Re: A Haven Off Earth

In article <1137783727.218921.284230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Classix <cwocwocwo@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>Cambias wrote:
>> This is kind of a standard SF trope: some dispossessed group on Earth
>> gets the Hell off the planet and establishes a refuge elsewhere. We're
>> creeping slowly up on having a private space-launch industry which
>> could make something like that possible. I was thinking about this
>> recently -- who would go? The exiles have to be at least second-world
>> in technical competence in order to make a go of it in a space station
>> or domed colony. They would have to be so badly oppressed that leaving
>> Earth is preferable to, say, moving to Detroit, yet not so badly
>> oppressed that their oppressors would exterminate them.
>
>White flight. Many from Holland now, France in 10 years or so, Britain
>in 20. The western world seems intent upon smearing itself with mud in
>order to drive down people's wages. Robbery and murder are less
>important, apparently, to politicians and share holders, but they
>certainly still matter to the rest of society.

It couldn't possibly be that it's the decent thing to let people move
to improve their lives (in some cases, getting away from desperate
situations) or that allowing freedom of movement (including freedom
to re-locate and work for money) is practical (countries which allow
it seem to be more prosperous than those that don't, though I grant
that prosperous countries are more worth moving to).

Putting it more tactfully, a lot of people would prefer to be in a society
where their kind (however defined) are in the majority.
>
>> And here's the big one: most of the endless multigenerational hatreds
>> on Earth tend to be over land. Israel/Palestine, Eire/UK,
>> China/Taiwan, Indonesia/Timor, Cyprus/Cyprus, etc. If one of the
>> groups in a land struggle are willing to pull up and blast off for
>> Mars, doesn't that kind of suggest they could give up the land and move
>> to Detroit? Thereby eliminating the reason for leaving Earth in the
>> first place?
>
>Foreign powers that occupy other people's land tend to violate human
>rights. I think this is the major reason that conflict continues to
>erupt, not the actual fact of foreign ownership.
>
>Certainly, this is what rekindled Northern Ireland in 1969, continues
>to fuel the Israel/Palestine conflict and what drove East Timor too,
>when Indonesia occupied it.
>
>China/Taiwan isn't a conflict, just a potential one.
>
>> I understand the underlying reason -- to get ready-made societies with
>> cool cultural quirks and built-in plot engines on other worlds, but it
>> always struck me as vaguely unconvincing. Can anyone think of a
>> real-world group who might choose to relocate to Mars in order to
>> escape persecution?
>
>50,000 Dutch people emigrated in 2004, after the Pim Fortuyn and Theo
>van Gogh murders by fundamentalist muslims and the insuing inter-ethnic
>trouble that followed, the highest number since just after WW2. If Mars
>was hospitable and we could get there cheaply, these are your people.
>


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Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
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My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
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