Environment

Space Colonization: The Survival Argument

July 26, 2021 by Michael LaBossiere Leave a Comment

Robert Heinlein sold me the moon; Ray Bradbury sold me Mars. Because of this, I love the idea of space colonization. This is a trait I share with Elon Musk. But unlike Musk I am willing to look critically at the arguments for (and against) investing in such colonization.

One good argument for colonizing Mars is the survival argument. As many others have pointed out, humanity is a one-world species: we have all our eggs in this one basket. So, if all the humans on earth are killed, then that is it for humans. But, so the argument goes, if we colonize (for example) Mars, then the odds of humanity surviving increase significantly. While this argument has some appeal, it needs to be considered in a bit more depth.

For a space colony to provide that second basket for survival, it would need to meet (at least) two conditions. First, it would need to be isolated from earth extinction events. Second, it would need to be self-sufficient (or not reliant on earth).

In terms of the first condition, the reason for this is obvious: if the colony would be extinguished by the same extermination event that ends humanity on earth, then the colony would not allow humans to survive. There are, of course, extinction events that a space colony would be isolated from. One example is the killer asteroid: unless a second asteroid is on its way to the colony, a space colony would be unaffected by the earth getting hit by a big space rock. One concern about spending resources on a colony for this purpose is that one could argue that spending the same resources on survival on earth would save more people. The clear exception would be a strike that would kill everyone on earth, no matter what we did in terms of such things as survival bunkers and other preparation.

Another example is environmental collapse on earth. This would not directly impact the colony since it would be on another planet (or elsewhere). A concern with this example is that almost any plausible environmental disaster would still leave earth vastly more habitable than places like the moon or Mars. So, if the goal is to survive an environmental collapse, then investing on earth would be a more cost-effective approach. What would be a vastly superior approach would be to use these resources to prevent this collapse. But if the collapse was unavoidable and would render the earth worse than (for example) Mars, then a colony would make sense.

Unfortunately for the idea of using a space colony as insurance against extinction, there are many extinction events that would also destroy the colony because it could not be isolated from them. One obvious example is war: if a war on earth results in extinction there, this war would almost certainly result in the destruction of any space colonies as well. It is possible they might survive, but unlikely in such a war of extinction. Another extinction event that would easily spread to a colony would be disease. In many scenarios, the disease would not be recognized as an extinction level threat until it already reached the colony. Even if the threat of the disease were recognized in time, the COVID pandemic has shown that “Space Republicans” are a very real possibility and that they would undermine efforts to isolate the colony. Humanity could thus go extinct so that a few politicians could score some last political points and own the “Space Liberals.”

One can also make the argument that an isolated space colony could help humanity rebuild from a planet-wide disaster. This is not a bad argument, aside from the weakness that having disaster recovery in place on earth would almost certainly be more cost effective and more practical. In terms of surviving an extinction event, if it is something that the colony can be isolated from, then it could provide that second basket that would allow humanity to survive. This would require that the colony be self-sufficient.

In terms of self-sufficiency, this is an obvious requirement. Even if a colony survived the extinction event that destroyed humanity on earth, the death of the colony would only be postponed if it depended on earth. As such, a colony justified by the survival argument would need to be able to survive without support from earth. Naturally, if there are multiple colonies, then they could depend on each other as long as they were collectively self-sufficient.

Since the other planets and moons in the solar system are incredibly hostile environments, creating a self-sufficient colony with a large enough population to keep the human race going would be incredibly challenging. Colonizing Death Valley, Everest, or the ocean would be simple and easy by comparison. This is not to claim that a self-sufficient colony is impossible, but this would require immense investment and probably centuries. Colonization efforts here on earth have failed on numerous occasions, even with support. As such, counting on a space colony as a second basket for humanity’s eggs is unreasonable for the foreseeable future. As many others have argued, investing in making life on earth better would provide a far greater return. This, I admit, pains me to say—for I have long dreamed of Mars and worlds beyond.

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Helping Nature

June 11, 2021 by Michael LaBossiere 3 Comments

On a morning run I came across a sign in the park informing me that the city was “helping nature by controlling invasive plants.” This process involves herbicides and machetes. My adopted city of Tallahassee is quite active in addressing invasive species. Laying aside the various concerns about herbicides, this raises many philosophical issues.

On the one hand, the phrase “helping nature” can be dismissed as a rhetorical device. It presents the destruction of invasive species as a benign act and, one might suspect, is intended to offset negative feelings some might have towards the use of herbicides. As you smell the chemicals and feel your skin and mouth itch a bit, you will know that this is all for the good of nature. On the other hand, it does imply a value position on what helps nature. Let us look at this.

Taken at face value, the implication of the sign is that invasive species harm nature and thus it is good for humans to kill them. An easy and obvious reply is that invasive species are also part of nature. For example, feral hogs, Burmese pythons, and Nandina are natural beings and they are, one would assume, not helped by being killed by humans.

A moral way to counter this is to advance a utilitarian argument: allowing the invasive species to thrive will do more harm to the ecosystem and its inhabitants than killing them. As such, killing invasive species is the right thing to do (at least in such cases). This approach would allow for invasive species to be left alone if their presence created more good than harm for the ecosystem.

While this does seem to be a reasonable approach, it does suffer from an obvious practical concern of doing a rational and informed calculation of what is likely to be best for nature. Humans have generally proven bad at this—so such assessments need to be critically assessed.

Another counter to the idea that we should “help nature” is that nature (taken as a shorthand for the ecosystems and their inhabitants) has always involved species migrating to new areas. Animals, obviously enough, do travel and have spread around the world. Plants can also spread far and wide, such as when seeds are inadvertently transported in the stomachs of birds. Assuming that life originated in one or a few locations, then this has been going on since the beginning of life on earth. And it continues to this day; the natural world is not static, and species are constantly on the move.

I am not arguing that this feature of nature is “good” because it seems to have always been (that would be a fallacy). Rather, the point is that is how nature works: species moving is natural and hence interfering with it does not really “help nature.”

Yet another counter to “helping nature” is to note that the idea of helping nature would seem to entail that nature has a purpose, goal, or end that we can assist with. The idea of nature having an end is well known in philosophy, although it is generally rejected these days.

But Aristotle famously claimed that all natural beings have ends, thus arguing for a teleological reality. To use a simple example, an acorn has the purpose, goal, or end of becoming an oak tree. If one looks at nature in teleological terms, then we could help nature by assisting it in achieving its purpose. This matter can get complicated if natural being have competing ends, but it would make sense to help or harm nature if one holds to a teleological view. There is also a religious option.

One could, of course, embrace a religious view that grounds a teleological view of the natural world. One could embrace, for example, the existence of a goddess of nature and thus help nature by helping her achieve her ends. Or one could accept the existence of God and help God by assisting the natural world achieve God’s ends. One would just need to sort out what the deity wanted to help nature. But some might find such supernatural things problematic. In that case, one could turn to human values.

If we accepted a teleological view of nature, then we can argue that we should deal with the invasive species they introduced by accident or design—such as cane toads, rats, mussels, and many plants. We are accountable for our actions, perhaps even when they are unintentional. One could even argue that what we do is artificial rather than natural, hence we need to undo the unnatural things we have done or allowed to happen. Interestingly, this would seem to entail that we are the most invasive species of all and thus we should restore ourselves to our original habitat and return the world to some specific time of species distribution. Interestingly, this does make this sort of conservation analogous to the conservative world view in politics: a desire to restore the world to some preferred (perhaps imagined) past state of things. The obvious problem, given the endless change, is deciding on which time defines the “correct” past state of things. This leads us to human values.

In general, species are condemned as invasive based on their impact on human beings. For example, we North Americans do not usually label our dogs as an invasive species. This is not because our dogs are original inhabitants of North America, but because we like dogs. Recently arriving species generally get labeled as invasive when we do not like what they are doing. For example, Floridians generally do not like the non-native species that are overrunning bodies of water in the state. This is because of the impact they have on us. This is analogous to how people look at the migration of other people: people are fine with people they like coming here. But they get very angry when the people they think should not be here come here. And, of course, they slap negative labels on them and argue for their removal. So, it is essentially a migration thing. But let us get back to non-human species.

Since I do think humans matter morally, I do think that we have the right to consider the impact of species on our well-being. But we should be honest when we do this: we should not claim that we are helping nature, we should own the fact that someone is doing what they claim will benefit them. This is something to be addressed in ethics, sorting out what is right based on the correct moral theory (if there is such a thing).

Being a self-interested human, I do agree morally with some efforts to address species we call invasive. For example, the park near my house is infested with tung trees. These trees were introduced to the United States intentionally to produce tung oil. This industry failed, but the trees spread throughout Florida—including where I live. I dislike the trees for two main reasons. The first is minor; their fruit presents a small falling hazard. The second is that every part of the tree is poisonous. The leaves can cause a reaction like poison ivy and a single seed can be a fatal dose of poison. I do recognize they are as much a part of nature as I am and hence do not argue that they should be removed because they are not native. Rather, I am fine with their removal for the same reason I would be fine with removing broken glass from the park: they are a hazard.

To close, merely being invasive would not warrant the removal or destruction of species in an area. Otherwise, we would need to be removed or destroyed in most parts of the world. Rather, this is a matter for moral (and practical) assessment. Talking about “nature” and labeling species as “invasive” is mostly a matter of rhetoric and we would be better off being honest about what we are doing and why.

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Bats & Climate Change

November 30, 2018 by Michael LaBossiere 7 Comments

One side effect of the politicization of climate change is that there is resistance to address or even recognize problems associated with it. This is unfortunate, because the harm for these problems will be costly and widespread. One example of such a problem is the apparent impact of the changing climate on bat migration.

One example is that bats which migrate from Mexico to Texas are arriving ever earlier for the summer and some do not migrate back for the winter. For those who care about bats, the problem for them is that the bats might not be able to get enough food, thus causing a decline in their population. This provides yet another moral reason to address climate change. Even those who do not care about bats have a good reason to be concerned about their plight, if only for selfish reasons.

Although bats have a Halloween reputation as scary monsters, they are quite beneficial to humans (at least when not infected with rabies). Bats seek and devour a huge quantity of insect pests that would otherwise devour key commercial crops, such as soybeans and potatoes. While an exact measure of the economic value of bats is not possible, it is estimated that the value of bats to the United States economy is about $23 billion dollars—making bats an incredible valuable resource.

If bat behavior is altered by climate change, especially if this reduces their population, the impact on United States agriculture could be devastating, especially if the changing climate also increases the population of crop damaging insects. As such, this provides yet another practical reason to address climate change. There is also a moral reason here as well. While agriculture would not be destroyed by the decline in the bat population, the loss of this free service would almost certainly lead to a reduction in available food and increase the costs of food. This would be an added burden on the many Americans who already have difficulty in affording enough food for themselves and their families. It would also be harmful to the farmers and those who work the farms.

One reasonable reply to the moral and practical concerns is to point out that pesticide companies and seed companies will see an opportunity to profit from this situation. They will create and sell new pesticides to kill the pests that the bats now eat for free. They will also develop and sell new patented plants that will resist these pests. Then, as the insects adapt, they will create and sell newer pesticides and seeds. As such, it could be argued that the decline of bats would be good for these companies—they can make a profit. The bats, after all, do the job for free and merely save the farmers money—they are practically socialists.

While this would be a boon for the seed and pesticide companies, it would still have the effect of increasing the price of food—the farmers would need to pay for what was once a free service. There are also the obvious concerns about the environmental and health impact of new pesticides and their widespread use. Those who are wary of genetically modified foods (I am not) would also be concerned about the engineered seeds. As such, it is preferable for everyone (other than the companies that would profit from the decline of the bats) to take efforts to address climate change and keep those socialist bats working for America.

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Regulations II: For the Birds

November 9, 2018 by Michael LaBossiere 2 Comments

The weaponization of ecological issues entails that it is very difficult to have a rational approach to regulation. When the left puts forth regulation, they can be cast by the right as aiming to destroy jobs because of a deranged preference for snail darters over humans. When the right opposes regulation, they can be cast by the left as willing to kill us all out of a preference for corporate profits over the well being of other humans and the planet. This is problematic and can easily result in a seesaw of regulation as each party takes and loses power. While there is no one solution to this problem, a rational approach would be to try to de-weaponize ecological issues by endeavoring to develop solutions that allow for benefits to both business and to the inhabitants of the ecosystem. As an example, I will use the matter of seabirds.

While sea food is delicious and nutritious, modern fishing techniques kill hundreds of thousands of seabirds each year. For example, albatrosses will take the bait used in longline fishing and be pulled under the water to drown. As another example, penguins can get caught in gill nets and drown. These dead birds have no value—they are merely an unfortunately bycatch whose carcasses are garbage rather than profit.

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Fortunately for the birds and those who would hug them, there are various techniques that can reduce the death toll. For example, long line fishing can be made safer for birds with streamers to scare them away or by weighting the lines so that they sink out of reach of diving birds. As would be suspected, methods of protecting birds tend to involve some expense and can make things more difficult for the crews. As such, regulations requiring that fishing vessels use these protective devices and measures impose costs on the industry which, in turn, can impact the pay of the fishing crews and the cost of seafood. Because of this, it would be rational of the industry to oppose such regulations in order to avoid these costs.

While some might be tempted to dismiss this as mere obsession with profit in the face of an avian genocide, simply attacking the industry means that the industry will double down on its opposition and use financial resources to lobby against regulations—thus making it even harder for the environmentalists to get their desired regulations in place. It is also worth noting that aggressive opposition by industry will motivate the environmentalists to double down as well, thus making it harder for industry to get what they want. In this scenario, the big winners are the lobbyists and those profiting from the propaganda campaigns; although either industry or environmentalists will also win, albeit at great expense. But this also means that one side will lose and thus a “victory” of this sort would seem to be a less than ideal result. It would be preferable for everyone (but the lobbyists and agents of propaganda) if a proposal could be developed that would be beneficial to both sides—that would protect the birds while also benefiting the industry.

On the face of it, it seems hard to imagine that protecting birds would be beneficial to the seafood industry in any significant way. After all, they would be required to purchase and deploy equipment as well as to adopt methods to protect birds. There seems to be no profit and only loss in this.

One possible advantage is that protecting birds can pay off in public relations—a company can tout that it is bird safe and perhaps make up for the cost of this though improved sales and by increasing prices that guilty liberals are willing to pay. However, it would be even better if protecting birds was also profitable or at least offset the cost of protecting them. One example of where this can occur is longline fishing.

An estimated 160,000 albatrosses and petrels are killed each year when they get hooked on longlines. While this is obvious bad for the birds, it is also costly to the industry. First, they must waste time removing dead birds from their lines. Second, and more importantly for them, each bird they hook is a fish they are not hooking. As such, keeping birds off their lines means that they can catch more fish and this means more profits. As such, regulations that protect birds can be a win for the bird lovers and the industry. This does lead to an obvious objection.

Those who oppose regulations can make the sensible point that if such methods of bird protection are advantageous to the industry, there is no reason to impose regulations—out of rational self-interest industry will do it anyway. So, why create and impose regulations when there is no need?

Since I favor minimal state intrusion, I find this appealing: why impose by law what people would do anyway? Especially when such an imposition might motivate people to be contrary and not do it, simply because they are being told to do so. To use an analogy, think of seat belt laws. Wearing a seat belt is a good idea and people should do so, but some people refuse to wear them because there is a law requiring them to do so. It makes more sense to inform people of the benefits of seat belts and let rational self-interest motivate them.

The obvious counter is that people generally do not seem to operate in accord with rational self-interest. If they did, everyone would eat as well as they could and exercise as often as they could. As such, to follow Aristotle, people must often be compelled to do what is best. So, while protecting seabirds would be in the interest of industry, they are unlikely to do so just because it is in their interest. As such, there is the need for regulation that would compel them to act in their own interest and to do the right thing by not killing birds needlessly. To use another analogy, while it is rational for people to learn how to drive properly before driving a car, there seems to be a need for the state to compel people to do this and to control drivers’ licenses. That is, the state must compel people to do what is in their rational self-interest.

While I do favor freedom, I also hold that freedom can be justly limited on moral grounds—that is, when allowing liberty creates significant harms. So, for example, while people should be free to have pets, I am fine with regulations that forbid people from walking around in public with lions, tigers or bears on leashes. The challenge, as always, is balancing liberty against harms.

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Regulations I: The Problem

November 7, 2018 by Michael LaBossiere 12 Comments

While we all live on earth and suffer from environmental degradation and climate change, these matters have become political weapons. On the left, the outer edges engage in attacks on the existing political and economic systems. They tend to characterize business as willing to harm or even kill us to stack up more profits. This allows conservatives to cast those concerned with the environment as radicals who are out to destroy jobs. As such, those on the right often regard any concerns about the environment or extinction of species as leftist plots to destroy their beloved capitalism. In many cases, this view has been manufactured and fed by economic interests to a degree that results in an outright rejection of scientific evidence and empirical experience.

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Since environmental issues have become intensely political and baked into the tribal identities of the political parties it is very difficult to discuss environmental concerns rationally in the public arena. After all, if many of those in power are dedicated to denying that problems even exist, it becomes extremely difficult to work on solutions. This is analogous in some ways to trying to address drug addiction when the addict refuses to accept that there is even a problem.

In some cases there are those who have a clear economic interest in denial or opposition. For example, the heads of industry tend to want to avoid health and safety regulations that would cost them profits. It must be admitted that some regulations are needlessly burdensome, but this fact does not prove that all regulations are bad. There are regulations that are clearly just, such as those that aim at protecting people from serious health threats. These are also regulations that are just in the sense that they aim to put the burden of the costs on the industry rather than allowing them to shift costs onto others. For example, restrictions on dangerous pollutants put the cost of dealing with them on industry, rather than shifting them onto the people in the contamination areas in the form of damage to their health.

Even in cases in which regulations would impose minimal costs or even provide benefits, companies tend to fight them. This might be due to mere ignorance of the benefits. For example, the railroad owners initially opposed safety equipment for trains on the grounds of cost—but it turned out that this equipment advantageous. There is also the possible influence of ideology—that the market should be free of state regulation. Of course, this ideology seems rather tolerant of restrictive regulation that benefits the established companies (think, for example, of the effective cable monopolies). There is also a strategic advantage in opposing all regulation—if one yields nothing (even to beneficial regulation), then it is easy to hold off any other regulations. Individuals also oppose regulations for similar reasons, often under the influence of the companies that dislike those regulations.

It would, obviously enough, be wrong to try to force regulations onto companies that would be ineffective or harmful. It is equally obvious that just and beneficial regulations would be morally acceptable. Aside from those who oppose (or love) all regulations, these two claims are quite plausible. It is also obvious that people disagree about where particular regulations fall; that is, whether they are beneficial or harmful. Matters are also complicated by the obvious fact that regulations tend to involve a mix of harms and benefits and sorting them out is challenging.

While I am sometimes cast as an anti-business leftist, I do recognize the importance of companies in human civilization. I rather like living in a technological society with computers, supermarkets and airlines. That said, I also recognize the importance of having a healthy ecosystem. So, I hold that there needs to be a careful balance between our technological civilization and the ecosystem of which we are a part. Unfortunately, the various sides have tended to weaponize these matters and demonize each other, thus making it rather difficult to create and implement rational solutions to real problems. The gist of the problem is that even reasonable proposals get made into straw men and are often attacked savagely with well-funded ad campaigns. This, obviously enough, is not conducive with creating and implementing rational and just solutions.

Since I teach philosophy professionally, I am aware of what Aristotle said long ago: reason is the weakest form of persuasion. Having taught critical thinking for decades, I know that people are best swayed by fallacies (logically defective arguments) and empty rhetoric (no argument at all). As such, the best way to motivate acceptance of rational and just regulation would be to avoid logic and use the tools of rhetoric and fallacies to get people to accept them for the wrong (or no) reasons. This can, of course, be justified on utilitarian moral grounds. However, a philosopher should feel some shame (as a philosopher) for using such methods. But, perhaps, it is possible to win people over with reason. This will be discussed in the next essay.

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Space Mining

October 10, 2018 by Michael LaBossiere 1 Comment

Asteroid and lunar mining are stock features of science fiction, but there are those who hope to make them a reality. While the idea of space mining might seem far-fetched, asteroids and the moon contain useful resources. While space mining probably brings to mind images of belters extracting gold from asteroids, one of the most valuable resources in space is water. Though cheap and plentiful on earth, it is obviously very expensive to transport it into space. While the most obvious use of space water is for human consumption, it also provides a raw material for fuels and has (as on earth) many uses in industry. Naturally, miners will presumably also seek minerals, metals and other resources.

My love of science fiction, especially GDW’s classic RPG Traveller, makes me favorably inclined towards space mining. For me, that is part of the future we were promises. But, as a philosopher, I have some ethical concerns about mining in space.

When it comes to any sort of mining, two important moral concerns are the impact on the environment and the impact on humans. Terrestrial mining has generally been devastating to the environment. This includes the direct damage caused by extracting the resources and the secondary effects, such as lasting chemical contamination. These environmental impacts in turn impact human populations. These impacts can include directly killing people (a failed retaining wall that causes drowning deaths) and indirectly harming people (such as contamination of the water supply). As such, mining on earth generally involves serious moral concerns. In contrast, space mining would seem to avoid these problems.

Unlike the heavily populated planet earth, asteroids and the moon are lifeless rocks in space. As such, they do not seem to have any ecosystems to damage. While the asteroids that are mined will often be destroyed in the process, it is difficult to argue that destroying an asteroid to mine it would be wrong based on environmental concerns. While destroying the moon would obviously be bad, mining operations there would seem to be morally acceptable because there is no environment to worry about.

Since space mining takes place in space, the human population of earth will be safely away from any side effects of mining. It is worth noting that should humans colonize the moon or asteroids, then space mining could have an impact on these populations. But, for the foreseeable future, there will be no humans living near the mining areas. Because of the lack of harm, space mining is morally acceptable.

It might, however, be objected that asteroids and the moon be left unmined despite the absence of life and ecosystems. The challenge is providing a plausible reason as to why mining lifeless rocks would be wrong. One possible approach is to contend that the asteroids and the moon somehow have rights that would make mining them wrong. However, rocks do not seem to be the sort of things that can have rights. Another approach is to argue that people who really care about the asteroids and the moon would somehow be harmed by there being mined. While I am certainly open to arguments that would grant these rocks protection from mining, the burden of proof would seem to be on those who wish to make this claim.

Thus, it would seem there are not any reasonable moral arguments against the mining of the asteroids based on environmental concerns or potential harm to humans. That could, of course, change if ecosystems were found on asteroids or if it turned out that the asteroids performed an important role in the solar system that affected terrestrial ecosystems. While this result favors space mining, the moral concerns are not limited to environmental harms.

There are, as would be suspected, the usual moral concerns about the working conditions and pay of space miners. Of course, these concerns are not specific to space mining and going into labor ethics would take this short essay too far afield. However, the situation in space does make the ethics of ownership relevant.

From a moral standpoint, the ethics of who can justly claim ownership of asteroids and the moon is of great concern. From a practical standpoint, it is reasonable to expect that matters will play out as usual: those with the biggest guns and most money will decide who owns the rocks. If it follows the usual pattern, corporations will end up owning the rocks and will try to exploit them for significant profits. But how things will probably play out does not determine how they should play out. Fortunately, philosophers considered this sort of situation long ago,

While past philosophers probably did not give much thought to space mining, asteroids (and the moon) fit nicely into the state of nature scenarios envisioned by thinkers like Hobbes and Locke. There are resources in abundance with no effective authority over them. Naturally, the authorities can do things on earth to people involved with activities in space, but it will be quite some time before there are space police (though we have been promised a space force).

Since there are no rightful owners (or, alternatively, we are all potentially rightful owners), it is tempting to claim the resources are there for the taking. That is, the resources belong to whoever, in Locke’s terms, mixes their labor with it and makes it their own (or more likely their employer’s own). This does have a certain appeal. After all, if me and my fellows in Mike’s Mining construct a robot ship that flies out to asteroid and mines it, we seem to have earned the right to those resources through our efforts. Before our ship mined it for water and metal, these valuable resources were just drifting in space, surrounded by rock. It would thus seem to follow that we would have the right to grab as many asteroids as we can. As would our competitors. This would be a rock rush in space.

But, Locke also has his famous proviso: those who take from the common resources must leave as much and as good for others. While this proviso has been grotesquely violated on earth, the asteroids provide us with a new opportunity to consider how to share (or not) resources.

It can be argued that there is no obligation to leave as much and as good for others in space and that things should be on a strict first grab, first get approach. After all, the people who get their equipment into space would have done the work (or put up the money) and hence (as argued above) be entitled to all they can grab and use or sell. Other people are free to grab what they can, if they have access to the resources needed to reach and mine the asteroids. Naturally, the folks who lack the resources to compete will end up, as they always do, out of luck and poor.

While this has a certain selfish appeal, a case can be made for sharing. One obvious reason is that the people who reach the asteroids first to mine them did not create the ability to do so out of nothing. After all, reaching the asteroids will be the result of centuries of human civilization that made such technology possible. As such, there would seem to be a general debt owed to humanity and paying this off would involve contributing to the general good of humanity. Naturally, this line of reasoning can be countered by arguing that the successful miners will benefit humanity when their profits “trickle down” from space. It could also be argued that the idea of a debt to past generations is absurd as is the notion of the general good of humanity. This is, of course, the view that the selfish and ungrateful would embrace.

Second, there is the concern for not only the people who are alive today but also for the people to be. To use an analogy, think of a buffet line at party: the mere fact that I am first in line does not give me the right to devour everything I can stuff into my snack port. If I did that at a party, I would be rightly regarded as a terrible person. It also does not give me the right to grab whatever I cannot eat so I can sell it to those who has the misfortune to be behind me in line. Again, if I did that, I would be rightly regarded as a horrible person who should be stopped. As such, these resources should be treated in a similar manner, namely fairly and with some concern for those who are behind the first people in line. As such, the mining of space resources should include limits aimed at benefiting those who do not happen to get there first to grab the goodies.

In closing, it should be noted that space is really big. Because of this, it could be argued that there are plenty of resources out there, so it is morally acceptable for the people who get there first to grab as much as they can. After all, no matter how much they grab, there will be plenty left somewhere. While this does have some appeal, there is an obvious problem: it is not just a matter of how much is out there, but how much can be reached at this time. Going back to the buffet analogy, if I stuffed myself with as much as I could grab and started trying to sell the rest to others behind me in line, then simply yelling “there are other buffets out there” would hardly get me off the moral hook.

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