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Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

economist.com

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Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#51

Post by themacguffinman »

crsv wrote: post #47
whatshisface wrote: post #5

Law doesn't come from (or shouldn't come from) unqualified legislators guessing about what the future will be like and what problems will be there. Law comes from when somebody has a grievance against somebody else, and society steps in to resolve it. Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems that would arise,…

Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems that would arise, and then wrote laws banning and permitting things that they thought would lead to trouble? There is no way somebody back then could predict which situations would lead to trouble decades later. You mean like everyone who's talking about AI policy right…

It's just as ridiculous to do so in AI.

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#52

Post by taejo »

whatshisface wrote: post #9
nerdponx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that pretty much what the US Constitution was?

It would have been if the US was the first country.

The United States Constitution wasn't even the first constitutive document of the United States! It was very much informed by the experiences, not only of other countries, but also very much of the Articles of Confederation.

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#54

Post by antepodius »

ajmurmann wrote: post #50
ls612 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that most of these commons issues are related to ecosystems on earth, which are blissfully absent in space.

I'm curious to see if or how long that will hold true. We already have been seeing outcry over light pollution caused by SpaceX massive satellite formation.

I'd say low earth orbit is qualitatively different from, say, an asteroid somewhere.

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#55

Post by acpetrov »

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #48
L_226 wrote: post #42

Pretty sure as soon as there is permanent human habitation in space, any "Space Law" as determined by Earth lawyers is going to become wishful thinking really quickly. Good luck trying to enforce mining rights or even copyright on Ceres, using Earth law.

Its pretty easy to enforce if the disputes are between two parties that are at all Earth based. There will be a significant period of permanent habitation before there is self sustaining habitation. And you really cant afford to tell earth to screw off until you're self sufficient.

Self sufficient may not be enough either. A rebelling colony needs guns, not just food

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#56

Post by acpetrov »

Havoc wrote: post #53

>is space mining even legal? Who's gonna stop you? It is for all intents and purposes wild west...except constrained by which geopolitical relationships the launching country/company is keen to maintain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Space_Launch_Compet... USA recently allowed it for their citizens

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#57

Post by lonelappde »

Havoc wrote: post #53

>is space mining even legal? Who's gonna stop you? It is for all intents and purposes wild west...except constrained by which geopolitical relationships the launching country/company is keen to maintain.

If you are going to bring your kind stuff back to earth, earthlings might stop you.

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#58

Post by JoeSamoa »

crsv wrote: post #47
whatshisface wrote: post #5

Law doesn't come from (or shouldn't come from) unqualified legislators guessing about what the future will be like and what problems will be there. Law comes from when somebody has a grievance against somebody else, and society steps in to resolve it. Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems that would arise,…

Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems that would arise, and then wrote laws banning and permitting things that they thought would lead to trouble? There is no way somebody back then could predict which situations would lead to trouble decades later. You mean like everyone who's talking about AI policy right…

There have been people who have predicted exactly the direction we are headed like Richard Stallman.

I think though that the number of people with that kind of vision and foresight are few.

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#59

Post by martamoreno2 »

simonh wrote: post #27
tempsolution wrote: post #18

Yeah as if Earth doesn't have any other problems right now than putting million of super-rich people into space lol. What a stupid waste of time and resources. Maybe there should be some laws indeed for Earth orbit, for instance, banning densely populated, orbiting space craft, for starters. Or fixing or problems on Earth before spending hundreds of billions on useless space projects. We might not be around long enou…

Ban stuff because.... well, because bah humbug. Humanity can apparently only do one thing at a time. Also you get to decide what people should or shouldn't be allowed to do, and when. Nice.

Interesting comment. So your style of commenting consists of creating arbitrary statements that were not present in other people's comments, ignoring the valid claims they had and sprinkling it with a touch of stupidity of your own?

Anyone who thinks populating space and space governance at this point in time should be a priority, obviously has no idea about where our planet is heading right now. And judging by the utter uselessness of space exploration at this point in time, it's not too hard to realize that these billions spent for landing even just a rover on Mars, would be better invested in any other project that improves the place where we actually live...

Re: Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there

#60

Post by dahfizz »

JoeSamoa wrote: post #58
crsv wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems that would arise, and then wrote laws banning and permitting things that they thought would lead to trouble? There is no way somebody back then could predict which situations would lead to trouble decades later. You mean like everyone who's talking about AI policy right…

There have been people who have predicted exactly the direction we are headed like Richard Stallman. I think though that the number of people with that kind of vision and foresight are few.

> I think though that the number of people with that kind of vision and foresight are few.

It also often comes from domain experts, and almost never from politicians.

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