Civilisation Design for Mars
CDfM Podcast
I’m building a legal and ethical framework for a civilisation on our alternate planet as we become multi-planetary. CDfM channel documents controversial and notable topics encountered along the way. All policies discussed are intended for mars, not earth.
How Law on Mars Will Develop: An Introduction. CDfM Episode 5
How Law on Mars Will Develop: An Introduction. CDfM Episode 5
Why do we have law on earth? Does Mars have law? How will it develop? What will Mars’ legal status be when the new civilisation starts? We look at these and other issues in this introduction to law on Mars.
Full video transcript: https://www.sarahgiblin.com/civilisation-design-for-mars-episode-transcripts_-blog/cdfm-episode5-how-law-on-mars-will-develop
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Civilisation Design for Mars
Would you live on Mars?
Starship builders are solving engineering problems now to allow humans to become multi-planetary. We’ll need to get there and create a stable environment on a hostile planet. Our journeys there will be supported by reusable rockets designed to make interplanetary travel economically viable.
“It’s possible what works on earth won’t work on Mars and vice versa”
These huge feats of engineering are the necessary requirements for the human mission to mars. Yet these are not sufficient to enable humans to stay there, live together and thrive in the medium or long term. For that, we need to ask another question:
What kind of society will we build on mars?
If this truly is a long term project, with the possibility of migration from earth to mars to populate the planet, and perhaps even human reproduction on mars producing the first non-earth born humans, what are the ethical and legal structures we’re asking earth migrants to look step into? Will this be an exact copy of earth, or will our new branch of humanity take a different path?
Building an ethical framework for mars
Join me to explore the building of an ethical and legal framework for human life on Mars. My academic background is in political philosophy, economics and law. My focus: the stability of the individual as the unit of our political, economic and legal reality as well as critique of the traditional family as our accepted method of reproduction. I found arguing about my ideas on earth had little application for positive impact so I moved on and worked on things I could influence through product design, physical and digital.
I not only want to critique the assumptions at the base of our new Martian society, I want to help: building a practical system of ethics and law that learns from our earth experience whilst growing a Mars society that can develop in the short, medium and long term. Why? Because the success of the Mars project depends on the quality of our assumptions about humans and how we live together. It’s possible that what works on earth won’t work on Mars and vice versa.
Multi-disciplinary approach
Art and poetry might not sound like they have a place in building the foundations of civilisation on an alternate planet, but they are the way I access Mars. Academic writing is helpful to dig deeper, to consider the logic and ramifications of big ideas and their details.
“the restrictive form of poetry helps me see further than essays do”
Parallel to my debates, writing and videos about mars ethics I write poetry that helps me explore this other world. At times the restrictive form of poetry helps me see further than essays do. I move between different mediums to get my ideas out. Sometimes it’s product design, sometimes poetry, tech, music or just plain writing. Whatever it takes to solve the problem and keep going.