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rfmcdonaldFirst, some anthropologically-inspired history; let's hope I don't distort the record too much.
Sedentary human civilizations have risen and fallen based on their ability to extract and manage resource surpluses of all kinds--food, water, fuel, raw materials for industry. Ecologically marginal areas of the world lackthe potentially abundant resources--compare, say, the traditional lands of the Inuit with the traditional lands of Iroquoian peoples--that allow for the relatively easy construction of complex hierarchical polities. It is quite false to describe the Inuit, or the Khoisan, or Siberia's Small
Peoples, or the Australian Aborigines as simple people, or as culturally simplistic since they clearly weren't; all these peoples lived in highly complex societies. It is accurate to say, though, that these cultures were organized in small-scale units, bands of dozens of people which functioned in many respects as a sort of extended family. Subsistence, of necessity, was small-scale: hunting, gathering, and like means sufficed to enjoy a pleasant lifestyle rich in leisure time, with long-range trade sufficing to import novelties or useful trade goods.
It's interesting to note, for our purposes, that these hunter-gatherer societies come quite closely to the live-off-the-land/small-scale libertarian ethos that many proponents of space colonization prefer, for whatever reasons (an appreciation of the difficulties of living in space far from resupply, a generalized ideological hostility to the idea of a state). This is fine; in the short to medium term, in the absence of large-scale colonization, it might even be the preferred model. If your supply lines are tenuous to non-existent, why not live off the land? If it's too difficult to support large settlements, why not small settlements? And if you organize the offworld population into small settlements, why not encourage intermarriage and a tight community ethos to increase solidarity and cooperation? Taken in itself, it's an entirely workable plan for autonomous settlements scattered across the Solar System.
The problem with this, though, is that societies which have been forced by their environments' marginality to organize on a small scale aren't at all resilient. The cases of the peoples I named above--the Inuit, the Khoisan, Siberia's Small Peoples, and the Australian Aborigines--are all cases in point: Whenever an ambitious European (or European-influenced) power took an interest in the once-marginal territory that was one of these people's homelands, disaster ensued. Sometimes--as in the North American Arctic--the environment was so inhospitable as to prevent the worst extremes, of genocide and massive settler immigration. Much more often, explorers armed with the latest weaponries blazed the way for settlers with access to the full wealth and technology of Europe to enter, confiscate land for their own uses, reduce the native populations to the level of migrant labourers, introduce missionaries and alcohol to destroy the culture, and stage massacres whenever the indigenes seemed unhappy. They were able to subsistent for thousands--even tens of thousands--of years in their own environment, but once states with vastly superior wealth, populations, and technologies entered they were prey. The effects of this infiltration are long-term: Even the Inuit--who have been relatively easily integrated into the broader world economy/society--have moved away from their traditional lifestyles and are now almost as enthralled by participating in North
American consumerism as anyone else.
The relevance of this to space colonization? Wholesale massacres of first-generation space colonists are--we hope--implausible. What is rather more likely is that as soon as large Earth-based organizations--nation-states, confederations, conceivably even large private enterprises--begin to involve themselves in space the small-scale colonists will be dragged into their orbit. Why wouldn't (say) the dozen-odd first-generation communities at Ceres with several thousand inhabitants between them welcome an EU plan to build a city on that asteroid as a base for asteroid mining? After all, quite apart from the excitement of outsiders, there's the city's facilities and the excitement of meeting new people, not to mention the trade goods ... Sure, some isolationists might want to keep the EU away from Ceres, but what are they going to do, start a war when they'd be outnumbered a million to one?
Some of these first-generation colonies will survive, of course; if they're sufficiently distant from the main currents of interplanetary trade and communications, or if they're in sufficiently marginal environments. They won't predominate by any means, though. In the end, they might be about as relevant to 23rd century Mars or Callisto or Titan as 19th century pioneers are to 21st century Ohio or California.
Sedentary human civilizations have risen and fallen based on their ability to extract and manage resource surpluses of all kinds--food, water, fuel, raw materials for industry. Ecologically marginal areas of the world lackthe potentially abundant resources--compare, say, the traditional lands of the Inuit with the traditional lands of Iroquoian peoples--that allow for the relatively easy construction of complex hierarchical polities. It is quite false to describe the Inuit, or the Khoisan, or Siberia's Small
Peoples, or the Australian Aborigines as simple people, or as culturally simplistic since they clearly weren't; all these peoples lived in highly complex societies. It is accurate to say, though, that these cultures were organized in small-scale units, bands of dozens of people which functioned in many respects as a sort of extended family. Subsistence, of necessity, was small-scale: hunting, gathering, and like means sufficed to enjoy a pleasant lifestyle rich in leisure time, with long-range trade sufficing to import novelties or useful trade goods.
It's interesting to note, for our purposes, that these hunter-gatherer societies come quite closely to the live-off-the-land/small-scale libertarian ethos that many proponents of space colonization prefer, for whatever reasons (an appreciation of the difficulties of living in space far from resupply, a generalized ideological hostility to the idea of a state). This is fine; in the short to medium term, in the absence of large-scale colonization, it might even be the preferred model. If your supply lines are tenuous to non-existent, why not live off the land? If it's too difficult to support large settlements, why not small settlements? And if you organize the offworld population into small settlements, why not encourage intermarriage and a tight community ethos to increase solidarity and cooperation? Taken in itself, it's an entirely workable plan for autonomous settlements scattered across the Solar System.
The problem with this, though, is that societies which have been forced by their environments' marginality to organize on a small scale aren't at all resilient. The cases of the peoples I named above--the Inuit, the Khoisan, Siberia's Small Peoples, and the Australian Aborigines--are all cases in point: Whenever an ambitious European (or European-influenced) power took an interest in the once-marginal territory that was one of these people's homelands, disaster ensued. Sometimes--as in the North American Arctic--the environment was so inhospitable as to prevent the worst extremes, of genocide and massive settler immigration. Much more often, explorers armed with the latest weaponries blazed the way for settlers with access to the full wealth and technology of Europe to enter, confiscate land for their own uses, reduce the native populations to the level of migrant labourers, introduce missionaries and alcohol to destroy the culture, and stage massacres whenever the indigenes seemed unhappy. They were able to subsistent for thousands--even tens of thousands--of years in their own environment, but once states with vastly superior wealth, populations, and technologies entered they were prey. The effects of this infiltration are long-term: Even the Inuit--who have been relatively easily integrated into the broader world economy/society--have moved away from their traditional lifestyles and are now almost as enthralled by participating in North
American consumerism as anyone else.
The relevance of this to space colonization? Wholesale massacres of first-generation space colonists are--we hope--implausible. What is rather more likely is that as soon as large Earth-based organizations--nation-states, confederations, conceivably even large private enterprises--begin to involve themselves in space the small-scale colonists will be dragged into their orbit. Why wouldn't (say) the dozen-odd first-generation communities at Ceres with several thousand inhabitants between them welcome an EU plan to build a city on that asteroid as a base for asteroid mining? After all, quite apart from the excitement of outsiders, there's the city's facilities and the excitement of meeting new people, not to mention the trade goods ... Sure, some isolationists might want to keep the EU away from Ceres, but what are they going to do, start a war when they'd be outnumbered a million to one?
Some of these first-generation colonies will survive, of course; if they're sufficiently distant from the main currents of interplanetary trade and communications, or if they're in sufficiently marginal environments. They won't predominate by any means, though. In the end, they might be about as relevant to 23rd century Mars or Callisto or Titan as 19th century pioneers are to 21st century Ohio or California.
