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Comment by athrowaway3z | Hacker News Reader

The Dutch figured out how to do collective dike maintenance a millennium ago without inventing mythical super government. Collective rules worked just fine.

I encourage you to reflect on this bias. I suspect you're taking the American state as a template, and extrapolating its incompetence. The history is filled with different ideas - some of them far older than America itself.

Hell, I'd call America a place so naturally rich, it's practically the case study how much dysfunction can be papered over with money instead of statecraft.

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And how did the Dutch collect the toll and who received the tax benefits for it?

I’m interested in understanding your comparison here and how it would be applicable to space and how you envision it working based on your comparison.

You wish to take up a specific space, and with the right to use it come obligations.

There was no tax or toll to consider.

People naturally self-assembled under the idea that if you benefited, then you had to contribute. The calculation was: how much land did you have, how valuable was it, how much benefit you'd get from some waterworks (it wasnt just dikes but also rerouting rivers etc). Obligations were denominated in labor.

My point is not that this was some perfect idyllic corruption-free scheme - it wasn't - but it was very transparent.

All you should need for a stable system is for the majority of interests to align. One addition you can add is to have the labor be turned against individuals/groups that decide to unalign - i.e. instead of trashing space debris your next labor is to de-orbit a satellite if 1 company decides to try their luck at tyranny over cooperation.

Things hinge on a shared understanding that its always possible to go back to the salted earth solution.

Ok but that's not what I asked... You're just saying "we should have some system that benefits everyone". Ok sure that sounds nice, but you compared it to a specific framework with an off-hand "we've solved this so long ago" type of comment. Surely if it's so simple and straightforward and the Dutch "already figured it out" you'd have at least some idea of a proposal or implementation details.

How will the toll be collected? Who will collect it? How will it be fairly distributed?

You're not really good at asking anything. I did not say a system that benefits everyone.

I did not say the dutch solved this exact problem, and my previous response was a best effort after you prompting me because i assume you've just never thought through or dealt with non-mega-government solutions before.

I brought up the comparison because nba456_ 19 was already complaining about a required mythical global government - as if that's relevant for the 50y time frame we're planning for.

I also dont understand why you keep bringing up tax and tolls. I'll try to answer that again in the other comment.

> I did not say a system that benefits everyone.

Ok then the US can just ignore all this stuff and do what we want.

> I also dont understand why you keep bringing up tax and tolls.

I can tell - I think you’re having a hard time here defending an idea you now want to walk back. That’s fine. At the end of the day “collective maintenance” is typically achieved by either a tax or toll. I don’t have to keep bringing it up, but then you need to explain how your proposed system works instead of leaving one to guess. You suggested it was simple because the Dutch “figured it out an millennium ago”.

Without global governance to address what is a global space - you know, space itself, how would your proposal work? American and European companies pay for some maintenance scheme but then China, Russia, and others ignore it? So it’s not global? Who will they pay anyway? Why would they agree to this scheme?

> You're not really good at asking anything.

This is incorrect.

> i assume you've just never thought through or dealt with non-mega-government solutions before.

Based on your inability to describe or walk through your solution I think it’s likely you think you’ve thought through this and you haven’t and now as your comment is being scrutinized you are turning to discussion points that don’t make a lot of sense.

I suspect the mindset that makes you write these nonconstructive questions trying to be right instead of making sure we're on the same page, is the same one that is preventing you from entertaining the idea that people are able to collaborate, understand, and write out a set of rules they can agree on are in their own interests.

> I did not say a system that benefits everyone.

I meant the difference between "everyone" as in Bob living on the street everyone, and "everyone" that is using it.

I thought maybe that was the thing that you were not understanding, so i keep having to go to your position and guess at what you mean. But sure take it as a moment to gloat with your superior intellect.

If you think 5 comments in and bringing up "But what if China ignores it" is scrutiny then I'm sorry to tell you you're just oblivious, not critical. You keep bringing up taxes and tolls. I've already addressed them 2.5 times in this thread.

> is typically achieved

well at least i know you couldn't be bothered to comprehend any of my comments before wasting my time.

Sorry but i'm good on trying to explain things again - this isn't going to work. Clearly i made the mistake of taking to much for granted and we set off on the wrong foot. Its not you its me. I'm sure you understand.

Maybe try again in a week.

You should comment less on my mindset and comment more on your proposal.

"It'll just work" isn't convincing (if not taxes and tolls then what?), and withdrawing from the conversation because your idea was challenged is not very mature and shows you haven't really thought this through.

If it's easy and the Dutch figured it out a millennium ago, then you should be able to explain how it will work going forward. If you're unable to do that, that's fine, but be honest about it instead of wasting time trying to critique my great questions that happen to expose the various flaws in your own comment.

Those parts aren't the hard ones?

You collect waterworks taxes the same way regular taxes are collected in NL. You get a letter with an amount to pay and you pay it. The waterworks is the entity that sends you the letter and manages the application of those taxes. The system that comment described is still in place today and operates in parallel to "regular" government.

> Those parts aren't the hard ones?

For an international resource it absolutely is. Everyone would lobby their government to ditch to make a sprint. (Well, China and America and possibly rising powers like India or the UAE would.)

What happened if you didn't pay?

Pay what? Its a 'pure' system where nothing has to be denominated in money but instead we care about effects:

taking-up-orbits, applying-force, and danger-pollution.

The system requires the biggest player calculates the cost of non-compliance being too high either by:

- the scheme triggering a clause where other members start to apply force to their non-sanctioned orbits and trashing their satellites, add in the additional threat of earthly economic sanctions like we do with so many companies.

- the scheme breaking apart and becoming a wild west with _extreme_ danger-pollution.

Clearly, at the moment, the biggest users do not care because the danger is low enough, and they'll try to delay a bit so they get more 'grandfathered' in.

I'm not saying its going to be perfect or fair. I'm arguing its dumb to fear a mythical global government, because that's not required to create stable solutions for these kinds of issues.

So basically in order to prevent Kessler syndrome, everyone follows the regulations or the other participants punish them by destroying their satellites, causing Kessler syndrome?

The EU is collecting CO2 taxes (indirectly by giving permits out). That's a good comparison. There're tolls in the making for imports.

That works because every member country agrees to it

Not to mention that this bias is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thanks to all the ideologues that get elected to government by insiting that government can't work, surprise, surprise, government doesn't work.

How many individual people were involved in collective dike maintenance, so we know the model scales? 100 million? 200 million?

Do you anticipate 100 million space companies vying for orbit?

I certainly anticipate a billion or more stakeholders on space companies.

Or are you doing the corporations are people thing, so if five people can agree on something in a handshake, ethos-centric deal, then surely five space companies with billions of dollars invested from millions of people should surely be able to act like those original five people?

Yes, that would totally work while countries like China, Russia, North Korea exist. They could all have a group hug and sing Kumbaya straight afterwards.

The US and Russia have been sharing the ISS for decades. If you can't get past your xenophobia enough to see that there's massive cooperation between the US and Russia in space and has been for probably longer than you've been alive.

European statecraft has led to a massive bureaucratic blob whose best and brightest just go to America.

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