April 25, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Your fire is spreading, Bob. Ted Cruz wants to renegotiate the Outer Space Treaty:
http://spacenews.com/cruz-interested-in-updating-outer-space-treaty-to-support-commercial-space-activities/
China and Russia should get along with the US on a new treaty that gives the first lander generous property rights. Giving them return on their current space leadership.
LocalFluff: As I wrote in a different thread tonight, “I saw this story tonight. I haven’t posted a link yet because I need to watch the entire hearings first, and then plan to write a longer post about it. It does appear that my Federalist column struck a nerve. Or more likely I sensed the wave coming from many different places, and caught it at just the right time.”
Thank goodness the incredibly long gap in podcasts is finally over!
Mr. Z.,
I’ve only recently started to seriously ponder such topics as homesteading & legal frameworks for Space. (and to your credit, for raising them)
Personally, a big fan of Austrian-bent economics (and early American colonial history) & have been digging at the Mises dot org site, which immediately branched backwards to the “Lockean Homesteading Proviso,” from his Labor Theory of Property.
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockean_proviso
in brief–
“The phrase “Lockean proviso” was coined by libertarian political philosopher Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. It is based on the ideas elaborated by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government—that self-ownership allows a person the freedom to mix his or her labor with natural resources, thus converting common property into private property. Locke concludes that people need to be able to protect the resources they are using to live on, their property, and that this is a natural right. Nozick used this idea to form his Lockean proviso which governs the initial acquisition of property in a society. But in order for his ideas of ownership of property to get off the ground and be cogent, he devised the criterion to determine what makes property acquisition just, which is the proviso. The proviso says that though every appropriation of property is a diminution of another’s rights to it, it is acceptable as long as it does not make anyone worse off than they would have been without any private property.”
–Which is apparently hotly debated among the more anarcho-capitalistic views of a Murray Rothbard or a Walter Block.
This is highly (highly) interesting & frames some of important aspects of the debate, and actually mentions Space.
https://mises.org/blog/blockean-proviso
Personally, I haven’t thought about all this to any great depth so as to reach any firm conclusions, but my default stance is absolutely on your side of the fence.
For these topics especially, I believe it’s vital to learn from our past mistakes & successes and apply those going forward, with as little distorting influences as we can engineer. (cronyism & Statism being the biggies.)
And, I also like one of your key points in the colonization/exploration of Space– there’s no “indigenous populations” at risk of exploitation.
Wayne: It is interesting to me that both I (in my Federalist op-ed) and Bigelow (in his testimony) expressed positions agreeing with the Lockean Homesteading Proviso. Homesteading is only good if the property claimed does not claim so much that there is nothing left for anyone else. I made this point by noting that we must structure claims so that they are not too large, or else we will make it impractical for others. Bigelow said a similar thing, while also noting that the Outer Space Treaty presently puts no limit on any colony base size placed on any planet, and that he fears China will use this to claim far more than we would want.
40 acres and a mule sounds like a good staring point ;)
Extremely interesting Topic on a variety of levels.
I was not aware of this “Lockean Proviso,” so it all goes on my List of Stuff for further exploration.