People are people, no matter what planet you put them on. For author Sam Wilson, that means that his book The First Murder on Mars isn’t just about the human action in the title, but so much more as well.
SAM WILSON:
My wife Kerry is a biochemist, and back in 2015 she got together with some friends to start an event called Science Cafe.
Here’s how it worked: Every month they would book out a steampunk coffee shop in Cape Town, and bring in scientists to give enthusiastic lectures on their areas of expertise. The talks were less than an hour long and aimed at a general audience, and the topics included the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, indigenous medicine, biomimicry, string theory, and gravitational waves. There was beer and pizza, and the place was always packed.
But one of the talks in particular stuck with me. It was by Kai Staats, who is currently one of the project co-leads on SAM, the world’s highest fidelity simulated Mars habitat. He was talking about inhabiting Mars, and at the end of the lecture he said something that I’ve run through my head so many times that I’ve probably replaced every word of it, Ship-Of-Theseus-style. Here it is, to the best of my recollection:
‘When people first arrive on Mars, things will be simple. They will all be scientists or engineers, and they will all working towards the same goal. Everyone will know and trust each other. But slowly, the population will grow. People will be born, and people will arrive from Earth, and eventually things will stop being simple. There will be distrust, there will be inequality, and there will be crime. So, at what point will they need laws? At what point will there be the first police officer? When will the first politician appear? Will they split into separate nations? Will there be wars? Is it guaranteed to happen, and if so, when?”
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Source: The Big Idea: Sam Wilson
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