Technocracy or Anarchy under MarsOne?

For those of you who don't know, humans are about to colonize Mars, within the lifetimes of most of us, and surely within my generation's. The project is called MarsOne, it's a privately owned initiative not owned by any government, and once they hit Martian soil, they won't be subject to any government's laws. Now before my tone goes all gloom and doom, note:

This is awesome, we're colonizing Mars!

This is a good thing, and I'll touch up on why. If at any point I have a negative tone in this post, it's not about the project overall, it's about this one major concern that came to me as I was browsing through their Facebook page, and that was, “What type of government will it be?”

I initially assumed something along the lines of a Technocracy, where the scientists and engineers and probably some sociologists or at least psychologists will ultimately be the head leaders and problem solvers. So I visited their website to confirm my assumptions, and I was a little shocked at what I read.

Keep in mind, MarsOne will send 4 humans up at a time, once every two years from what I can tell of their mission roadmap. So groups will begin very small, especially relative to today's earthen populations.

From: http://www.mars-one.com/en/faq-en/22-faq-mission-features/357-what-governmental-system-and-social-structure-will-be-implemented-on-mars

What governmental system and social structure will be implemented on Mars? 

The early astronauts will be faced with a variety of difficult tasks that must be managed simply to survive. One of these will be determining how to organize themselves politically in order to ensure fair and reasonable decision-making processes. In the process of training prior to departure, Mars One will work with the future astronauts to discuss different systems for organizing small groups and ensuring controlled and reasoned decision-making processes are in place. The astronauts will be exposed to scientific knowledge related to different forms of social organization on Earth and how cultures vary in terms of determining issues of social structure such as: social hierarchy, distribution of power, approaches to decision-making, kinship structure, and management of resources.

Early on, because the settlement will be very small, it is likely that most decisions will be collective and require unanimity, but as the community grows it will become necessary to develop more complex systems for managing conflict and maintaining effective ways to make decisions. It will also become necessary to decide on basic aspects of human social organization such as the nature of family structure and, when children are born, methods and content of education.

To a large extent, once they are on Mars the inhabitants will be on their own when it comes to deciding how to organize themselves, but Mars One will provide training and a database of knowledge about human social organization to assist in that process as the settlement grows.

I suppose my main concern is leaving people to their own vises with no formal leadership other than training in logic and ethical reasoning. I don't doubt this system, if it works it will be great, it will be the epitome of all of mankind's advancement: technological and social. Every human scientist and philosopher, past and present, can rejoice that mankind will have surpassed cultural boundaries, primal instinct, and technological limitations to establish something great and new. It will have some similarities to the first human hunter-gatherer tribes, in that it will be a very small, unified group that must devote most of their time to their survival. However it will be very different in that these people will be selected from around the world, come from different cultures and backgrounds, and have formal training in getting along before being put out on their own; and if it works, this colony will be a symbol of and a beacon to the age of logic, no longer plagued by our war-torn past of primitiveness and emotional or instinctual drive.

If we're ready.

Will this group, connected not by culture but by a unified education in how to work together to solve martian issues, fill the shoes? I hope so, because if these four humans can't do this, how can we expect to ever thrive as a species? And I mean really thrive, right now we're just surviving, but what can we do to really make humans matter? I'm not entirely sure, but this is definitely a step in the right direction, a direction that highlights our ability to overcome the primal human ways of conflict no longer needed for basic survival and to operate off something grander and cooperative. These four humans are the heroes of our next era.

But why should we go to Mars? You can read their website's answer to the question, but it seems to me a little lackluster, I don't think they even realize the potential benefits of what they're doing. Let's look at what is commonly referred to as two of the biggest problems facing mankind on Earth: war and overpopulation.

War is bad, people die, that's bad and people dying is something that should require join effort to be avoided. Simple as that. And if people are going to die no-matter what, i.e. terrorists who will kill until they're martyred, it's best to minimize the death, hence a reasonable war on terrorism currently pursued by the United States and others. (War's bad, terrorism is worse.) But simply put, death is bad, like terrorism.

Overpopulation now. If death is bad, birth should be good right? Then why does overpopulation have such a bad reputation? I'll phrase it this way: overpopulation isn't the problem, it's the poverty generated by a surplus of people with limited access to limited resources. Also, this poverty can be attributed to the cause of terrorist actions that are the cause of today's wars, as most of those who turn to terrorist actions are the disgruntled civilians with a limited education suffering from horrid economies in countries with stronger religions than governments and more people than food, then suddenly someone turns to them and says, fight for us, against these people who caused our strife, and it will all be better. If any human were in the same situation, they'd do the same thing. (Not to justify terrorism, but to explain one of it's many causes in a way people can understand.)

So, there's our real culprit, it's lack of resources. After all, historically speaking, when people are well-fed they're usually more peaceful, paraphrasing from the Science of Overpopulation by Scishow. What better way to garner more resources than expanding to a new planet? After all, we can grow plants on Mars easier than we can on Earth, and the soil even holds water like a sponge.

However, studies show we can far better utilize our resources here on Earth to meet our rising demands. I'm sure this is true, and we should do so, however stretched out longer term, we'd be delaying the problem, eventually, our planet will run out, and especially once we stop killing each other or watching each other rot and die of age and illness, which we should put more effort into stopping, we will need to go somewhere.

Also, meteors pass through our orbit all the time, one grazed by us a while back, and Russia felt the force when one meteorite hit straight into a city. What if a much larger one hits in the future? It's about time humans learned our place; we are fragile beings who could use a bit more humility. I'm not even talking about the preservation of the species, I'm talking about evacuation. Making sure we have the capability to ensure the survival not just of humanity, but of humans. Real people who are each worth something. I could go on about how daunting the task would be, the hundreds of challenges and complications, but all that pales in comparison to our capability to overcome whatever challenges face us when we cooperate. Hopefully by then we'll realize this.

All in all, I'm very hopeful for the MarsOne project. I'll be buying one of their hoodies soon, just to support the cause. So long as these four humans are aware of the sociological impact of what they're doing and are capable of leading the way, by 2023 we'll be on our way to a new great phase of human existence.

I hope you enjoyed, comments are welcome, and as always, thanks for reading!