{"id":258,"date":"2020-10-13T19:28:54","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T19:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=258"},"modified":"2020-10-13T19:29:22","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T19:29:22","slug":"mars26","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars26","title":{"rendered":"Imagining Elon Musk&#8217;s Million-Person Mars Colony &#8211; Chapter 26"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Imagining Elon Musk&#8217;s Million-Person Mars Colony &#8211; The greatest thought experiment of all time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">by&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.marshallbrain.com\/\">Marshall Brain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Chap26\"><strong>Chapter 26<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What should be the goal of the Mars colony?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I finish this Chapter, it is October 15, 2017. It is a little more than a year since Elon Musk made his big Million-Person Mars Colony announcement, as described in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars.htm#Chap1\">Chapter 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last couple of weeks, Musk has made several new announcements about his rocket plans and his colony plans, and even released this new concept image for the colony on Mars:<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/gif\/mars-concept-art.jpg\" width=\"600\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Musk also did a second Reddit AMA yesterday to answer questions from the public:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/space\/comments\/76e79c\/i_am_elon_musk_ask_me_anything_about_bfr\/\">Elon Musk Reddit AMA on BFR, October 14, 2017<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last several months, there have been a number of fascinating announcements that all seem to be inspired by Musk&#8217;s colony:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2017\/10\/15\/16476884\/elon-musk-reddit-ama-spacex-mars-interplanetary-transport-system-raptor-engines\">Here\u2019s what Elon Musk revealed about the ITS and SpaceX\u2019s Mars ambitions in his Reddit AMA &#8211; Details on design changes, Mars, and what\u2019s to come between now and 2022<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2017\/09\/28\/dubai-building-mock-martian-city\/\">Dubai is building a mock Martian city &#8211; Potatoes will not be on the menu.<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/nasa-details-its-plans-sending-humans-mars-ncna810531\">NASA Details Its Plans for Sending Humans to Mars &#8211; The space agency aims to \u2018orchestrate\u2019 the development of missions to the red planet.<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2017\/10\/15\/elon-musk-reddit-spacex-mars\/\">Elon Musk Reveals More Details About His Plan to Colonize Mars<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcodesign.com\/90146659\/exclusive-bjarke-ingels-on-designing-a-martian-city\">Exclusive: Bjarke Ingels On Designing A Martian City &#8211; When humans get to Mars, they\u2019ll need safe, comfortable buildings. The Danish architect is already designing them.<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2017\/10\/11\/boeing-mars-rocket\/\">Here&#8217;s How Boeing Plans to Take You on Vacation to Mars<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/elon-musk-plans-colonize-mars-overlook-major-hurdles\/\">Elon Musk\u2019s Plans to Colonize Mars Overlook Some Major Hurdles<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/spacewatchme.com\/2017\/10\/lockheed-martin-reveals-new-details-mars-base-camp-vision\/\">Lockheed Martin Reveals New Details to its Mars Base Camp Vision<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/esas-moon-village-plan-aims-huge-colony-moon-2050-2593396\">ESA&#8217;s &#8216;Moon Village&#8217; Plan Aims For Huge Colony On Moon By 2050<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sciencetech\/article-4909372\/Children-born-moon-decades.html\">Europe&#8217;s lunar village will see humans born on the MOON &#8216;in a few decades&#8217;<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2017\/09\/elon-musk-spacex-mars-moon-bfr-rockets-space-science\/\">Elon Musk: In Seven Years, SpaceX Could Land Humans on Mars &#8211; The entrepreneur&#8217;s updated plan calls for a giant rocket that could send humans to Mars\u2014and possibly the moon\u2014by 2024.<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Elon Musk&#8217;s million-person Mars colony is now one step closer to reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Coolest Thing about the Mars colony<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By far the coolest thing about Elon Musk&#8217;s Million-Person Mars Colony is the space it opens up for thought experiments. Whether we ever end up with a real million-person colony on Mars or not, the imagination-space around the colony is fantastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason is simple: Elon Musk&#8217;s Million-Person Mars Colony let&#8217;s us begin to think about designing a society from scratch, starting with a blank sheet of paper. There are zero people and zero structures on Mars right now. Literally anything is possible. With the Mars colony, we should be able to design a perfect and optimal society for human beings. And really, if you think about it, anything less than that would be a huge disappointment. If we cannot get things right on Mars, where we have complete control over every aspect of society because we are starting from scratch, then humanity is doomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just think about all of the questions we can ask with a new society started from scratch on Mars:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Who will we send to Mars? How will they be chosen?<\/li><li>What kind of housing will these colonists be living in, and what kind of density? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars7.htm#Chap7\">Chapter 7<\/a>)<\/li><li>What should the typical &#8220;working week&#8221; and vacation\/benefits package look like for the Mars colonists? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars10.htm#Chap10\">Chapter 10<\/a>)<\/li><li>What do we do with lazy people on Mars? What do we do with the criminals? What do we do with the assholes? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars11.htm#Chap11\">Chapter 11<\/a>)<\/li><li>What will the education system look like on Mars? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars7.htm#Chap9\">Chapter 9<\/a>)<\/li><li>What will the penal system and police force look like on Mars? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars7.htm#Chap9\">Chapter 9<\/a>)<\/li><li>What will the social contract look like for residents of the Mars colony? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars11.htm#Chap11\">Chapter 11<\/a>)<\/li><li>How will the colony create new laws? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars15.htm#Chap15\">Chapter 15<\/a>)<\/li><li>How will Mars make all of the high-tech stuff it needs &#8211; chips, pharmaceuticals, laptops, etc.? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars13.htm#Chap13\">Chapter 13<\/a>)<\/li><li>What will the transportation system on Mars look like? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars14.htm#Chap14\">Chapter 14<\/a>)<\/li><li>What will the political system look like? How will it be organized? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars15.htm#Chap15\">Chapter 15<\/a>)<\/li><li>How will entertainment work on Mars? What types of entertainment will be available for Mars colonists? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars18.htm#Chap18\">Chapter 18<\/a>)<\/li><li>How will children work on Mars? Who gets to have children? What is the colony&#8217;s stance toward children? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars19.htm#Chap19\">Chapter 19<\/a>)<\/li><li>Will there be advertising on Mars? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars25.htm#Chap25\">Chapter 25<\/a>)<\/li><li>How Will Innovation Work on Mars? (See&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars24.htm#Chap24\">Chapter 24<\/a>)<\/li><li>And so on&#8230;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Most importantly, what about the economy for the Mars colony? Something that no one is discussing in public right now (except here) is the necessary thinking that needs to go into developing a new socio-economic-political system for the Mars colony. We must create a new economy for the Mars colony if we want the colony&#8217;s economy to work for&nbsp;<em>all<\/em>&nbsp;of the colonists. Obviously we do not want to fly a million people to Mars and have them arrive to an economy as absurd and ridiculous as today&#8217;s U.S. economy &#8211; An economy on Mars where much of the population is living in or near poverty would be a horrible outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, here is a quote I saw yesterday in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cavalierdaily.com\/article\/2017\/10\/charlottesvilles-income-inequality-crisis\">this article<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>In the City of Charlottesville, the average income of the top one percent is $1,604,407, while the average income of the bottom 99 percent is $43,652.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This sort of disparity is obviously absurd. If we took the income being horded by the 1% and made it available to the 99%, the average income for the 99% would increase by $16,000. There is no reason for this kind of economic absurdity to appear on Mars. In fact, it would be criminal for the Mars colony to create an economy this diabolical. Even worse, imagine if Nike gets to design the Mars economy, patterning it off of the 4,000X disparity seen between Nike&#8217;s CEO&#8217;s wages and Nike&#8217;s shoemakers&#8217; wages. The resulting economy would be horrific for Mars colonists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we come to this question: What should be the purpose of the Mars Colony? And obviously, one big part of the colony&#8217;s purpose must be to create an ideal economy that works for&nbsp;<em>all<\/em>&nbsp;of the colonists. By design, everyone on Mars should be able to live happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilling lives. Mars should have a properly designed economy where there is no poverty, and where there is none of the rampant concentration of wealth of the type seen in the United States today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wealth inequality in our country has reached a truly inhumane point. Our economy is rigged\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-9Dyo-6jOFs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wealth Inequality in America\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QPKKQnijnsM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Understanding the problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have you ever thought about why there is poverty in America, and why so many Americans are living in poverty [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/09\/16\/poverty-household-income_n_5828974.html\">ref<\/a>]? Why, for example, are there tens of millions of people on food stamps [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2015\/02\/28\/food-stamp-demographics_n_6771938.html\">ref<\/a>]? Why, even after ObamaCare, are there still tens of millions of people who have no way to afford health insurance, or have no access to health insurance at all [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2017\/04\/11\/the-number-of-americans-without-health-insurance-rose-in-first-quarter-2017.html\">ref<\/a>]? Why do so many people retire, and then their benefits leave them living in or near poverty [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/wonk\/wp\/2017\/10\/18\/for-many-older-americans-the-rat-race-is-over-but-the-inequality-isnt\/\">ref<\/a>]? It&#8217;s simple really, and it goes like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Every adult in America has a certain set of basic needs. These are the things that any human being must have in order to live a decent life at a decent standard of living in today&#8217;s world. These needs are very easy to understand, and have been listed several times in this book:<ul><li>Everyone needs high quality, healthy food<\/li><li>Everyone needs clean water and sanitation services<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality, safe, secure housing<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality health care<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality clothing<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality education<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality transportation<\/li><li>Everyone needs 24&#215;7 electricity and Internet access<\/li><li>Everyone needs a computer and a smart phone to access the Internet<\/li><li>And so on&#8230;<\/li><li>And everyone needs these things in a way that is sustainable, so that we do not destroy the planet we live on.<\/li><\/ul>It is not like there is any mystery here \u2013 every citizen of the United States needs all of these things.<\/li><li>In a properly designed country, every citizen would receive all of these needs in one way or another. This is obvious. To design a country so that tens of millions of people end up living in poverty \u2013 and therefore unable to access basic needs \u2013 is absurd.<\/li><li>The way that the American economy is currently designed, we primarily have a set of companies that provide jobs to American citizens. The government provides some jobs, but the majority of jobs in the economy comes from companies.<\/li><li>For the vast majority of Americans, the way that they earn money to pay for all of their needs is by getting a job at a company.<\/li><li>The problem is, companies are under no obligation to create any jobs at all. And if they do create jobs, they are under no obligation to create &#8220;good jobs&#8221;. In fact, companies are better off when they create &#8220;bad jobs&#8221; or no jobs at all. Every incentive they have, in fact, encourages the creation of the fewest jobs possible, and then making those jobs as bad as possible for employees.<\/li><li>So we are led to a situation in the United States where there are not enough &#8220;good jobs&#8221; to go around. Many people can get no job at all (there are many more people than available jobs in the United States). And many of the jobs offered in the U.S. economy are &#8220;bad jobs&#8221; \u2013 low pay, poor benefits or no benefits, no paid vacation\/sick time, etc.<\/li><li>Every American who has no job (because there are not enough jobs available), or who has a &#8220;bad job&#8221; (because many of the jobs that do exist in the U.S. economy are &#8220;bad jobs&#8221;, not &#8220;good jobs&#8221;) are necessarily going to be poor.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>It is that simple, and that obvious. Given the way that the U.S. economy is currently designed, we are destined to have a very large number of Americans living in or near poverty. These people have no choice. The economic design of the United States makes poverty inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To put it another way, let&#8217;s imagine that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>There are X &#8220;good jobs&#8221; being offered today in the U.S. economy.<\/li><li>And there are Y people who need a &#8220;good job&#8221; to meet their basic needs as a human being.<\/li><li>If this is the case, then, by necessity, Y \u2013 X = Z people will have &#8220;bad jobs&#8221; or no jobs<\/li><li>Therefore Z people will be living in or near poverty. Right now, Z is tens of millions of working-age Americans.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So let&#8217;s take Walmart as an example. Walmart offers over a million jobs in the U.S. economy. If robots come along that can sweep floors, stock shelves, check people out, etc., and these robots eliminate the need for Walmart to hire a million people, what will Walmart do? Walmart will eliminate a million jobs immediately. Boom \u2013 one million people are unemployed when retail robots arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Walmart waits for these robots to arrive, it employs people at the lowest pay that the market will bear. So there are a million &#8220;bad jobs&#8221; that Walmart offers. How bad are these jobs?&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/amazon-walmart-retail-hiring-wages\/\">This article<\/a>&nbsp;points out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The typical Walmart sales associate with two children earns little enough to qualify for government assistance, such as food stamps, Medicaid and home energy assistance, Making Change at Walmart said.<\/p><p>Such low-wage jobs cost state and federal governments <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/how-low-wage-employers-cost-taxpayers-153-billion-a-year\/\">$153 billion in annual costs<\/a>, largely due to government aid programs that keep them from dire poverty, the University of California Berkeley Labor Center found in a 2015 report.<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s not like they are suddenly hiring a lot more higher wage people,\u201d said Olivia LaVecchia, a researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a non-profit focused on local economies, about Amazon\u2019s hiring binge. \u201cIt underlines just how fast they are growing, and that\u2019s bad news for U.S. workers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It is the same situation at Amazon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Amazon said its domestic workforce has grown from 30,000 in 2011 to more than 180,000 by the end of 2016, largely stemming from the company\u2019s expansion of its warehouse fulfillment centers. Many of Amazon\u2019s warehouse workers are temporary, which allows the company to pay lower wages and provide fewer benefits, ILSR found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The American economy is like a big, unruly game of musical chairs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Some of the chairs in this game are luxurious recliners.<\/li><li>Some are comfortable office chairs.<\/li><li>Some are marginally reasonable bargain-basement chairs.<\/li><li>Many of the chairs in this game are the crappiest, oldest, rustiest folding chairs you can imagine (the &#8220;bad jobs&#8221;).<\/li><li>And a lot of people get no chair at all (the unemployed) because there are not nearly enough chairs to go around.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone in the crappy folding chairs, and everyone left without a chair at all, lives in or near poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we saw in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars.htm#Chap3\">Chapter 3<\/a>, a company like Nike is even worse. Nike creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in foreign countries, and then pays those workers something like $1 an hour. These jobs are&#8230; pick an adjective: horrible, disgusting, appalling, monstrous. But it is legal, so Nike&#8217;s attitude is &#8220;screw &#8217;em&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the nature of the economies we have created for planet Earth today. By design, these economies create billions of people living in poverty. And there is no incentive for things to get better. Every incentive for these companies is to make things worse, not better. When automation allows a company to eliminate jobs, it eliminates them. When labor laws are relaxed or don&#8217;t exist at all, companies like Nike will screw its employees as hard as it possibly can. This is the nature of things in most of the economies on planet Earth today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The economy for the Mars colony should be the opposite of this poverty-ridden, &#8220;screw &#8217;em&#8221; philosophy. The Mars colony should have an economy where&nbsp;<em>all<\/em>&nbsp;of the colonists benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The second problem with the economy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we have a situation in the United States, and around the world, where billions of people are destined to live in poverty. There is no way for them to have a decent standard of living, because there is no way for them to earn enough money to pay for it given the jobs available. If the only job you can get pays minimum wage, you are forced to take that job. Obviously you cannot cover your basic needs as a human being if you are paid minimum wage [<a href=\"http:\/\/livingwage.mit.edu\/\">ref<\/a>]. To reiterate:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Everyone needs high quality, healthy food<\/li><li>Everyone needs clean water and sanitation services<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality, safe, secure housing<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality health care<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality clothing<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality education<\/li><li>Everyone needs high quality transportation<\/li><li>Everyone needs 24&#215;7 electricity and Internet access<\/li><li>Everyone needs a computer and a smart phone to access the Internet<\/li><li>And so on&#8230;<\/li><li>And everyone needs these things in a way that is sustainable, so that we do not destroy the planet we live on.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>None of that is going to happen on minimum wage, especially if there are children in the picture. In the United States, it&#8217;s not going to happen on $10 per hour either, and millions of jobs in America pay $10 per hour or less, with few or no benefits, and no paid vacation or sick time [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/tanyamohn\/2013\/08\/13\/paid-time-off-forget-about-it-a-report-looks-at-how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries\/#5003f496f652\">ref<\/a>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is one problem. But there is a second problem that is just as bad, and it is this: prices have no real bounds. In the U.S. economy, companies can charge &#8220;what the market will bear&#8221; for a product or service. Thus, there is no rational basis for prices, and companies routinely jack prices up on a whim. Everyone in society has to pay these higher prices, and there is no recourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This pricing problem is best seen in the medical arena, and we have discussed it in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars.htm#Chap3\">Chapter 3<\/a>. Classic example: the EpiPen once cost $100, and the company that makes it jacked the price up to $600 over the course of several years. There was no reason for the price increase except greed, and there was nothing to stop the company, so the price rose and rose [<a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2016\/09\/21\/news\/companies\/mylan-epipen-house-oversight-committee\/index.html\">ref<\/a>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This sort of thing is happening thoughout the medical sector. Here is one example from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2017\/10\/16\/16357790\/health-care-prices-problem\">this article<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Fowler\u2019s parents knew the scan might cost them a few thousand dollars, based on their research into typical pediatric MRI scans. Even though they had one of the most generous Obamacare exchange plans available in California, they decided to go out of network to a clinic that specialized in their daughter\u2019s rare genetic condition. That meant their plan would cover half of a \u201cfair price\u201d MRI. <\/p><p>They were shocked a few months later when a bill arrived with a startling price tag: $25,000. The bill included $4,016 for the anesthesia, $2,703 for a recovery room, and $16,632 for the scan itself plus doctor fees. The insurance picked up only $1,547.23, leaving the family responsible for the difference: $23,795.47.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Why is it so expensive? Because the hospitals and doctors can charge anything they want. Prices have nothing to do with the cost of production. There is even a medicine now with a price tag of $750,000:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2017\/08\/01\/540100976\/drug-puts-a-750-000-price-tag-on-life\">Drug Puts A $750,000 &#8216;Price Tag On Life&#8217;<\/a><\/p><p>&#8220;It looks like a drug that works for a tragic condition that afflicts children and cripples and kills them. That&#8217;s the good news,&#8221; Dr. Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says of Spinraza. But &#8220;how in the world did the price of $750,000 a year get chosen?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;How in the world did the price of $750,000 a year get chosen?&#8221; It is simple. It got chosen the same way the price of the EpiPen did \u2013 it is completely arbitrary, and completely absurd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/corporate.walmart.com\/newsroom\/2017\/02\/21\/walmart-raises-annual-dividend-to-204-per-share-marking-44th-consecutive-year-of-dividend-increases\">We have discussed before the fact that Walmart pays billions of dollars in dividends per year:<\/a><\/p><p>Walmart raises annual dividend to $2.04 per share, marking 44th consecutive year of dividend increases<br>In fiscal year 2017, Walmart returned $14.5 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Where did the $14 billion come from? Walmart simply jacked up their prices arbitrarily, and then sent to $14 billion primarily to people who are already rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This kind of thing happens throughout the economy, as discussed in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars.htm#Chap3\">Chapter 3<\/a>. This unbelievable and unconscionable process is fueling a meteoric rise in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/ConcentrationOfWealth\/\">concentration of wealth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What should be the purpose of the Mars Colony?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A big part of this book has been to present the design of a new economic system \u2013 let&#8217;s call it Marsonomics \u2013 where the needs of all of the Mars colonists get met in the best way possible. How does Marsonomics work, as described in this book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>We start with the end in mind: we are designing an economy where&nbsp;<em>everyone<\/em>&nbsp;in the Mars colony should be able to live happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilling lives. Mars should have a properly designed economy where there is no poverty, and where there is none of the rampant inequality of the type seen in the United States and around the world today. Specifically:<ul><li>Everyone on Mars gets high quality, healthy food<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets clean water and sanitation services<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets high quality, safe, secure housing<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets high quality health care<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets high quality clothing<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets high quality education<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets high quality transportation<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets 24&#215;7 electricity and Internet access<\/li><li>Everyone on Mars gets a computer and a smart phone to access the Internet<\/li><li>And so on&#8230;<\/li><li>And everyone on Mars gets these things in a way that is sustainable, so that we do not destroy the planet we live on.<\/li><\/ul>As long as a colonist is willing to productively contribute his\/her human time and effort to the economy, the colonist is able to partake of the bounty of the Mars economy. In addition, as robotics, AI, automation, etc. advance, everyone in the Mars economy benefits because there is less and less work that the colonists collectively have to do.<\/li><li>So let&#8217;s take food as an example, as described in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars.htm#Chap4\">Chapters 4 and 5<\/a>&nbsp;of this book. To feed the one million Mars colonists, the colony needs to plant, grow, harvest, prepare and serve an appropriate amount of delicious, attractive, appetizing, high quality, healthy food. The level of preparation and variety described in this book is food on par with that seen on a cruise ship. This is not rocket science&#8230; On any given day, the colony needs so many pounds of white bread, so many pounds of wheat bread, so many pounds of gluten-free bread, etc. to eat. The colony needs so many pounds of white rice, brown rice, wild rice, etc. And so on. In order to make this happen, each day there is a certain number of tasks, requiring a certain number of human hours, that must be performed.<\/li><li>To handle all of the food tasks, the colony has a comprehensive computerized task allocation system. Colonists enter their preferences into the system (some people do not want to wake up or work before noon, some people are allergic to peanuts, some people prefer tasks of type A (e.g. baking bread) and some people prefer tasks of type B (e.g. driving tractors), etc.), and the system knows all of the tasks that need to be performed. The task allocation system divvies up all of the food preparation tasks amongst the colonists based on preferences and skills.<\/li><li>It is the same for clothing, as described in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars.htm#Chap6\">Chapter 6<\/a>. On any given day, the colony needs to produce a certain amount of clothing in a huge variety of colors, sizes and styles, based on all of the clothing items that the colonists have ordered on the prior day (or even the prior hour). All of these orders generate a list of tasks needed to produce all of the clothing, and the task allocation system allocates those tasks amongst the colonists based on preferences and skills.<\/li><li>It is the same for housing as described in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars7.htm#Chap7\">Chapters 7 and 8<\/a>. The colony needs to build and maintain the housing for the one million colonists, and on any given day there are X tasks that must be done to fulfill this obligation. The task allocation system divvies up all the housing tasks amongst the colonists based on preferences and skills.<\/li><li>[This book has generated a lot of feedback (and feedback is always welcome \u2013 find contact information&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/#contact\">here<\/a>). One question that arises is, &#8220;how will people feel about this task allocation system?&#8221; And the answer, if you think about it, is this: the vast majority of American workers already work for businesses and corporations under a task allocation system that is far less flexible and customizable, and drastically less rewarding, than this system proposed for Mars. The vast majority of Americans get a job, are told to arrive at work at a certain time each day, and are told exactly what do every minute of every day by a computer program or a manager.] [Please see the further discussion of this in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars23.htm#Chap23\">Chapter 23<\/a>.]<\/li><li>It is the same for every other thing that the colony needs to do every day. The colony needs police officers, fire fighters, electrical linesmen, chip makers, laptop assemblers, etc., (see&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars7.htm#Chap7\">Chapters 9 and up<\/a>), and all of these activities break down into a set of tasks each day. The task allocation system divvies all of these tasks up amongst the colonists based on preferences and skills.<\/li><li>There are some tasks (those of scientists, engineers, chip-making technicians, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc.) that require training, sometimes significant amounts of education and training. The task allocation system understands all of these education and training tasks and divvies them up amongst appropriately trained colonists. Colonists choose to become scientists, engineers, chip-making technicians, doctors, nurses, etc., and the colony provides all of the training they need to do their jobs.<\/li><li>There are some tasks that need to get done and that no one wants to do. There are several ways that these tasks can be handled: 1) They can be prioritized for research and then automated, so no one has to do them anymore, or 2) They can be distributed amongst all of the colonists to &#8220;spread out the pain&#8221; to everyone equally \u2013 everyone ends up doing a small number of unpleasant tasks, or 3) These unpleasant tasks can be offered with minor incentives in order to make them more attractive to some of the colonists, etc.<\/li><li>The colony wants science and technology to advance as quickly as possible, so the colony allocates quite a bit of human time on a daily basis to research and development. Researchers are creating new drugs, new robots, new CPU and laptop designs, etc. In addition, people can do R&amp;D on their own as described in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars18.htm#Chap18\">Chapter 18<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars24.htm#Chap24\">Chapter 24<\/a>. This is the same way that entertainment will be created for the colony as described in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars18.htm#Chap18\">Chapter 18<\/a>.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three huge advantages to Marsonomics for every Mars colonist:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>There is no poverty on Mars. Anyone who contributes their hours into the system partakes in the bounty of the Mars economy.<\/li><li>As AI, robots, automation, etc. take over more and more of the work, the amount of work that Mars colonists need to do declines. For example, when the research department creates robots that wash dishes in Mars&#8217; restaurants, people no longer need to wash dishes, so there are no more dish washing tasks assigned to people. The workload of the colony goes down, and everyone in the colony benefits. Initially everyone on Mars will be working 4 days a week (with 6 weeks per year of paid holiday, vacation and sick time &#8211; see&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars10.htm#Chap10\">Chapter 10<\/a>). As advancing AI robots take over jobs, this will reduce to 3 days a week, then 2, etc.<\/li><li>&#8220;Prices&#8221; are now completely rational. The &#8220;price&#8221; of anything is the number of human hours needed to create it. Rational pricing completely eliminates any concentration of wealth. If it took two minutes of human time to create a shirt, then a Mars colonist can have the shirt by contributing two minutes of time to the system (see also the concept of aggregated time in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars10.htm#Chap10\">Chapter 10<\/a>).<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Having designed an economy with this many significant advantages for Mars, we now make the obvious extrapolation: Let&#8217;s begin creating cities on Planet Earth today that apply Marsonomics. Let&#8217;s completely eliminate poverty and its associated suffering on Earth today by creating self-sufficient millon-person cities on Earth with Marsonomics as their economic foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the ultimate goal, and the ultimate potential, of the thought experiments we have explored in this book. Let&#8217;s think about how we can create a great economy for the Mars colony, and then let&#8217;s start applying that economy on Earth today. In doing so, we can radically improve the lives of billions of people on Earth, regardless of whether Elon Musk ever makes it to Mars or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you for reading,<br><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/gif\/mb-signature.gif\"><br>Marshall Brain<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mars Colony Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars-preface#Preface\">Preface<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars#Chap1\">Chapter 1<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Elon Musk Makes His Big Announcement about the Mars Colony<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars#Chap2\">Chapter 2<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; The Many Thought Experiments that Mars Inspires<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars#Chap3\">Chapter 3<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Why Do We Need a New Socio-Economic-Political System on Mars?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars#Chap4\">Chapter 4<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Imagining a New and Much Better Socio-Economic-Political System for the Mars Colony<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars#Chap5\">Chapter 5<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; What Happens When We Add a Massive Amount of Farm Automation to the Mars Colony?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars#Chap6\">Chapter 6<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How Will the Mars Colony Produce its Clothing?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars7#Chap7\">Chapter 7<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How Will Housing Work for the Mars Colony?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars8#Chap8\">Chapter 8<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How Will the Mars Colonists Construct Their Housing?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars9#Chap9\">Chapter 9<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How do we provide other services like water, sanitation, police force, fire department, health care, etc. for the Mars Colony?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars10#Chap10\">Chapter 10<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; What might a typical &#8220;work week&#8221; look like on Mars? Who gets a free ride on Mars? Who will do the undesirable jobs on Mars?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars11#Chap11\">Chapter 11<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; What do we do with lazy people on Mars? What do we do with the assholes?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars12#Chap12\">Chapter 12<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How would insurance work on Mars? Yes, insurance&#8230;<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars13#Chap13\">Chapter 13<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How will we make chips on Mars? Pharmaceuticals? Medical devices? &#8220;Stuff&#8221;? Will Mars be an actual backup plan for humanity?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars14#Chap14\">Chapter 14<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; What Will the Transportation System on Mars Look Like for Mars Colonists?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars15#Chap15\">Chapter 15<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; What will the political system look like? How will it be organized?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars16#Chap16\">Chapter 16<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Building Experimental Cities on Earth Today to Find the Optimal Configuration for the Mars Colony<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars17#Chap17\">Chapter 17<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How can we apply the Mars colony&#8217;s principles to the billions of refugees and impoverished people on planet Earth today?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars18#Chap18\">Chapter 18<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How will entertainment work on Mars? What types of entertainment will be available for Mars colonists?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars19#Chap19\">Chapter 19<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How will children work on Mars? Who gets to have children? What is the colony&#8217;s stance toward children?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars20#Chap20\">Chapter 20<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Starting the process of building experimental Mars colonies on Earth \u2013 Mars Colony Simulation 1000A<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars21#Chap21\">Chapter 21<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Can the economic system proposed for the Mars colony significantly improve the Welfare situation in the United States?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars22#Chap22\">Chapter 22<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How much land will the Mars colony need?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars23#Chap23\">Chapter 23<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Thought Experiment: What If Everyone Makes the Same Wage?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars24#Chap24\">Chapter 24<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; How Will Innovation Work on Mars?<\/li><li><a href=\"httsp:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars25#Chap25\">Chapter 25<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Will there be advertising on Mars?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars26#Chap26\">Chapter 26<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; What should be the ultimate goal of the Mars colony?<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars-restaurant-floor-plans\">Appendix A<\/a> &#8211; Restaurants<\/li><li>Interviews with Marshall Brain on the Mars Colony:<ul><li>Inside the Rift,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidetherift.net\/business-technology\/2017\/10\/19\/the-second-intelligent-species-marshall-brain-on-jobs-mars-and-technology\">The Second Intelligent Species: Marshall Brain on Jobs, Mars, and Technology<\/a><\/li><li>&#8220;Stuff They Don&#8217;t Want You to Know&#8221; Podcast,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.stufftheydontwantyoutoknow.com\/podcasts\/moving-to-mars.htm\">Moving to Mars with Marshall Brain<\/a><\/li><li>&#8220;The State of Entrepreneurship&#8221; Podcast,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NCStateEI\/videos\/1590821230975861\/\">Entrepreneurship and Mars<\/a><\/li><li>Institute for Emerging Issues, First in Future Podcast,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/iei.ncsu.edu\/tag\/marshall-brain\/\">Parts 1 and 2<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>See also:<ul><li>Links about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/MuskMarsColony\/\">The Elon Musk Mars Colony<\/a><\/li><li>Links about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/ConcentrationOfWealth\/\">The Concentration of Wealth<\/a><\/li><li>Links about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/2ndIntelligentSpecies\/\">Robot advances and the second intelligent species<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>[Feedback and suggestions on any part of this book are greatly appreciated. Contact information is&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/#contact\">here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagining Elon Musk&#8217;s Million-Person Mars Colony &#8211; The greatest thought experiment of all time by&nbsp;Marshall Brain Chapter 26 What should be the goal of the Mars colony? As I finish this Chapter, it is October 15, 2017. It is a little more than a year since Elon Musk made his big Million-Person Mars Colony announcement, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/mars26\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Imagining Elon Musk&#8217;s Million-Person Mars Colony &#8211; Chapter 26<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-258","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}