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[Descan]

Answer: Because you built it on the moon.

[Pnx]

It seems like it would be more energy efficient, and possible even less troublesome given the moon's climate, to build it in orbit instead.

[Descan]

No raw resources in orbit, you'd still have to launch the material from earth or drag an asteroid to earth and mine it. So you either defeat the purpose (being able to build things you -can't- launch from inside a gravity well/atmosphere is a good thing, but it still defeats the purpose), or you already have a pretty good reliable method of getting out into space.

[gogis]

Why do people hate unions, but (esp. libertarians) are all about the whole idea of "If an employer doesn't do good by the employee, he'll just leave!"?

It's fairly obvious that leaving impacts the employee so much more than the employer, by dint of the employee loses 100% of their wages until they find a new employer, while the employer loses like, 1-2% of productivity until they get a new employee.

And a union fixes that, by making it so if the employer doesn't do right by the employee, the employees will lose 100% of their wages (temporarily, hopefully, by going on strike), while the employer loses 100% of the productivity (Well, depending on how widespread the union is, and scabbing)

It seems fairly obvious to me.

It's supply-demand issue, and it's have nothing to do with unions. If demand for capable staff is higher - employer will lose alot more than 1%. Let's say I will decide to change my job. They will be forced to hire a man for a bigger paycheck with less capabilities to do my former job. Atleast for half of a year, before he will get all required knowledge. I am, on the other hand, will get 20-30% raise. Thats how it's works when demand is higher. An when you talk about 100% wage loss - you not quite right. People have savings. Consider it vacation.
So you not quite right on this subject. Sometimes, depending on area, employee lose more. Sometimes alot more.

[10ebbor10]

Going to have to call bullshit on that one. Mars has many of the natural resources necessary for industry, and could also be a stepping stone to the asteroid belt which has untold riches.

Not that you're every going to get a profit out of moving them back to Earth. Probably not in this century, anyway. And just because Mars happens to be along the way does it in any way imply that having a colony there would benefit Asteroid belt mining. Sure, some of the technologies overlap, but that's about it.

It also has had major geological activity in the past, probably liquid water in the past as well, it has an atmosphere, etc.

There has been no volcanic activity in the last 500 million years, liquid water existed in the past, but doesn't anymore (ice still does), and the atmosphere is not very impressive. I mean, Titan's atmosphere is almost twice at dense, and even that one is several orders of magnitude thinner than ours.

With sensible propulsion technology (say, nuclear-thermal), the trip could be made in a few months.

Which is still a significant amount of time. Additionally, Nuclear-thermal doesn't exist yet, is not in active development, and what little research there has been has not progressed much. Also Space treaties could be problematic here.

Furthermore, there is the culture factor. Once the Mars colony matures, it will develop its own customs, technologies, and trade goods. This can be seen with the rise of the United States in its time as a developing nation.

We're speaking about centuries here. This is not the massive colonization of the US, the martian colony will mainly rely on it's own population growth.

And of course, it would allow great progress in various fields of science as well as a test bed for future, more capable technologies that will allow for the continued exploration of the solar system as well as, in time, insurance against most major extinction events.

It would be a great achievement for the human race. Think of the Apollo program and how it and its successors advanced technology.

All that is true, but the majority of this is true for much other projects. My argument was not against a Martian Colony, my argument was against the idea that we should drop everything to launch a Mars colony right now. An effort which would result in disaster, and the loss of much scientific evidence.

On the topic of a moon colony. Lunar space elevators are easier, and technically realizable with current tech. It's not unlikely that the first space elevator will be build on the moon, leading to L1.

[Loud Whispers]

Giving this a brief necro before my drunk euphoria ends and I forget about this one memory; years ago I played these geopolitical simulators that were like idle games crossed with a multiplayer feud game where you built your nation and flocked into groups to exert your dominance in the world. The highlight of that has to be in BLOC where we formed a Jewish Nazi group and purged our ranks of Goon infiltrators, but our survivalist cousins were infiltrated by the Goons successfully (as they lacked the most kosher of Gestapo) and tricked into attacking us (as the Goons were the established powers trying to halt the rise of new great powers - us, since although we were new we outnumbered them). This crisis erupted into full blown total war and everyone else in the game was disgusted with both sides (not surprising considering both blocs were edgylords edgier than katanas), with the survivalists going underground and the Jewish Nazis splintering off and worming their way into neutral factions whilst materially supporting the frontline. The goons unleashed their chemical weapon stockpiles and superior militaries but then we retaliated by creating hundreds of new accounts, sending soldiers and cash to the frontline whilst dumping all of the new accounts complementary oil supplies onto the markets (this was against the rules, but all is fair in war). This allowed our war effort to continue despite tremendous losses and would make the red army proud, in addition our market efforts caused the entire oil market to crash wiping untold trillions of dollars out of the entire economy (oil prices dropped from around $120-170 to $1-10 per barrel) and eventually resulted in our bloc (that was a few days old) destroying in weeks the top bloc that had been there for years. I remember I had a Chinese communist dictatorship there and I managed to keep my endless human waves of soldiers intact for the final offensive, emerging from the underground with my golden stars and red flags dying on the enemy's homelands, bringing instability to their once great nations and war loot for the people's republic. I then got bored and left, having finally won. We all managed to get our supply lines running well, the South Americans would run drugs for money and the Africans run blood diamonds for money, sending it off to the Chinese for soldiers in return whilst our more developed Arab and Slavic countries sent us soviet jets in return for our materiel.
What's the point of this anecdote?
Well, there was another one of those games, and it let you build a nation that could be anything from a technocratic nudist monarchy to a traditionalist marxist dictatorship or capitalist socialist oligarchy. Difference is, was that there was no warfare. Nations could compete but only in the sense that they could compare themselves with one another, but there was no true competitiveness. The dev was quite a hardcore marxist who wasn't too fond of free speech but was in all honesty quite all right, and had made an all right idle game. When asked why there was no warfare and warfare was never going to be, the dev said that this was because it would bias the game in favour of capitalist war machines.
That right there spelled out completely why capitalism triumphed. Even before in that other simulator with the warfare, even in my 'communist' dictatorship, sure I built houses, hospitals and funded education but when it came down to investment I was just as capitalist as "communist" China is, with the added boon of having lower taxes than some capitalist nations due to abundant war loot and drug/blood money and a shit ton of foreign investment in my special economic zones (capitalist heaven). The game dev of the peaceful world on the other hand let you build a nation that was either prosperous and had a wealth gap between rich and poor, or a poor nation with a small wealth gap between rich and poor (proffering that the latter was always preferable) but a prosperous nation has the means to protect and expand its prosperity whilst a poor one is utterly at the mercy of the former. When power means something, the most powerful ideology wins.
When you cannot compete in the markets for better deals, cannot compete in the fields of war for land, resources and strategic points of interest, when you cannot compete for resources with dollar, barrel or rifle or make investments or give loans to better your neighbour in the promise of reaping grain from them later - only then can capitalism be superceded, and not just superceded in name.

[inteuniso]

tl;dr Why come up with a better idea when you can kill the person who has the better idea.

[Loud Whispers]

tl;dr Why come up with a better idea when you can kill the person who has the better idea.

If you can't innovate, imitate. If you can't imitate, intimidate. Failing that, capitulate. If you won't capitulate? Capitalize. Dollar dollar, get more dollar.