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Everyone is planning to return to the moon. At least 10 missions by half a dozen nations are scheduled before the end of 2021, and that's only the beginning.
Even though there are international treaties governing outer space, ambiguity remains about how individuals, nations and corporations can use lunar resources.
In all of this, the moon is seen as an inert object with no value in its own right.
But should we treat this celestial object, which has been part of the culture of every hominin for millions of years, as just another resource?
[...] As a thought experiment in how we might regulate lunar exploitation, some have asked whether the moon should be granted legal personhood, which would give it the right to enter into contracts, own property, and sue other persons.
Legal personhood is already extended to many non-human entities: certain rivers, deities in some parts of India, and corporations worldwide. Environmental features can't speak for themselves, so trustees are appointed to act on their behalf, as is the case for the Whanganui River in New Zealand. One proposal is to apply the New Zealand model to the moon.
[...] Can we support the legal concept of personhood for the moon with actual features of personhood?
Journal Reference:
Eytan Tepper, Christopher Whitehead. Moon, Inc.: The New Zealand Model of Granting Legal Personality to Natural Resources Applied to Space, New Space (DOI: 10.1089/space.2018.0025)
(Score: 3, Funny) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 02 2020, @02:35PM (10 children)
It is part of the werewolf industrial complex, killing hundreds every year, And the tides! What a pain in the ass to have my beach flooded every 12 hours! Who's gonna pay for the damage?
Do the mining on the back side where nobody will see it
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:22PM (2 children)
"Do the mining on the back side where nobody will see it."
Comedy gold! While we're at it, lets build there a bunch of affordable housing there for all those complaining San Franciscans and Seattleites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:27PM (1 child)
> Comedy gold!
Exactly - there's an almost inexhaustible supply on the Moon. All we have to do is dream.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @06:31PM
Republicans: "It's funny cause we hate those people."
I recently saw some old people running a "recall Newsom" table, maybe you're talking about those idiots?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 02 2020, @05:46PM (5 children)
So sue the moon...
Makes me wonder, can a river be found liable for damages? Can we collect judgements in fish?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 02 2020, @06:11PM (3 children)
Only for a day...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 02 2020, @06:29PM (2 children)
Interesting (to me at least) - when our riverfront land flooded, fish hatched all over the place. The normal course of the river was 100-200' wide, when it flooded out 1500-2500' into the woods and then came down into ponds, in places where there hadn't been ponds for years, those ponds were teeming with fish. Not sure how the mechanics of that worked exactly, some of it was the fish being corralled into the shrinking ponds - but there were more fish in the ponds than I ever saw in the normal river. Best guess I had was fish-eggs lying dormant in the woods, or maybe the fish were triggered into a massive spawning by the flood.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 03 2020, @11:37PM (1 child)
There are a (very) few species of fish that can survive without water for extended periods, but I've never heard of fish eggs doing so. Unlike seeds which are dehydrated and chemically inert until activated, eggs are mostly water with a living embryo.
Fish get trapped in ponds when floodwater recedes - there's nothing more involved than that. Moreover,even slow-moving rivers flow hundreds of miles per day, allowing fish travel even further than that when not respecting other's territory - and it sounds like your flood provided something like 10x the usual amount of territory, all completely unclaimed and rich in bugs and other edible detrius, along with lots of places for baby fish to hide, rather than most of them being eaten right away. I mean, think of how many eggs a fish lays at once, much less in its lifetime - and if more than two survived to adulthood on average, the population would explode.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 04 2020, @01:25AM
It probably was just a 100x uptick in infant survival, really wild, even the good habitat on the river was nowhere near as fish-dense as the ponds after the flood.
Ordinary, non-flood ponding would attract turtles, otter, birds and alligators. Post flood there was just an amazing surplus of fish and the predators didn't multiply in such a short timeframe.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:06PM
You can lash it, I heard.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:20PM
They could mine from the back side, except all they'd find there are millions of copies of a classic Pink Floyd album.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.