Human Relationships in a Habitat

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
> > From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@h...]
>
> > Let me be more explicit in my point because I think you missed
it
> > entirely.
> >
> > For those high pressure personal scenarios that size of
community or
> > distance away may solve, a small Habitat may become a pressure
> > cooker. Al Globus responded that he lives in a small town and
these
> > dynamics aren't at work. I questioned whether his small town
> > experience is really limited to the small town, or does he have
> > access to the environs of a larger community.
> >
> > On Earth, you may live in a small town of 10,000 people, but if
your
> > little hamlet is 50 miles outside of NYC, then NYC is available
to
> > you as a resource. People can work there, socialize there, shop
> > there, etc. Your life isn't confined to the environs of the
town.
> > You have options available to you.
>
> You're saying a small colony would be viewed as a prison by those
> who lived there, as they would not be able to leave.

I'm talking about the first Habitat. It may take a while until the
next Habitat gets built.

I'm also assuming that you can't just pack up, buy a ticket to Earth
for $500 and split.

You're probably there under contract for a period of time because it
is expensive to transport you there.

So, in a sense, if you feel trapped then you could see it as a
prison. If things are going swimmingly, then that thought doesn't
enter your mind.

>
> > That isn't available to you at L5.
>
> On Earth there are these little things called 'islands', and some
> of them contain a hell of a lot less than 10,000 people. They seem
> to survive quite happily with little contact with the outside
> world.

Look here for some psychological (Solipsism Syndrome and
Shimanagashi Syndrome) problems that are anticpated to occur in the
Habitats:

http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/75SummerStudy/3appendA.h
tml

A short exerpt:

BEGIN QUOTE
During the feudal period in Japan, political offenders were often
sent away and confined in small islands. This form of punishment was
called "shimanagashi." In many American prisons today, there
are "isolation units" and "segregation units" where inmates whom the
prison authorities consider as "troublemakers" are confined for a
length of time.

To a smaller degree, the "mainlanders" who spend a few years on an
isolated island, even though the island may have large cities and
modern conveniences, feel a strange sense of isolation. They begin
to feel left out and intellectually crippled, even though physically
life may be very comfortable. People suffer from the shimanagashi
syndrome unless they were born on the island or have lived there a
long time. For many people, life in Alaska has more challenge and
excitement than life on a remote island. Often daily life in Alaska
seems to consist of emergencies, which test resourcefulness and
ability to cooperate with other individuals.
END QUOTE

> > Now tell me the point of your response, because I missed how a
book
> > shelf, books, 500 tons of total books, buying things,
> > and "collective education farms" support a coherent point. What
is
> > it that you're trying to say?
>
> 1) Your assumptions are based on life on Earth, and are
notappropiet to an orbital colony.
> 2) That the colony would *never* be completely isolated from the
outside world.
> 3) The colony would not be a completely static enviroment.

I agree that it wouldn't be completely isolated from the outside
world, but the option of leaving a Habitat may not be as easy as
leaving a situation on Earth.

> An Island 1 colony is going to weight... say ten million tons?
> Most of that conctere, steel and glass. What little remains would
> be the biomass and machinery needed to sustain the colony. There
> simply would not be enough mass left inside the colony to produce
> marketable goods.

I'd assume that the mass to make goods would come from outside the
Habitat from the same source as the material used to build the
Habitat.

> If you import the colony is going to gain weight quickly.

I'm assuming that the engineering would assume that people will
accumalate mass for personal use. I look to moving companies for
guidance on this. If they can pack a families possesions into a
moving van, then I think we're looking at 5 tons/person. For a
population of 10,000 that's 50,000 tons, compared to the Habitat
mass of 10,000,000 tons.

> Introducing all that exotic material into the colony is also going
to play havoc with life-support due to toxin build up.

Why exotic material? Why toxin build-up?

> Therefore actual goods are likely to be expensive, and shopping in
> the conventional sense is unlikely to happen, except for special
> occasions. This was made in response to your question, 'Do you do
> all your shopping in your home town?' I believe the question shows
> poor understanding of colony dynamics on your part.

Thanks for the lesson. I didn't realize that to understand "colony
dynamics" one had to build the understanding on unsupported
suppostions.

>
> Seeing as people are talking about building colonies in 4 years
these people do not have problems with moving large ammounts of
material from the moon to L5. If rock is easy to move, people must
be even easier.

Why? People require life-support, radiation protection, rapid
transit - rocks don't.

> If peopel are to colonise these places it *must* be relatively
easy.

A statement doesn't suffice as a conclusion.

> You ask how would people live if there was nowhere else for them
> to go? But surely if they can be sent there they can also leave?
> Commuting would not be possible, but weekend trips to resorts on
> the moon would be. Or summer holidays on Earth.

Sure they can leave, but the employer may not be accomodating. The
person may not want to jeopardize their job. They may not want to
pay a penalty to get out of a contract. There are an assortment of
reasons that someone may try to stick it out but they overestimate
their capacity to handle the stress and then they blow. My question
was whether people had any thoughts on how that stress might be
channeled. New societal norms perhaps? Greater involvement of mental
health professionals in the Habitat for just that reason? Enforced
therapy or hiatus elsewhere in the Habitat?

> > > > I tend to think that modern life, with its long commutes to
> > work,
> > > > with neighbors that are strangers, with its suburban sprawl,
is
> > the
> > > > safety valve of modern life. If you are confined to interact
> > with
> > > > only those 10,000 people your life becomes less varied.
> > >
> > > Because of course this colony would not have any telephones or
> > internet access would it? Or zero-gravity sports? Or television?
> > Presumably everyone in it also comes from exactly the same
culture
> > and shares the same beliefs and values you do?
> > > And I imagine that intereacting with all of those 10,000
people
> > every day must get rather monotonous, not to mention tiring.
> >
> > Your attempt at sarcasm isn't working very well.
>
> Yet you sem to assume the complete lack of telecommunications, and
> that even if they existed they would have no significant benifit
> to colony society.

I do no such thing. You have no grounds upon which to make such an
inference.

> Perhaps you feel peopel would not accept them as substitutes
> for 'the real thing'? Personally I assume such people would not be
> the first choice for admitance to the colony.

Psychological profiling is not an exact science. You can't always
predict how people will react to real situations by testing them or
by subjecting them to simulations of crisis. So if you can't
identify the victim of a future unforeseen crisis how are you going
to eliminate them from your candidate pool?

> > On Earth, even if you live in a small town, all of the features
of
> > big cities are available to you.
>
> And exactly what facilities do you think will not be available
even on a small colony, considdering what they can fit on a (much
smaller) cruise ship?

Strangers. Anonymity. New activities. New job opportunities.
Different groups of people that you could form new relationships
with (both romantic and platonic) in which you don't arrive with
baggage, which everyone in the Habitat may be aware of because of
rampant gossip.

> > If, in your small town, your wife takes up with your best
friend,
> > you make a complete ass of yourself when you're drunk, you have
a
> > feud with your neighbor, coworker, boss, or some other disaster
or
> > embarassment falls upon you, you can spend a lot of your time
away
> > from the town until things cool down, or actually move. These
> > options aren't available to you at L5.
>
> If you make an ass of yourself at work (and many do) you can't
just move away either.

You may be able to transfer to another office within your company.
You could quit and get another job. You could pick up stakes and
move to another city. I'm saying that in the early days of the first
Habitat that there is no other city to move to unless you go back to
Earth, and that option may be too expensive to consider. So now
you're feeling trapped. You want to find a release for your social
anxiety and your "flight reflex" isn't an option. How can we help
this person cope?

> And based on the pictures I've seen, if you want to get away just
> get a job in on of the exterior farm habitats. Maybe overseeing
the automated machinery? Might be boring, but you would have 'gotten
away'.

And what if you don't know Jack about farming or machinery? Who
would you displace? Where would they go to work?

> > Some people handle these issues better than others. They're not
the
> > ones I'm curious about. Some guy may have no problem with his
> > cheating wife living across the street from him with his former
best
> > friend, and seeing them every day. Other guys may go ballistic
at
> > the sight of them every day. It's the latter situation that I'm
> > pondering.
>
> I imagine there would be a screening process involved in
applicants for the colony.

Yeah, so do I, but as I stated above, screening isn't perfect.

TangoMan