 5 or so years (estimated via your statements) finds a habitable world and the ability to teleport people/things however many light years it takes to get there with high degrees of accuracy... and for some reason is making plans to send between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people to this planet on a 1 way trip.

It also seems that you want to extract taxes from said group by some government, seemingly the Earth side one, which implies there is some 2 way communication and there is some sort of authoritarian government in place that enforces rules and who gets sent to this new planet with enough control to keep people in line and following their authority.

Depending on the actual scenario and how the government maintains order on Earth I can see reasons to go either way and it introduces a classic problem of "Who gets sent/gets to go" and how do we want to look to the people, which is something even a dictator must think about. But unless we know more we can't answer why someone would care about being "PC" or rather, more correctly stated, why anyone would care about not falling into the trap of believing stereotypes to be an accurate representation of people and thereby making the wrong selection for their purposes.
 
  • #83
Durakken said:
We don't really know the scenario. What you have revealed is that humanity has within the next 5 or so years (estimated via your statements) finds a habitable world and the ability to teleport people/things however many light years it takes to get there with high degrees of accuracy... and for some reason is making plans to send between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people to this planet on a 1 way trip.

It also seems that you want to extract taxes from said group by some government, seemingly the Earth side one, which implies there is some 2 way communication and there is some sort of authoritarian government in place that enforces rules and who gets sent to this new planet with enough control to keep people in line and following their authority.

Depending on the actual scenario and how the government maintains order on Earth I can see reasons to go either way and it introduces a classic problem of "Who gets sent/gets to go" and how do we want to look to the people, which is something even a dictator must think about. But unless we know more we can't answer why someone would care about being "PC" or rather, more correctly stated, why anyone would care about not falling into the trap of believing stereotypes to be an accurate representation of people and thereby making the wrong selection for their purposes.
Situation the following - a few psions that actually would be able to open teleport in incoming window of opportunity makes a deal with a group of business people. The group of business people brings starting money and organizational skill.

The group of business people would like to keep power for a while. It's a mixture of lust for power, feeling of responsibility, belief in their own outstanding skills (they are not bad, but believe being brilliant ;) ) and inertia. Additionally any democratic gov would under such condition would grant president / prime minister huge emergency powers, thus they not perceive it as doing anything improper.

There is going simply limited number of places. And when the whole project would become public there are going to be millions of possible volunteers. So need some rational selection criteria.
I thought so far that perfect candidate would be very healthy, young, not bringing any contagious or genetic disease, no crime record, educated / intelligent / having some useful skills (let's say a doctor from first world country... or a good at improvising handyman from a third world country).

Presumably candidates to be graded in such categories and picked up according to highest score.

The more tricky questions is whether picking up let's say more Scandinavians would make the country less corrupted in long run. That's something damn hard to measure directly, but there is some human capital to be picked properly.

Stereotypes? What about saying that males below 25 cause more car accidents than any other groups? So having a list of potential drivers and no other data, it would be advisable to select someone not fitting that description. (of course if there is more data - then it's quite possible that actually that within this group there would be plenty of really outstanding drivers)EDIT: Within this selected group there would some small amount picked up as matter of nepotism / bribing high rank politician by taking his kids, but that would be a negligible amount in total.
 
  • #84
Czcibor said:
Stereotypes? What about saying that males below 25 cause more car accidents than any other groups? So having a list of potential drivers and no other data, it would be advisable to select someone not fitting that description. (of course if there is more data - then it's quite possible that actually that within this group there would be plenty of really outstanding drivers)

I'll have more to say once I think about this more, but this specific thing shows what stereotypes can be bad.
The "males below x cause more car accidents" isn't a measure where you can take it like that.
Men drive more therefor are in more car accidents. Likely those who are below 25 drive more too. So it's actually the case that the better/best drivers come from the group you are excluding and so at best you simply excluding the best, but if you follow this course down more you will actually select the worst, least experienced drivers which would end up with you lowering efficiency and such things that you care about, or having to switch someone selected for something else to to driving and the driver becomes dead weight which ends up getting people killed in these types of situations.
 
  • #86
Vanadium 50 said:
Not true. See http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

As Rex Stout wrote, "there are two kinds of facts. The kind you look up and the kind you make up." This one is easy to look up/

Between 16 and some age between 35 and 54 you reach maximum miles driven. and then it falls back down.
I would bet you're going to get an inverse curve to that for the amount of accidents.which you'd expect due to experience and ability.
It's also interesting that the female curve maxes earlier and withless miles.

What you end up with is if you were to overlap these curves you're going to get a number around 25 that you're going to mark off as most likely to get into an accident in. I find it interesting that it's quoted at "25" which makes it harder to associate with amount of driving done which allows for manipulation of data.

But regardless you end up with a number that is, like I said, removing the optimal person to select, rather than the sub-optimal/worst.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #87
Czcibor said:
Situation the following - a few psions that actually would be able to open teleport in incoming window of opportunity makes a deal with a group of business people. The group of business people brings starting money and organizational skill.

The group of business people would like to keep power for a while. It's a mixture of lust for power, feeling of responsibility, belief in their own outstanding skills (they are not bad, but believe being brilliant ;) ) and inertia. Additionally any democratic gov would under such condition would grant president / prime minister huge emergency powers, thus they not perceive it as doing anything improper.

There is going simply limited number of places. And when the whole project would become public there are going to be millions of possible volunteers.

Contracting all those sent will help solve the problem, especially if you handle it more like a Corporate Town. In fact you should look those up if you haven't. That might give you some insight.

So need some rational selection criteria.
I thought so far that perfect candidate would be very healthy, young, not bringing any contagious or genetic disease, no crime record, educated / intelligent / having some useful skills (let's say a doctor from first world country... or a good at improvising handyman from a third world country).

I would suggest sending a construction team + defense team through that is not a permanent fixture to set up a fenced in defended group area with a command center of some sort that likewise has a defense system. Also a medical facility.

Then I'd send in colonists who fit x roles. Here's a breakdown I came up with a while back that had the requirement of havng all colonists coming in a group, 2 parents and a kid with roughly a 500 people unit. However the colonies have multiples of these units.

166 Children
036 Farmers
002 General practitioner (Doctor)
002 Botanist
002 Geologist
002 Astronomer
002 Zoologist
002 Meteorologist
002 Mechanical Engineer
002 Electrical Engineer
002 Civil Engineer
002 Chemical Engineer
002 Mining Engineers
002 Aerospace Engineer
002 Biomedical Engineer
002 Mechanic
002 Software Engineer
002 Cardiologist
002 Anastheseologist
002 Dentists
002 Ob/Gyn
002 Colonologist
002 Pediatrician
002 Podiatrician
002 Oncologist
002 Physician
002 Urologist
002 Vetinarian
004 Trauma surgeons
060 Guard/Soldiers
020 Hunters
020 Construction Worker
010 Teacher
010 Professor
010 Administrator
112 Miscelaneous Workers

As far as where to get them. I'd want from the 1st world, but with lots of 3rd world experience, or other experiences that requires creative thinking with random stuff around.
The more tricky questions is whether picking up let's say more Scandinavians would make the country less corrupted in long run. That's something damn hard to measure directly, but there is some human capital to be picked properly.

The problem here is that it assumes maintaining nationalistic attachments. This is likely not the case for anyone volunteering. Those volunteering are likely people who want to get away from their culture or don't care either way about it which means they are either not the norm of their culture or they're not going to push that culture in particular and so you'll end up with a culture that is mixed after a few generations, not a "corrupt" culture.

EDIT: Within this selected group there would some small amount picked up as matter of nepotism / bribing high rank politician by taking his kids, but that would be a negligible amount in total.

Obviously. There is no problem with that as long as you can keep balance with actual needed things.For example you might remove the requirement of having a kid for 4 or 5 couples in favor of having 4 or 5 nepotistic selections. The only important part is making sure you're not losing something you absolutely need in favor of this stuff. Obviously with greater number your ratios can change to as ratio of 100:1 Trauma Surgeons vs 101:1 Trauma Surgeons isn't a huge issue.
 
  • #88
Durakken said:
Contracting all those sent will help solve the problem, especially if you handle it more like a Corporate Town. In fact you should look those up if you haven't. That might give you some insight.
I know that. And I would not use that. ;)

Really, the result would be state capitalism with very limited competition. Which would not be specially effective. Rather just use their power to build strong state, which heavily relies on competition.
I would suggest sending a construction team + defense team through that is not a permanent fixture to set up a fenced in defended group area with a command center of some sort that likewise has a defense system. Also a medical facility.

Then I'd send in colonists who fit x roles. Here's a breakdown I came up with a while back that had the requirement of havng all colonists coming in a group, 2 parents and a kid with roughly a 500 people unit. However the colonies have multiples of these units.

166 Children
036 Farmers
002 General practitioner (Doctor)
002 Botanist
002 Geologist
002 Astronomer
002 Zoologist
002 Meteorologist
002 Mechanical Engineer
002 Electrical Engineer
002 Civil Engineer
002 Chemical Engineer
002 Mining Engineers
002 Aerospace Engineer
002 Biomedical Engineer
002 Mechanic
002 Software Engineer
002 Cardiologist
002 Anastheseologist
002 Dentists
002 Ob/Gyn
002 Colonologist
002 Pediatrician
002 Podiatrician
002 Oncologist
002 Physician
002 Urologist
002 Vetinarian
004 Trauma surgeons
060 Guard/Soldiers
020 Hunters
020 Construction Worker
010 Teacher
010 Professor
010 Administrator
112 Miscelaneous Workers

As far as where to get them. I'd want from the 1st world, but with lots of 3rd world experience, or other experiences that requires creative thinking with random stuff around.
Interesting. Where did you get those numbers? (just curious)

The problem here is that it assumes maintaining nationalistic attachments. This is likely not the case for anyone volunteering. Those volunteering are likely people who want to get away from their culture or don't care either way about it which means they are either not the norm of their culture or they're not going to push that culture in particular and so you'll end up with a culture that is mixed after a few generations, not a "corrupt" culture.
Not necessary. If you (for arguments sake) mix Swedish with Japanese, the result should also not be specially corrupted. (the friction would be about role of women or amount of hierarchy within society)

You'd just get Vikings with katanas ;)

I assume that people would volunteer not because of some great ideas, but because it would look as the best way of survival.

I thought about purposefully mixing up ethnic groups, to speed up creation of single nation.
Obviously. There is no problem with that as long as you can keep balance with actual needed things.For example you might remove the requirement of having a kid for 4 or 5 couples in favor of having 4 or 5 nepotistic selections. The only important part is making sure you're not losing something you absolutely need in favor of this stuff. Obviously with greater number your ratios can change to as ratio of 100:1 Trauma Surgeons vs 101:1 Trauma Surgeons isn't a huge issue.
I thought more about taking adult singles, to be able to utilize more people. And women young enough that after a few years (when food production would be stable enough) would still be fertile.

I also thought about selection process which would lead to overqualified people. Don't knowing what to expect, selecting the best and trying to keep redundancy, there would be a surplus of highly skilled professions. (Yes, it causes dissatisfaction, disappointment with next generation and problems to replace those people when they become old)
 
  • #89
Czcibor said:
Interesting. Where did you get those numbers? (just curious)

I looked up various peoples' opinions on the subject, and differst stats like how many doctors per x number of people is generally wanted, etc and then I thought about it it abit ^.^

Basically you only really need 1 of most of those things with 2 in a category, but you want redundancy.
For doctors I figure you need general practitioners, but it would be really stupid to carry so many for x number of people and not have any specialists so what you do is you shunt those general practitioners to being specialists. They work both as specialist when need and general otherwise and if one dies you got the other as well as their ability to teach someone else.
The same can be said many of the other things. There is overlap in their fields, but all the scientists and engineers I selected are things you want experts in when your'e going on a foreign planet with no infrastructure. You need to build it, get it in the right spot, evaluate and document all the weather and life and determine ahead of time the problems you're going to face that you can't do with even a high definition survey because these things take time and come up randomly and over time.

The next group...
036 Farmers
060 Guard/Soldiers
020 Hunters
020 Construction Worker

These have their primary roles, but at the same time they are the grunts that do whatever is needed. During the winter Farmers can't do anything. When all the buildings are constructed or don't have resource to continue building they can't do anything. If you have enough food to eat why hunt? Soldiers/Guards are trained for that, but if the areas is relatively safe why wouldn't you also use them as labor for the tasks of the sciences and doctors? I need a EMTs...guess who's doing it. fast and strong guys that can follow orders. I need a mailman, give to them while they do defense patrols. So yeah, the listed roles is what they're there to do as primary, but they are also to be used for all the general stuff needed as well if needed.

The last group, other than the kids...
010 Teacher
010 Professor
010 Administrator

Perhaps a bit overkill, but, again, redundancy and also gives options while making sure you get the best results.
The Administrators... mainly you need people who are in designated in charge, you need a small amount, but you also need an amount that you can deligate areas of the operations to that are an authority for that area and have a designated single leader as well. A single designated leader + 9 areas of deligations seems reasonable...
1. Money
2. Medical
3. Law
4. Military
5. Mining
6. Agriculture
7. Construction
8. Education
9. Resource Management

With regards to children. The situation I built around is different that what you are, but the reasoning behind making children a requirement is that you want a colony that growing as well as people that are deidcated to the thing that they're going there to do. If they are still working in the field and have a child they're the type of person you want, likewise the children provide the booster for colony growth. It also gives a longer time period to failure and a motivation factor for the adults. The reason it takes longer to fail is that while you're trying to build a colony the last thing on your mind is probably having kids. This means that by the time you get around to it you're old and unable to handle raising the child as well. Likewise if you don't have a child you might have children more unexpectantly as you fail to take precautions due to having time for such activities is limited. So having the child at the start seems better to me and since those problems are gone and the kids are being raised it means if there is issues the colony has more time due to kids already being around and in a large enough number to fill in those gaps and last through possible problem simply because they are younger.

In the situation you laid out, that doesn't really matter as if they colony fails and everyone dies, or even starts to fail, you can just kick more people to it and solve the problem. In fact, one might argue the ideal would be for the colonies to fail from the business investment point of view because the colonies will have built up the area which makes it easier for the next set of colonists and allows the company to charge/tax more. Or if you really want pop growth you throw more over to the colony whether it is doing good or bad and the colony will grow just from the fact that the dead bodies don't matter.

Not necessary. If you (for arguments sake) mix Swedish with Japanese, the result should also not be specially corrupted. (the friction would be about role of women or amount of hierarchy within society)

I don't think you'd get that as a problem because you are still a frontier town more or less and in that case there are still roles that people will fall into naturally... beyond that I don't want to get too far into that topic ^.^

But I forgot the other thing I was going to mention, there are 2 major reasons one my segregate a little.
1. Langauge Barriers. Even if you make it mandatory all colonists speak x language if its not their native language there may be issues that will get worse when the primary languages aren't the same. One such thing is possible reaction times in military situations.

2. Long standing hatred. I'd be wary of putting Chine and Japanese together or US with Russians. There is just some nationalistic enmity within those cultures against the others that even if they are cool on the surface with each other and as rational people they have no problem no idea what might happen so it might be unwise to mix certain groups together if you can help it.
 
  • #90
Durakken said:
With regards to children. The situation I built around is different that what you are, but the reasoning behind making children a requirement is that you want a colony that growing as well as people that are deidcated to the thing that they're going there to do. If they are still working in the field and have a child they're the type of person you want, likewise the children provide the booster for colony growth. It also gives a longer time period to failure and a motivation factor for the adults. The reason it takes longer to fail is that while you're trying to build a colony the last thing on your mind is probably having kids. This means that by the time you get around to it you're old and unable to handle raising the child as well. Likewise if you don't have a child you might have children more unexpectantly as you fail to take precautions due to having time for such activities is limited. So having the child at the start seems better to me and since those problems are gone and the kids are being raised it means if there is issues the colony has more time due to kids already being around and in a large enough number to fill in those gaps and last through possible problem simply because they are younger.
What about as motivating factor, that system does not provide pensions? Nothing personal, just gov has no money for that...

(Later, in constitution it would be stated that gov is not allowed to promise a retirement system that is not 100% financed from start)

In the situation you laid out, that doesn't really matter as if they colony fails and everyone dies, or even starts to fail, you can just kick more people to it and solve the problem. In fact, one might argue the ideal would be for the colonies to fail from the business investment point of view because the colonies will have built up the area which makes it easier for the next set of colonists and allows the company to charge/tax more. Or if you really want pop growth you throw more over to the colony whether it is doing good or bad and the colony will grow just from the fact that the dead bodies don't matter.
Not specially. Humans would be here the limited resources, thus requiring proper care.
But I forgot the other thing I was going to mention, there are 2 major reasons one my segregate a little.
1. Langauge Barriers. Even if you make it mandatory all colonists speak x language if its not their native language there may be issues that will get worse when the primary languages aren't the same. One such thing is possible reaction times in military situations.

2. Long standing hatred. I'd be wary of putting Chine and Japanese together or US with Russians. There is just some nationalistic enmity within those cultures against the others that even if they are cool on the surface with each other and as rational people they have no problem no idea what might happen so it might be unwise to mix certain groups together if you can help it.
After a year they are in situation to believe that their home country exist anymore. But avoiding such conflict at the whole start would be reasonable.

Anyway, I think that Russians live happily in Londongrad, so not sure to what extend this problem may be overestimated.
 
  • #91
Czcibor said:
What about as motivating factor, that system does not provide pensions? Nothing personal, just gov has no money for that...

(Later, in constitution it would be stated that gov is not allowed to promise a retirement system that is not 100% financed from start)

That's modern thinking.
In a non-modern society kids are your pension. You raise them to take care of you in your old age.

Not specially. Humans would be here the limited resources, thus requiring proper care.

In the situation you laid out humans would not be limited because new humans could be teleported in at any time. If you want to make it out that they can't be then you have to explain adherence to a government system and taxation that no longer exists. The point of these colonies are to make money and in general do it through taxing/resources being sent back. If they get cut off then residents would expect not to be sending resources back and they would expect not to be taxed or taxed less. Likewise, continued taxing or increases leads to the higher likelihood of a revolt.

Anyways, I was just pointing out a way for a corporation to take advantage of the scenario to their benefit given the information you provided. I wouldn't do it, but there are some greedy people out there.

Anyway, I think that Russians live happily in Londongrad, so not sure to what extend this problem may be overestimated.

Just pointing out examples. French and English get along decently despite all the enmity between them.
 
  • #92
Durakken said:
That's modern thinking.
In a non-modern society kids are your pension. You raise them to take care of you in your old age.
Know it, however stating that would be a unnecessarily unpopular policy. Instead merely demanding 100% prefunding of such programs, would sound just prudent, but in practice would mean killing almost all of such incentives.
In the situation you laid out humans would not be limited because new humans could be teleported in at any time. If you want to make it out that they can't be then you have to explain adherence to a government system and taxation that no longer exists. The point of these colonies are to make money and in general do it through taxing/resources being sent back. If they get cut off then residents would expect not to be sending resources back and they would expect not to be taxed or taxed less. Likewise, continued taxing or increases leads to the higher likelihood of a revolt.

Anyways, I was just pointing out a way for a corporation to take advantage of the scenario to their benefit given the information you provided. I wouldn't do it, but there are some greedy people out there.
I'm not sure whether I stated that explicitly - only short period of teleportation, after that - it fails. So such exploative business model would not work, because of running out of people too quickly.
 
  • #93
Thread reopened. Can members please remain civil else the thread will be closed again, likewise factual claims are expected to be backed up when questioned.
 

Similar threads

  • Earth Sciences
Replies
3
Views
3K
  • MATLAB, Maple, Mathematica, LaTeX
Replies
1
Views
2K
Back
Top