A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams
Let’s not send a few thousand people to Mars as a big experiment in survival.
@arstechnica send? No.
If folks want to participate in a big experiment in survival on Mars, let's go for it. It would be their choice, and there are plenty of people willing to do it.
Framing things like this as sending overlooks agency.
@volkris @arstechnica But there is also something like human dignity that people can't give away, even if they want to. That is why people can't sell their organs or why certain experiments on humans aren't allowed. This is such an experiment.
@kaffeeringe the problem is that people may disagree on what that dignity entails, and I would even say you risk undermining dignity by imposing your personal feelings of dignity onto others.
You quickly get into issues of bodily autonomy.
Would you let me tell you what you can and can't do with your body? I would hope not, especially since you don't know me 🙂
I can already tell that we have different ideas about what constitutes dignity, so it's pretty likely that you would not like for me to impose my own values on you.
And that's why this is tricky.
@volkris @arstechnica I wouldn't let you decide on me, and I don't want to decide on you. But there are standards and what they are is part of public debate. This book seems to argue, that nobody should go to Mars, because [I didn't read the book].
@kaffeeringe but farming the imposition out to one social institution or another doesn't change that it is still imposing the decision on you or me
Regardless of who or what is deciding on you or me, it's still deciding on you or me, imposing some other standards, imposing others' ideas of what we should and can't do with our bodies.
@arstechnica
@volkris @arstechnica Every law is imposed on you.
@kaffeeringe and that makes it okay?
It strikes me as being pretty blithe to tell me what I can't do with my own body in my own future merely because, well, every law imposes on me.
@volkris @arstechnica That is not what I am saying. I am only saying that we are living in societies with an ethical basis and democratically decided rules. The first article of the German consitution is "Human dignity is inviolable." This protects me against the state but also against other people lowering that bar voluntarily. They can't sell their organs so I don't have to do the same.
@kaffeeringe and I'd say it's a violation of human dignity to tell people what they can and can't do with their organs *shrug*
I also don't see how undermining others' self ownership implies any protection for you.
