Nature of Man
After millennia of trying to survive as a species and as an individual, the sum total of our human experience has engrained into us certain traits that serve this purpose well. These traits can be summed up as a “Territorial Imperative”. Those very same traits and experiences do not serve us well in confinement as they are tuned to an earthly existence where we roam free within our environment.[1]
Robert Ardrey, an American playwright, screenwriter and science writer has been quoted as stating that “Man is neither unique nor central nor necessarily here to stay. But he is a product of circumstances special to the point of disbelief.”
After a Broadway and
If Ardrey was right about humanity, we are a product of circumstances and it will be circumstances in an IPC environment that will shape the society that develops there, not an Earth based cultural transplantation to the IPC.
Once we begin the task of building a foundation on another celestial body the people there will begin to evolve from being Earthlings to being aliens. Their cultural and societal Earth norms will gradually be replaced with new norms and ways of conducting themselves. This evolution of societal thought will eventually change the way in which Earth bound humanity views the new colonies and colonists, in turn leading to changes in Earth based society.
Such changes in Earths’ societies would be an aligning of peoples for and against stepping out into space; Peoples trying to enforce differencing values on the new colonies or those businesses and governments trying to claim territories or contractual rights.
Because of the still lingering effects of colonization (on Earth), nations have had to undergo domestic and international challenges to overcome the power relationships with former colonizers[3], and in our near future, such challenges would be extended to IPC’s. The existing governments and companies would all be attempting to stake their claim and recoup their costs. Each will jockey for positions of control and influence in the new territories thereby affecting (perhaps adversely) Earth based politics and business and trade relationships.
The challenge then is to develop the IPC’s in such a manner as to be independent of Earth based politics and laws and business bottom lines while ensuring that an ROI is forth coming. This issue was previously addressed in my paper on Interplanetary Colonial Governance and Sovereignty[4]
[2] African Genesis, The Territorial Imperative, The Social Contract, The Hunting Hypothesis
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