SSPS for Hydrogen Economy

--- In ssi_list@... "Valens Agnitio"

> Perhaps Tango would care to weigh in on the subject?

Val,

I think you did a good analysis, and besides, I'm still struggling to
get through Robinson's "Red Mars." Thankfully, I always have about 6
books on the go, and after forcing myself to read a few pages I put
the book down in disgust and read something else. This book really is
a chore to read. I don't usually read wizards and dragons books, but
this book reminds me of them, with it's constant invocations of
"magic" in the infrastructure of Mars simply being there. One
character hops into a glider to fly a few thousand km for a meeting,
then abandons the glider there and hops into a personal transport. The
discovery on Mars of life extension technologies (something that the
millions of researchers on Earth have missed but a dozen researchers
on Mars have cracked) (BTW, who shipped a whole biotech lab to Mars
and how did the reseachers steal lab time for this research instead of
doing Martian biotech research.) Arghh. I'm always willing to suspend
disbelief, for instance, Heinlein's "Farmer in the Sky," but
Heinlein's work was never held up as a bible for terraforming
Ganymede. It was just a tale and I enjoyed it as such.

As for the economics in the book, I might need to get glasses soon,
for all of my eye-rolling is sure to have a deleterious effect on my
eye muscles. I'm guessing that Robinson must have travelled in the
company of many socialists/leftists/activists. His references to the
term "transnational corporations" is almost wholly, in my experience,
restricted to people of that oeuvre. Others refer to them as
multinational. Then he completely neglects all of the costs associated
with developing Mars and why corporations and governments would sink
money into the planet whn things on Earth are so dire. Sure, he offers
a bone with reference to strategic metals, and even mentions asteroid
mining as an alternative source, but then with the magical creation of
a space elevator all will be equalized and thus favor Mars, never mind
the additional expense of creating a space elevator. Thus far, he
hasn't offered a persuasive rationale for why all of this capital is
being invested in Mars so I'm having trouble suspending my disbelief.

At this point in the book, the characters are arguing about
establishing a new economic system but are going about it in a top
down fashion rather than looking at what motivates individuals and
building from the ground up. There is nothing to incentivize behavior
in his system (as far as I've read.)

And why are nations all sending colonists? What really struck me was a
character having a traditional lamb dinner with a group of Muslims.
Who raised the lamb? Who slaughered it? Who grew the spices? Who
harvested them? Who made the oven? Who made the utensils? Who made the
pots? etc. All of the comforts of home which result from a complex
industrial infratructure, but in an exotic location? Add the spice of
different cultures wanting to preserve the Earth-bound individuality,
and what you get is a logical mishmash of fiction. How do Muslims pray
to Mecca and in what direction do they prey when they are on Mars?
Where exactly is Mecca in the sky?

I surely hope that "Green Mars" and "Blue Mars" are of higher quality
because thus far, "Red Mars" is a bunch of claptrap. However, I am now
starting to understand the illogic of many Mars advocates who take
their visions of Mars homesteading from this work. I've always been
struck by the illogic of their visions, and now I understand that
they're arguing from a "wizards and dragons" fantasy of what things
would be like.

Man, I thought I'd breeze through these books in a few weeks, but my
determination will be stretched for months I fear. What a perverse
punishment, LOL.

TangoMan