
Why Mars should be independent from Earth - gpresot
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151215-why-mars-should-be-independent-from-earth
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lawtguy
I have three thoughts:

1) Regardless of what Martians want, they'll be heavily economically dependent
on Earth. Complex materials, chemicals, drugs, microprocessors, etc. simply
won't be manifacturable on Mars for a long time. As long as Martians need
these things from Earth, Earthlings will be able to influence their politics
by controlling (or threating to control) the flow of goods to Mars. However..

2) Martians will be mostly politically independent in their own affairs. They
are simply too far away from Earth to be micromanaged. Additional, Mars has
nothing of value to Earth (at least so far), so...

3) Martians will mostly be ignored. There will be a lot of hype and interest
at first, but it will quickly fade once the novelty has worn off. Unless and
until Martians have something of value for Earth, most Earthling will pay no
attention.

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brudgers
One of the benefits of getting older is "discovering" great books by rereading
them after many years. Ray Bradbury's _Martian Chronicals_ is among those for
me. This essay reminded me that Bradbury's take is that any humans living on
Mars would be independent regardless of what's on paper. Simple physics
insures it.

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grizzles
Mars was colonized by the Northern Block at enormous expense. Our entire war
effort depends on the turbinium, and it's ridiculous to think that we're going
to give it away just because a bunch of lazy mutants think they own the
planet.

