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lamina1211 t1_j25uuis wrote

Might seems to make right here. Laws back home on terra don't mean much if they can't enforce them on the red planet, right?

I suppose sanctions can be had back on terra, but this seems very likely to be settled by common law concepts like dominion and possession.

Basically, I almost guarantee it's going to end up as, you go there, and whatever is under your control, being defined by what you've managed to improve upon (infrastructure) is yours.

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Nexus_produces t1_j25viom wrote

On a weird tangent, are you an English speaking native perchance? It's funny to see terra written in an English context since it's the word for earth in romance languages (and sol for sun) of which I'm a native speaker.

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lamina1211 t1_j25w665 wrote

English is my first, and only language. I speak a miniscule amount of German, but not enough to claim it. Even less French, Spanish and Italian.

But I enjoy words. I have a bit of a natural ear for etymology... I've been accused of being a wordsmith, but I'm really just a dumb redneck.

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Nexus_produces t1_j2680bk wrote

Yeah I enjoy language immensely, I am fortunate enough to have a knack for it and I become very engaged when people use out of the ordinary vocabulary due to so many years of vocabulary acquisition. It's kind of funny for me when I hear latin words in english speech because they are pretty much regular words I use in my own language or something very close.

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lobosrul t1_j25w0y7 wrote

Lets say SpaceX lands on Mars and Elon claims Mars as "his". Neither the United States nor any other government has the means to do a damned thing about if we don't have the means to get to Mars ourselves! That means Mars is now corporate owned!

Oh..... but wait a minute. SpaceX is a US based company and is subject to US law. We can't directly touch their colony on Mars but we can make it impossible for SpaceX to communicate, profit from, or resupply said Martian colony.

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lamina1211 t1_j25xmns wrote

The US government could do alot of things. But we're reaching a point where transnationalism is a thing (or have reached that point). Some corporations can now, and will in the future, operate with limited government influence, as those corporations have more leverage against government than government has against them.

What percentage of SpaceX revenue is currently provided by the US DoD? Can the DoD currently replace the services SpaceX provides?

Now fast forward a decade or two and run the math again.

Human systems of governance aren't well equipped currently to manage multinational corporations with GDPs that would put them in the G20, nevermind multiplanetary corporations with G7 level economic influence.

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