No More Lunar Land for Sale 379
dptalia writes "According to China Daily, Beijing authorities have shut down sales of lunar property. Apparently there's a "Lunar embassy" in China and they've sold 34 people deeds to land on the moon. Not too surprisingly, the government has declared this illegal. The Bejing office claims to be a satellite of the U.S. Lunar Embassy, run by Dennis Hope. Hope claims that while it is illegal for countries to stake a claim on the moon, it is legal for individuals and corporations to."
Suckers, suckers everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Morons deserve what they get... buying real estate without due dilligence? You're going to get screwed on Earth, too.
Re:Bwaaahahaha! (Score:3, Insightful)
Claiming that you can sell something does not automatically give you the right to sell it, even under capitalism.
You kind of gave it away in your third paragraph. "Assigning ownership to chunks of land"? Yeah, well, who assigns ownership? Dennis Hope? And who assigned ownership to him?
In the real world, what it comes down to is that there has to be a government in control of the land, and then that government assigns (initial) ownership - either to the squatters who were there already, or to itself. Then capitalism takes over. But first there has to be the government to assign ownership. Before that, all there is, is possession.
So: Is there a government in control of the moon? No? Well, we could be at the pre-government stage. Is Dennis Hope in possession of some part of the moon? Also no? Well, there you go. He's not a "capitalist" who is "in the right" but oppressed by "land barons far larger than he". He's just a scam artist.
Whitelist law vs Blacklist law. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the USA (ideal schoolboy optimism here), the government's powers are enumerated and the people retain the rest as their rights. That's "blacklist law" for you digit-heads: if it's on this list, you can't do it.
In many other regimes, the individual's rights are enumerated (or never even written), and the government retains the rest as their powers. That's "whitelist law" for analogy: if it's on this list, you can do it. Guess where the China government weighs in?
Re:Gift gag, genuine or gullible? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, and government trying to "protect" consumers from fake medicines or harmful medical practices are also useless. The only way it will stop is when govermnent stays out and lets people learn medicine and biochemistry for themselves and be fully aware of what treatment or substance they're getting.
Government should get out of law enforcement in general. Crimes aren't going to stop until people are ready to self-organize into lynchmobs^H^H^H^H^H^H citizen militias and take charge of their crime situation themselves.
And why are govenrments insisting on feeding armies from the public trough? Shouldn't private business run competing armies and let knowledgeable citizens pay whichever option they felt was best run? Out with government, eh?
Re:Gift gag, genuine or gullible? (Score:5, Insightful)
As the government doesn't actually refund the losses of any victim of scam victims (except in the vanishingly small number of cases where their money is recovered, months or years later), there is no less incentive right now to smarten up than there would be in a system under which the government didn't attempt to punish the scammer for his actions. People fall victim to scams because that's human nature, not because we have a nation of perfectly rational people who are shutting off their rationality because there's no punishment for doing so. The real world isn't a Libertarian's flight of fancy; humans are not perfectly rational actors.
On the other hand under the current system there is less incentive for new scammers to take up the trade, while in a system absent the disincentives of government punishment, given that gullible people will still be every bit as gullible, scammers would flourish.
Re:This is all fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bwaaahahaha! (Score:3, Insightful)
Ownership comes from power, and nothing else. The various prehistoric tribes "claimed" the American continents by settling on the land (so to speak). Then the the Spanish, English, French, et cetera showed up and erected a few towns with tall fences, brought some guns, and "claimed" the surrounding area.
Heck, in the 1880's, the various European governments carved up Africa like a roast, arbitrarily defining colonies everywhere. They only followed up with the settlers and guns years later.
The point is that people can make claims any time they want. But they're completely pointless until the soldiers and workers arrive to exploit and occupy the area. And the workers and soldiers are representatives of the government.
Re:This is all fine... (Score:1, Insightful)
Nope, to stake a claim to any old piece of rock, you basically just need to be able to defend it. Drive out the natives (if any) and keep out anybody else who attempts to stake a claim on the said piece of rock. Provided you can do this, it's yours.
Living there is sorta optional, solong as you make sure nobody else is living there either.
There's all this messy red tape to have your rock recognised by the UN, but that's just a piece of paper and fairly meaningless if you can fight off invasions.
Declare sovereignty (Score:3, Insightful)
That's crap. If you have the resources to get your butt onto the moon and establish a permanent presence, you should just declare yourself to be a sovereign state and tell the rest of the world to "f*ck off."
Be prepared to defend your new turf, however. Nothing gets a country's attention as much as someone attempting to declare sovereignty in a very visible place. You'll probably be getting a visit from the Space Marines, the Ukrainian Space Police, and the Chinese Taikonaut Re-Education Squad.
Re:This is all fine... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's where targeting systems come in handy
It takes only a fraction as much fuel to lift a huge chunk of rock off the moon into orbit, than it would from Earth...
Aim a giant moon-rock at Washington, give it a little push, and your government problems are solved.