Indiana Solo
Going by the other wiki's page, the treaty roughly does the following: No Military on other bodies at all. No actual ownership of any "land" off world, except by international government bodies. Other countries have to approve your missions. Russia doesn't like you? Not allowed to go check out that asteroid. If you bring back any samples, you are required to let everyone from China to Lichtenstein can access them. And perhaps most critically for economic development, if you mine resources of any kind, you have to share them with other countries that had nothing at all to do with their mining.
Also no changing other world's environments. Less about terraforming, more about contamination. Probably one of the more well intentioned features but I want a green mars dammit.
edited 17th Mar '18 10:30:53 AM by Joesolo
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Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
It sounds well intentioned if poorly worded and thought out.
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Who Am I?
As well as removing most of the economic incentive for exploring space in the first place. No one with a space proogram is going to sign that.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Indiana Solo
I'd barely even call it idealistic. It's more like some countries want to freeload off whoever does the work.
I don't even think it suggests anything about joint funding of space missions.
At my most generous I'd call it very poorly thought out.
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Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I say well intentioned because it sounds like it was an attempt to prevent certain nations from holding a monopoly on space based resources and ensuring those that can't realistically get to space have a crack at the space resources as well.
Who watches the watchmen?
Except that is still parasitic freeloading. At the very least provide funding and manpower/manufacturing in order to get a proportional slice of the pie.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
That isn't parasitic free loading. There are literally nations with almost no real budget to give in the first place. Frankly that is notably wrong minded point of view just as wrong minded as only letting the few big nations get space resources.
Who watches the watchmen?
I'd say that if a country doesn't have the spare resources or budget to contribute to any space project, then space resources are kind of the last thing they should be concerned with. And besides, contributing via manufacturing space parts could help create jobs and bolster economies.
Well, when making people benefit equally form a certain pool of resources, the issue is a sort of tragedy of the commons.
The nations that can't go to space have little incentive to contribute themselves, since they're benefiting from more advanced nations. And the nations that can go to space have difficulty benefiting from their advances because their profits are given away to other nations.
Effectively, what this sort of rule means is "you need to be the world's space program, or have no space program at all".
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
Sharing scientific samples and discoveries sounds fair enough to me, but I'm wondering why anyone would put up with the first thing listed: requiring approval from other countries for you to go explore that particular interesting looking asteroid. Like, all the other stuff doesn't matter when that first clause prevents all the rest from happening in the first place. That alone literally cripples all ability to do anything, and no country with any sense would sign onto something like that.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
All fine and good until you hit on one rather key point. The attraction of going after the asteroids is their vast abundance of said resources in quantities far beyond what even the largest nation could need or even all the largest nations combined and then some. Any serious collection efforts could quite easily bring in way more than those nations would need and produce enough in straight monetary gain it would be a trivial matter to share some of it with collective planet. The possibility presents an unprecedented opportunity to effectively uplift the entire planet with never before seen access to materials and wealth beyond what anyone nation could need and would have plenty left over to go around and still profit but your guys attitude is nope they don't deserve it because their parasites or can't contribute.
God forbid the nations that leverage large parts of their wealth typically from poorer nations in often dodgy and unfair manners contribute back to the same globe. I mean geeze that might actually be responsible sharing the over abundance they could easily harvest and have plenty left over for themselves. Nah screw those guys.
Hey how about this. Instead of calling nations that are literally too small or poor to reasonably contribute, parasites or underserving of the vast sea of resources, often they are in said state after having no choice but to surrender their own limited resources to the more powerful. The more powerful could do them a solid and fund an actual uplift for once instead of saying screw them as usual. Instead of blaming them they could, gasp, actually help them for once by sending more than bland food filled aide packages and supporting overtly corrupt and oppressive politicians and funding the military said politicians use to stay in power.
I mean call me crazy but actually giving large portions of the world a more fair shake for once somehow strikes me as the better move especially when there would ample enough material and monetary gain for said powers to still be filthy rich.
There are parts of that, that are silly like asking permission for space exploration but sharing the vast wealth and resources is not among said silly ideas.
edited 19th Mar '18 8:17:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
The Mod with the Migraine
There are parts of that, that are silly like asking permission for space but sharing the vast wealth and resources is not among said silly ideas.
Indiana Solo
Hey I found the treaty!
http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/moon/text
Of interest to the present convo
6. In order to facilitate the establishment of the international regime referred to in paragraph 5 of this article, States Parties shall inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of any natural resources they may discover on the moon.
7. The main purposes of the international regime to be established shall include:
(a) The orderly and safe development of the natural resources of the moon;
(b) The rational management of those resources;
(c) The expansion of opportunities in the use of those resources;
(d) An equitable sharing by all States Parties in the benefits derived from those resources, whereby the interests and needs of the developing countries, as well as the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to the exploration of the moon, shall be given special consideration.
edited 19th Mar '18 9:00:15 PM by Joesolo
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Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Moon Treaty resource sharing which does include the developing nations as well as the ones with the biggest space programs. Now to get everyone to play nicely together long enough to make it work and hopefully find something worth bringing back. ...Something other than Moon Nazis.
edited 19th Mar '18 9:09:14 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
And here I thought Metal Slug did it first.
To expand upon my previous point, what we're arguing here is basically the old proverb of "give a man a fish" versus "teach a man to fish". Now in this actual example, we're talking about a ridiculous amount of fish, such that giving the dude a fish every now and again wouldn't be asking much, but I'd still prefer he work for it by learning to fish, learning to prepare it, and learning the myriad uses of it, to stretch the metaphor. Actual uplift, not just charity.
What this would translate to in real life is that every nation who wants a piece of the space pie pledges something, whether it be contributing materiel, personnel, research, or resources. You cannot convincingly tell me that there's a country that can't afford to send a team of workers (willing to be trained if necessary) or provide some manufacturing capacity. And if they really can't, well then they've got bigger problems that just giving them a bunch of resources isn't going to fix. But if that is indeed the case, they can instead pledge toward some future goals, like reducing their carbon footprint, or holding fair and open elections, or some other sociopolitical improvement type goal. Some UN council would be responsible for determining what those pledges would amount to in terms of contribution, as well as making sure the countries uphold those pledges, or do their damn best to try to.
According to the agreement, it seems like it'll be a mix of both approaches. Give everyone some fish, while those who work for it get more.
edited 19th Mar '18 9:52:26 PM by danime91
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Danime: Actually I can say there are nations that can't contribute to manufacturing, research, trained personnel, or raw materials. Research implies you have extensive capability to train a scientist capable of participating in the first place. There are no shortage of poorer nations that lack any real capability to do that given they lack the overall infrastructure to pull it off.
Trained personnel has the same issue. If we demand personnel someone is going to have pay to have them trained somewhere else such as in one of the more wealthy space faring nations which have the educational infrastructure to support that endeavor. Education at that level is not cheap and nations that can do it have the wealth to spare on those systems. I doubt the various poorer countries could seriously magically manifest that ability without some serious investment from outside geared towards just developing that system.
Manufacturing runs into a lot of the same issues as personnel as any meaningful contribution would again require trained technical experts as well as the infrastructure to support higher tech manufacturing used in the space efforts.
Any materials that are not harvested at home are already obtained often from poorer countries to begin with and in manners that should make almost anyone blush in shame for one sided the exchanges typically are. Which also by the way part of what makes some of the wealthy nations wealthy to begin with is overall ease of access they have material resources to begin with.
Let me know how easily Somalia, The Congo, the various pacific Island Nations already notably resource starved, and the other similar poorer nations are going to suddenly manifest all you demand? The problem is the really can't partly from circumstance but also a fair bit of bad luck and the fact some of the big powers have used those nations as not only sources of wealth but also personal battle grounds since everyone got Empire Crazy and expanding into foreign nations and many still do it to this day in the same regions. Even some of the long past efforts still have long lasting repercussions to this day.
No you want them to be partners it isn't going to be making any demands it is going to be heavily investing in them before they can contribute in any meaningful way to begin with. Something that could be funded by you know sharing said overall wealth with them to begin with.
Comparing their situation to the parable of the fish misses the reality by a mile. In reality it would be like giving someone a fishing rod while the others are fishing in the same waters with a trawler with nets and demanding to know why they can't do as well.
Who watches the watchmen?
To continue with the fish analogy, it'd be more like teaching them to clean the fish or cook it, so that they can make their living off processing the catch brought in by the trawlers.
Anyway, what we seem to be advocating is two different methods here with more or less the same endgoal. You want to invest post-space harvest in the hopes that it'd help those countries get on their feet. But who knows if they'd even be able to do anything with those resources to improve themselves even if they got them.
What I'm saying is pre-space harvest investment into improving infrastructure and training personnel, with the goal of making them able to contribute something to the space effort, and seeing if they become actually willing and able to do so. The costs for this can come from low-interest loans, or can be paid out of some international fund from the space resources.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
No we are not arriving at the same end goal. Yours has a different condition for starters. Like the fact you have some unreasonable expectations of poorer nations without someone spending a fair bit of money before hand. Unless that is a guarantee in advance it is self defeating and many of those poorer nations couldn't even afford a low interest loan given none of them have any solid means to bring in sufficient income to begin with. Mine is using the largess of the efforts to lift them to the point they have a choice to participate not a requirement.
Who watches the watchmen?
Indiana Solo
I think there's a fundamental issue of execution here. There are poor towns and provinces in some countries significantly larger than some of the nations you're talking about.
It's not like there's an existing legal or treaty basis to go off of either. These nations don't get a portion of what fish are caught from international waters.
Not trying to write the while thing of, just honestly not getting the basis for such a thing.
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Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Joe: Most them can't even come close to competing in international waters to begin with and frequently that commercial fishing intrudes into national waters to illegally fish which happens quite a bit. Part of what kicked of the Somali pirate wave to begin with. That and illegal toxic waste dumping off of their shores.
It's simple it frankly doesn't kill anyone to give a share to the smaller nations with a massive largess. Not only would the little guy benefit the rest of the world would benefit in that we could worry a lot less about the developing nations and let them develop with their new resources. They could switch from focus on surviving and the crush of being poor nations to more stable. We wouldn't have to play hand wringing games with individual politicians to give them a pittance to keep the nation afloat especially if it is guaranteed from a vast resource pool that is far more than any of the largest nations would need.
You either have to spend a lot of money before hand to improve the nations to the point they can participate or you can take from the pool of largess and give it to them so they can develop to participate later when they reach that point. Either way that money is going to get spent before they can do anything meaningful and it is going to take nearly the exact same amount of time and effort either way. One way at least pulls from an excess instead of trying to wring said money from assorted governments before hand. They sure as shit won't go broke sharing.
Who watches the watchmen?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
You're trying to make a literal welfare state.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
No I am trying to give developing nations which have gotten the shit end of the stick a real chance at being more than the bitches of big nations. Your trying to tie them up in conditions and make them beholden to the people who already take advantage of there already limited capabilities. Again sharing a solar systems worth of resources without any strings hurts no one at all. Literally. You could easily share with the entire planet and have more than enough left over to make the big nations fabulously wealthy beyond anything they could ever hope to achieve on Earth alone.
What you are trying to insinuate is this would only be a negative thing, it wouldn't because it isn't eating into limited terrestrial resources the point of getting them from space in the first place. Your argument hasn't got much legs there when the alternative overwhelmingly benefits literally the entire world where your approach would only benefit the limited nations wealthy enough to pull the strings in the first place.
When you have the kind of access to potential wealth and resources in the solar system in even basic materials like iron alone there is literally no reason to restrict it to a few nations at all or ever.
edited 20th Mar '18 4:18:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV
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Who Am I?
Welfare world, you mean. If the goal is to ensure that all humanity benefits from resources extracted from space, then there are other alternatives than those found in that treaty.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
De Marquis: The one point is sharing the vast sea of potential wealth and resources instead of just corralling them to a few nations. Not exactly absurd by any measure. Especially in nations that are quite extensively resource and wealth poor. Seriously when you have a single rock worth more than entire collective planets GDP and could swat the entire planets debt and not even break a sweat on the remaining wealth, not with a rock strike mind you, it is frankly idiotic and absurd to keep it to a handful of nations. Again my point stands pretty well. Even parting with a mere 5% of total value to the rest of the planet would leave the larger powers literally wealthy beyond imagination. Hell it would leave the whole damn planet wealthy beyond imagination and ensure access to a crap ton of valuable raw material that we use heavily in industry and building.
That is just literally one potential candidate for harvesting. One. There are over 150 million asteroids of 100 meter across and larger size in our solar system alone that we know of. If you want to limit it to rocks over 1km in diameter it is still over 1 million individual rocks and both stony and metallic asteroids contain useful elements.
edited 20th Mar '18 4:56:35 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
It would do nothing but sabotage human space development, which is fundamentally led by nation-states. There's no point to signing it.
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