Will space exploration usher about the end of freedom?
I spent a lot of time thinking about this recently; writing new material, reading books and binge watching TV shows.
If space exploration and planetary settlement is spearheaded by private industry (and partially paid for my Earth governments) there will employment contracts and confidentiality agreements, not a Constitution, dictating how those venturing off world life. Space and other worlds (moons and asteroids) would be equal to international waters, lawless places where might makes right and what happened is what whoever with that might say happened. Law will be what a corporation determines it to be. Tyrannical rule akin to saddam hussein could/would flourish as the food, water, communication and even the very air a person breathes is tightly regulated and can be withheld (under voluntary agreement of course) at the discretion of the company.
I contend that freedom in any meaningful capacity would be dead. The idea of Objectivism may be present in space but the practice, like freedom, like the individual and free will, would essentially be dead.
If space exploration and planetary settlement is spearheaded by private industry (and partially paid for my Earth governments) there will employment contracts and confidentiality agreements, not a Constitution, dictating how those venturing off world life. Space and other worlds (moons and asteroids) would be equal to international waters, lawless places where might makes right and what happened is what whoever with that might say happened. Law will be what a corporation determines it to be. Tyrannical rule akin to saddam hussein could/would flourish as the food, water, communication and even the very air a person breathes is tightly regulated and can be withheld (under voluntary agreement of course) at the discretion of the company.
I contend that freedom in any meaningful capacity would be dead. The idea of Objectivism may be present in space but the practice, like freedom, like the individual and free will, would essentially be dead.
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How do you argue/quit when you signed the agreement and the very air you breath is given as partial payment for services you were supposed to provide?
A bit different.
It is the same here.
Years ago a young chap told me about his parents.
The father stepped off the boat and started work on an inland farm the next day.
Life was hard, the same as in the old country. One difference, there was money
saved after a year. His fiance was brought over.
Life was hard, nothing but work, the same as in the old country, but money
slowly accumulated in the bank. They bought a smallholding, lived frugally.
There were six children, all were put thru university.
Yes then there was state help in subsidized health and free school till 16.
Still, it was Win Win.
Now, the welfare state has grown and there is different type of migrant,
those who want to blow us up.
Your warnings are not unknown or unique to you. Even ST:OS dealt with it. And yet, as we know, coal miners still have many of the same complaints they did 100 years ago. There is no perfect system for dealing with human limitations, least of all the ones we insist on for ourselves.
Signing that contract to go off word was voluntary what happens next, not so much. And what of those born under a company contract? Slippery, ugly slope.
But the proposition that it is wrong to steal the product of another man's efforts is true. It is true universally and is not untrue even in the pits of Darfur, let alone on a well-maintained albeit international space station. When Ayn Rand called objectivism a philosophy for living on earth, I believe her intention was to distinguish objectivism from other philosophies that deal or dealt with supernatural dimensions and the corresponding mysticism.
There is the potential for man or alien beings to misbehave, but the location in which these lamentable actions take place is inconsequential to the understanding that objective law is true independent of place, applying to both earth- and space-based man.
1. Not all who initially came to the new world were indentured or slaves; politicians, merchants, farmers and entrepreneurs we certainly in attendance as well,
2. The Pilgrims were not, in any way, indicative of the common man of that time. Having started college in NY and taken American Literature I was able to learn quite a bit about those commercially over-glorified zealots who wanted nothing to do with the Colonies, the Colonists or any idea of participation in the formation of a new country. All they wanted was to be left alone, entirely, and to live according to their own way.
3. Unlike in the 1600, there is a Constitution in place which assures certain rights. Venturing into space you'd literally be placing ownership of you continued existence in every conceivable way, in the hands of a person or group whose sole purpose is to use your skill, be that what it may, to make a profit. That person or group, particularly at the onset, has no legal framework or constraint to preserve your life or the life of your family or to ensure that when your term ends you even get back to Earth.
4. Lastly, its a different matter knowing that you are exploring the unknown on earth (where you can breathe, fish, forage and make shelter) and venturing across the void to a planet, moon or asteroid where nothing is available for use that you pre-plan and carry with you.
As human expansion becomes the rage, I think those free, very much like Firefly, will end up the rogues skirting the law, living off their wits and guile, and not staying in any one place too long. And I think that type of freedom will only be scratched out long after planetary colonization is a common occurrence and no longer fantasy.
We all like Heinlein's visions. I enjoyed the works of Melinda Snodgrass, and Allen Steele. I also recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312. It is not hopeful or utopian, but, (I believe) realistic and full of promising opportunities.
My Mom once visited Ellis Island. She said she saw this plaque, but that seems hard to attest to now. The statement still stands on its own.
An Italian immigrant says, "I came to America because I heard the
streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things:
first, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved
at all; and third, I was expected to pave them." ("Ellis Island:
Realizing the American Dream," Town & Country)
The Italian American Family Album (The American Family Albums)
America was and is nonetheless a great place to be.