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Jedo the Jedi
Paragon in Training
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 Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 10:25 pm Post subject: 41 |
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| Thok wrote: |
| Delaying an execution by shipping them on a death trap is both cruel and unusual. |
1) How long do people wait on Death Row on Earth?
2) Why is the shuttle to Mars a "death trap"? It seems to me the space station and related shuttle flights go rather smoothly.
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| Until Mars is terraformed (or there is a significant already developed colony on Mars), any prisoner transported to Mars is living in a substandard way. Indoors 24/7 (somebody living on Mars will likely never see the sun), little to no communication with the outside world, likely horrible food quality given what will be there, and at constant risk of a catastrophic equipment failure. And that's assuming they survive the trip to Mars in the first place, which is a 9 month trip where everything that's wrong with Mars is even worse. |
As Courk mentioned in her post above, we've already made such advances in living in adverse conditions that it wouldn't be that sub-standard. We have significant work with hydroponics, there would easily be communication with space agencies on Earth, and there would obviously be multiple fail-safes to counter equipment failure. I mean, there is talk of having people begin the trip to Mars as early as 2015! These sort of things are being worked on, and the technology has been there previously.
So, if it's adequate enough for non-prisoners to participate (and maybe even pay to be part of it), I don't see how it's immoral or unethical to send prisoners there. Lest you think I'm insinuating such, I also never suggested the prisoners would be going alone to figure out how to make it by themselves. Obviously there would be a team of astronauts/space engineers and guards of some sort to facilitate the transition.
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| But if you just want to exile prisoners now, ship them off to Afghanistan and have them fight the Taliban. |
Again, prison is prison. This isn't exile any more than locking them away from "society" is.
| Buzzsaw wrote: |
| How many times fold would it cost to house a prisoner on Mars, vs here on Earth? That's not to mention the vastly different transportation costs. Anyone venture a guess? I would think a conservative estimate would be at least a dozen fold or more. |
Well, it would eliminate the need for expanding the prison system here, and it definitely wouldn't need to be as secure as they make them here. Plus, if humans are going to Mars anyway, some of them might as well be prisoners. Plus, the prisoners will actually be contributing to society in a much more tangible way by doing work on Mars, so there's so money being given back, in a sense. I don't mean these things will counter all the cost, but at least there is some defraying to help it be more justified.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting. |
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Zag
Tired of his old title
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 10:26 pm Post subject: 42 |
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| Buzzsaw wrote: |
| How many times fold would it cost to house a prisoner on Mars, vs here on Earth? That's not to mention the vastly different transportation costs. Anyone venture a guess? I would think a conservative estimate would be at least a dozen fold or more. |
If it's less than 100x, I'll eat my hat. I'd bet closer to 1000x. |
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Thok
Oh, foe, the cursed teeth!
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 10:28 pm Post subject: 43 |
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| Buzzsaw wrote: |
| That's not to mention the vastly different transportation costs. |
The Curiosity mission cost 2.5 billion dollars to send one robot to Mars. Presumably economy of scales would decrease that somewhat (and we're comparing apples to oranges here, since Curiosity is much smaller, needs less radioactive shielding, but does have to have enough AI to do experiments and communicate back to Earth).
But for a comparative figure you can store somebody in prison for life for roughly 1 million dollars. (A death penalty case is maybe 3 million, since you have to pay the lawyers more for all of the appeal cases.)
Note that I have yet to even discuss building inhabitable buildings on Mars; this is just transportation costs. |
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Elethiomel
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 10:37 pm Post subject: 44 |
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| Maybe we could send the lawyers to Mars. The money saved on death penalty appeals would pay the fare. |
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The Potter
Feat of Clay
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:00 am Post subject: 45 |
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Having nearly finished my 7 year sentence in Fairbanks, I would like to volunteer for the mission to Mars. What sort of crime will I have to commit to be considered for a leadership role? I have an engineering degree and am in good shape.
having access to the Red Labyrinth would be in the contract!
Missions to Mars and other space exploration is one of the few federal projects I support. |
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Dread Pirate Westley
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:01 am Post subject: 46 |
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| Thok wrote: |
| Dread Pirate Westley wrote: |
| Thok wrote: |
| If I was given a choice between Mars and the death penalty, I'd file a lawsuit with the Supreme Court and win. |
No you wouldn't. The Supreme Court would only have appellate jurisdiction in such a case. It would probably reach the Supreme Court, but you couldn't file there originally. |
Semantics. The only way it wouldn't make it to the Supreme Court would be if I won and the state stopped appealing before it got there.
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Totally missing the point (both of us, albeit intentionally in my case)
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1) How long do people wait on Death Row on Earth?
2) Why is the shuttle to Mars a "death trap"? It seems to me the space station and related shuttle flights go rather smoothly. |
1)Varies by jurisdiction; the last person executed in Texas was on Aug 7, 2012. He entered Death Row on May 9, 1992. An Amnesty International article from 2011 I found speaks of a pair who were sentenced in 1998 as facing imminent execution.
2) Mars is just a bit further away than the space station (approximately 139,000x away at its nearest approach to earth). Aside from the simple fact that more can go wrong in a longer trip, this makes any type of return-to-earth escape much more complicated. |
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jadesmar
Bad Puppy
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 5:59 am Post subject: 47 |
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| Which country's prisoners? |
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Thok
Oh, foe, the cursed teeth!
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:39 am Post subject: 48 |
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| Dread Pirate Westley wrote: |
| Totally missing the point (both of us, albeit intentionally in my case) |
As you might noticed, I'm feeling a bit passionate about this topic and I'm not really in the mood for distractions from a discussion of the merits of the idea of exiling prisoners to Mars. If you didn't mean your comment to be a distraction, then I'm sorry. If you meant it as a distraction, then I think you're a horrible person.
And I'll admit that the whole prisoner thing is a distraction from a discussion of whether people could live on Mars; a first colony is more likely to be either a space agency fueled endeavor or funded by a private individual who really wants t live on Mars. |
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Zag
Tired of his old title
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:26 am Post subject: 49 |
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| Thok, a pretty serious treatment of the idea is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars . I don't know that we're likely to add much, especially in the current climate of discussing the legal ramifications of a remarkably silly idea. |
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Jedo the Jedi
Paragon in Training
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:38 am Post subject: 50 |
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| Thok wrote: |
| As you might noticed, I'm feeling a bit passionate about this topic and I'm not really in the mood for distractions from a discussion of the merits of the idea of exiling prisoners to Mars. |
Is this because you are a prisoner and fear being sent?
I'll concede that we start with prisoners who volunteer to move to Mars. With that alone I'm sure we'll get plenty of people. I'm telling you, I really think the Lifers and Death Row guys would prefer that.
| jadesmar wrote: |
| Which country's prisoners? |
I was thinking by default of the U.S. prisoners, but I'm open to suggestions.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting. |
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:16 pm Post subject: 51 |
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| You folks never saw Wrath of Khan? |
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Thok
Oh, foe, the cursed teeth!
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:13 pm Post subject: 52 |
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| Jedo the Jedi wrote: |
| Is this because you are a prisoner and fear being sent? |
No, it's because I'm a taxpayer who fears his money being wasted on this boondoggle and somebody who feels this is immoral.
If you want somebody to go to Mars, pay for it yourself; don't force me to pay for people who don't have a choice to go to Mars. |
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Jedo the Jedi
Paragon in Training
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:19 pm Post subject: 53 |
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| Thok wrote: |
| Jedo the Jedi wrote: |
| Is this because you are a prisoner and fear being sent? |
No, it's because I'm a taxpayer who fears his money being wasted on this boondoggle and somebody who feels this is immoral.
If you want somebody to go to Mars, pay for it yourself; don't force me to pay for people who don't have a choice to go to Mars. |
Well if that's why you're railing against the suggestion, I sure hope you are consistent in railing against other such wastes of money.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting. |
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:48 am Post subject: 54 |
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If we're sending entire subsections of people over to colonise, we should get Mars habitable, then send all the libertarians there. 
Earth has too strong a foundation of privilege and inequality. On Mars, people could start from a clean slate and give a utopian libertarian society a shot. People would be able to start from an equal point. It would be fascinating to see the implementation of infrastructure and how disputes over resources and the like would be resolved.
I honestly do not know if I am trolling or not. The idea makes me grin, but the idealist in me would really, really want to see it work. I can't be a libertarian in this world, but in the case that I get to choose an ideal/utopian version of a political ideology to live under, I'd have a decent to high chance of choosing it. |
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Thok
Oh, foe, the cursed teeth!
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:53 am Post subject: 55 |
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| Silly Mackay. Everybody knows the libertarians are being shipped to the moon, not Mars. |
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novice
No harm. Pun intended!
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 8:18 am Post subject: 56 |
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| Sounds like the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is right up your alley, Mackay. |
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