Time-scales

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "orionaut"

> Under the libertarian superstructure in place at the outset,
> revolutions are moot...since any later-generation dissidents
capable
> of self-support

What is self-support? Access to their own energy, raw materials,
capital, food stuffs, food processing, medical system, etc. That
might be pretty difficult, in fact that very reason may explain why
there are no libertarian societies on Earth, these necessary
precursors are too high a barrier. If this is the case, then it may
not be so easy for the disaffected to separate. Now, because they've
contributed to society, they feel entitled to change it to their
liking and not be shooed away to start with nothing all over again.

Further, isn't the idea of self-support anethema to the Austrian
economist school of thought? What happened to division of labor,
competitive advantage, and the benefits of trade?

This self-support concept is starting to sound like the flawed
economic policies advocated by Greenpeace with respect to Third
World poverty.

Or is it self-reliance upon one's own group for social safety, i.e.
looking after sick, children, elderly, policing, fire, etc. So,
within one Habitat you'll have two or more governing structures,
social systems, and policing and laws. Talk about a situation ripe
for confusion.

Or is it that they not become a tax burden on the rest of society.
If this is the case, how could they, if the State's intervention in
the citizen's life is minimal? If this new group couldn't cut it,
and suffered, they wouldn't be any different from the rest of
society that failed in their individual endeavors, and couldn't
count on the State to provide food or shelter and other essentials
to tide them over.

would be welcome -- nay, ENCOURAGED! -- to start up
> their own sociopolitical sub-experiments, either within the colony
or
> (eventually) by colonizing [an] additional habitat[s].

I'm sure there are those who encourage Libertarians to buy up lots
of contiguous land (colony) all move there, and start their own
society. Why isn't it happening? If not here and now, why would it
be possible in a Habitat. Never mind the question of actually
building a whole Habitat for the disaffected.

> So many of us are terrified/paralyzed to embark upon ambitious
moral
> and/or sociopolitical experiments because we cannot predict every
> little wrinkle that might ensue someday. Such hyper-caution is,
IMO,
> unwarranted. If one buys into the two fundamental principles of
> praxeology -- aka, misleadingly, "the Austrian school" (of
economics
> in particlar and the social sciences in general), which are
> 1) spontaneous order, first glimpsed theoretically as Adam
> Smith's "invisible hand"
> 2) "unseen" [unintended] consequences, first described by Bastiat,
> then one of necessity recognizes that H. Sap simply CANNOT forsee
all
> possible paths any bright beginning may take.
>
> You're prolly getting tired of all the quotes, but I'll end with
one
> more anyhoo (sorry!): At the end of the day, we cannot predict
> allpossible outcomes; we can only, in the immortal words of
Mahatma
> Ghandi," BE the change we want to see in the world," and have
> conifdence that our descendants will do the same with equal
integrity.
>
> Good questions, BTW; thanks for asking :) -- spike

I'm not so sure that the question is that people are afraid of
libertarian principles and thus are afraid to try. I think that
they're not tried for other reasons and that's why even the die-hard
libertarians aren't trying to create a State here on Earth where
they can prove the benefits of their philosophy by casting off the
restraints imposed upon them by contemporary societies. If they are
so sure that they could flourish, prosper, and lead happy lives that
would be the envy of people around the world, why wait for a Habitat
in orbit and not do it here and now? If they can't afford to do it
here and now, or can't get the critical mass of capital and
population, then how is it expected that they'll be able to pull it
off for a Habitat?

TangoMan