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A comment on Why Not Mars. Parent comment

Re:Why Not Mars by moloch-hai on Monday January 02, 2023 @03:34AM (#34215710)
All they would need to do is threaten to stop sending any of a thousand essential commodities that make life tolerable (never mind what makes it possible), and any resistance collapses instantly. Mars colonists would be more directly under the thumb of Earth government than anybody outside of prison, an antarctic base, or navy ship.
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Re:Why Not Mars by tsimionescu on Monday January 02, 2023 @03:36AM (#34215727)
I imagine the GP included "in the long run" to refer to a hypothetical future where the colony were truly self-sufficient (so able to produce any good that they want or need).
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Re:Why Not Mars by nine_k on Monday January 02, 2023 @04:51AM (#34216168)
Not any good they want, maybe, but any good needed for their indefinitely long survival.
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Re:Why Not Mars by moloch-hai on Monday January 02, 2023 @05:09AM (#34216265)
Anything they just want badly suffices to enforce control.
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Re:Why Not Mars by nine_k on Monday January 02, 2023 @06:02AM (#34216590)
Exactly! This is why it eventually would need to become produced locally.

It's not entirely unlike an overseas colony in an inhospitable but not empty place. Start small and dependent, develop the land around you and become autonomous.

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Re:Why Not Mars by moloch-hai on Monday January 02, 2023 @06:13AM (#34216658)
Lacking control, how do you bring about diversion of resources to local production?
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