> Poverty and War are depressing too but Engineers know how to build rockets better than they know how to address poverty and peace.
Colonizing Mars would require engineers to develop more than just rockets. At some point political-economic models of colonies would have to be developed, in order to determine whether colonies will be economically sustainable without subsidies from Earth. Asking people to imagine how these colonies should be organized, and how to measure whether they will be economically sustainable, requires them to consider economic and political ideas which could be later applied to the problems of poverty and political instability on Earth.
One potential model that could work well for Mars in order to reduce political tensions between competing colonies and to establish a clear and efficient mechanism for financing territorial public services is cellular democracy:
Great link. Reminded me of the - in German - Concept of the 'Räterepublik'. Often called Soviet System without actually referring to the real Soviet State. Sadly the English Wikipedia isn't that great on this topic. But it actually describes the same concept.
Colonizing Mars would require engineers to develop more than just rockets. At some point political-economic models of colonies would have to be developed, in order to determine whether colonies will be economically sustainable without subsidies from Earth. Asking people to imagine how these colonies should be organized, and how to measure whether they will be economically sustainable, requires them to consider economic and political ideas which could be later applied to the problems of poverty and political instability on Earth.
One potential model that could work well for Mars in order to reduce political tensions between competing colonies and to establish a clear and efficient mechanism for financing territorial public services is cellular democracy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_democracy