Again. let's assume a new orbital society is developing.

Everybody will have to be an immigrant.

If we restrict immigration to those under 40 or so, then they won't
have to be funding an existing cohort of seniors via Social Security
taxes.

This new society will have a generation to get its retirement plan
in order. How should they do it?

Should there even be a government plan or should they just mandate
personal savings accounts?

Should more money be spent on childhood education? Will we even have
slackers, druggies, and criminal youth if we don't have the social
strata that is present in Earth's societies? Afterall, everyone who
immigrates will have to be talented and educated to serve a function
in orbit.

If we screen immigrants for health then the health care component of
GDP will be considerably less than on Earth, thus more wealth for
other uses.

When the US opened its border to masses of immigrants the policy of
admitting immigrants was best described by the poem at the the base
of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

In came lots of unskilled people which the US needed to build its
industrial might.

In orbit, I think we'll be relying on intellect and machinery rather
than human muscle power so our demographics will be different than
the US and the social and immigration policies that develop will
also be different.

What do you think will develop over time?

TangoMan

Hi all

Jim Dator, at the University of Manoa in Hawaii runs an undergraduate unit
in his Political Science degree which calls for students to design political
systems for a Martian colony. Might be some interesting ideas there. Also,
check out the writings of a number of futurists from around the world. The
Australian Foresight Institute provides some interesting links
www.swin.edu.au/afi.

I guess that it is a natural assumption that the society for the first space
colony will be modelled on US society. But which one - there are so many to
choose from? For inspiration, imagine that you are transplanting a city
into orbit. Will it be New York, Atlanta, San Fransisco, Dallas or any one
of three dozen other examples?

When you are choosing which people immigrate, who gets to choose: the US
government or the company that is building the colony?

IMHO, great background reading for this discussion is the Kim Stanley
Robinson trilogy Red/Green/Blue Mars.

Cheers
Andrew Wynberg

> Again. let's assume a new orbital society is developing.
>
> Everybody will have to be an immigrant.
>
> If we restrict immigration to those under 40 or so, then they won't
> have to be funding an existing cohort of seniors via Social Security
> taxes.

Bad idea. Some of the most experienced people will be over 60 and still
have many years of productive life ahead of them. Experience in the
short term will count for more than some hypothetical burden in the
long term. People do not have to retire at 65 - that's a luxury
afforded to western societies by the welfare state. I know of plenty of
people who remain vigorous well into their seventies, and whose
accumulated experience more than makes up for their decreased physical
capabilities.

> Should more money be spent on childhood education? Will we even have
> slackers, druggies, and criminal youth if we don't have the social
> strata that is present in Earth's societies? Afterall, everyone who
> immigrates will have to be talented and educated to serve a function
> in orbit.

There will be slackers and druggies no matter what. The attitude that
these folks should be invited into the airlock will rapidly evaporate
when it turns out that some of them are family members.

......Andrew

Dr. Andrew Case, PhD.
Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics,
University of Maryland, College Park
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
- David Hume

>I guess that it is a natural assumption that the society for the first space
>colony will be modelled on US society.
>
Russian, for historical reasons ;-)

>When you are choosing which people immigrate, who gets to choose: the US
>government or the company that is building the colony?
>
Of course the US government, they rule the Earth and the rest of the
universe, don't they?

;-p

>Cheers
>Andrew Wynberg
>

-Ian

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the workers to gather wood,
divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the
vast and endless sea." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

> I guess that it is a natural assumption that the society for the first
> space colony will be modelled on US society.

If I had heard this "natural assumption" ten years ago, it would have sounded
natural to me too. But not nowadays my, uh, faith on that assumption is
failing. Maybe it is just my foreign perception, but human space flight in
the US seems stagnant or even decadent (there are even American citizens
actively *against* human space flight), and there are emerging countries
struggling real hard to close the gap. I wonder if some of them will not
succeed and even surpass the US in astronautics.

> Cheers

Cheers

> Andrew Wynberg

Lucio

>
> > Again. let's assume a new orbital society is developing.
> >
> > Everybody will have to be an immigrant.
> >
> > If we restrict immigration to those under 40 or so, then they
won't
> > have to be funding an existing cohort of seniors via Social
Security
> > taxes.
>
> Bad idea. Some of the most experienced people will be over 60 and
still
> have many years of productive life ahead of them. Experience in
the
> short term will count for more than some hypothetical burden in
the
> long term. People do not have to retire at 65 - that's a luxury
> afforded to western societies by the welfare state. I know of
plenty of
> people who remain vigorous well into their seventies, and whose
> accumulated experience more than makes up for their decreased
physical
> capabilities.

Perhaps it is a bad idea, but it is one that should be investigated
thoroughly before it is dismissed out of hand.

Look around you at the degree and sophistication of medical services
that are required by seniors as compared to those who are younger.
There is no dispute that there is an imbalance. That's not to say
though, that some younger individual may not run into serious
medical problems.

Yes, age does bring experience. Yes, people don't lose all utility
at 65.

Look at the fiscal imbalance of Social Security. After a lifetime of
paying into the system, you'll pull your contributions out as
benefits after about 3-5 years. Thereafter you are a fiscal subsidy.

For a new socity in orbit, do we need to establish a sophisticated
geriatric medical system, retirement sytem, and senior care system
from the get-go.

We'll have seniors filling out the demographic tables within a
generation and have that amount of time to develop a societal
support system for them.

If it costs significant amount of money to send a person to orbit,
shouldn't we try to amortize that cost over at least a 20 year work
life, rather than a 5 or 10 year period.

Further, with a reduced medical system, if some orbital citizen does
run into a medical problem that can't be addressed within the
habitat, it is probably within our capability to send them to Earth
for treatment. It might be quite another feat to send a sizable
portion of our seniors to Earth for treatment that isn't available
in their new home.

I came across some information awhile back that I found quite
interesting.

If you break down a population's medical costs into two groups,
below and above age 65, then those below cost 10 times less than
those over 65. IIRC, average costs were $2,000 and $20,000 per year.

Medical costs for young children cost more than adults in their
prime, but their costs decrease as they get into their tweens.
Nevertheless, even their high costs (not as high as seniors) are
lumped into the under 65 grouping.

For a society of immigrants (the Habitat) one can't argue that their
is a bias against immigrants, just that in the end we're looking for
productivity and reducing the burden on society UNTIL we can sustain
the burden of caring for our seniors (after they've contributed to
the development of the society.)

What I absolutely don't want to see is "family reunification"
immigration that is in vogue in the Western World, where
grandparents are sponsored and receive preference over economic and
skilled immigrants.

For a look at US immigration issues, see:

http://www.fairus.org/html/04140708.htm

>
> > Should more money be spent on childhood education? Will we even
have
> > slackers, druggies, and criminal youth if we don't have the
social
> > strata that is present in Earth's societies? Afterall, everyone
who
> > immigrates will have to be talented and educated to serve a
function
> > in orbit.

>
> There will be slackers and druggies no matter what.

Who says so? How do they know?

Just because they exist in most societies is not a reason to presume
that the societal influences of an orbital society will produce them.

I sincerely hope that the "American Experiment" stays isolated on
Earth. Not that I favor any other form of society as being better. I
just look forward to something new being created in orbit, a society
that is shaped by its environment and perhaps moves the human race
forward with some new ideas. Afterall, the Amercian experience is
over 225 years old. Perhaps a new philosophy can foster a new form
of society that is as revolutionary and has as much, or more,
potential than the American revolution produced.

The attitude that
> these folks should be invited into the airlock will rapidly
evaporate
> when it turns out that some of them are family members.
>
> ......Andrew

I certainly didn't draw that conclusion. You're inferring too much
from my statement.

TangoMan