Memo to the US, UK, EU, Russia, China, et al: SPACE DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU.

Looking to the future (DN 3.11)

Jan 15, 2025

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22

(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.10 I 2.11 | 2.12 | 2.13 | 2.14 | 2.15 | 2.16 | 2.17 | 2.XX | 2.18 | 2.19 | 2.20 | 2.21 | | Where: 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.10 | 3.11

Chapter 3.11
Claiming Space, 1

The first time I heard the phase “prison planet” was in association with Alex Jones. I did not know much about Jones at the time, but the phrase itself resonated. And the more I have steered my ship in the direction of voluntaryism in the years since, the deeper that understanding has become…

Nowhere to go

From a jurisdictional standpoint, the phrase is almost literally true. With the exception of a couple of tiny disputed territories and a section of the most inhospitable, inaccessible land in the world, every bit of land area is controlled (or at least claimed) by some government or other.

Gone are the days where you could pack up your belongings, hike over the next hill, and live free on your little part of the Earth. There is no terra nullius—no unclaimed land to start a new polity or an independent life.

Yes, mare nullius does still exist—there is such a thing as “international waters.” But we are not fish, dolphins, or seahorses—we are made to dwell on land, not in the ocean. Creating new jurisdictions on the ocean requires expensive feats of engineering and technology.

Furthermore, those who wish to seastead are faced with another question: how long before governments claim the sea as well? After all, they have claimed every bit of land there is. Maybe they haven’t claimed the sea yet simply because they currently lack the technology and resources.

At very least, we can safely assume that governments, like jilted, jealous lovers, won’t take kindly to us finding happiness elsewhere. Even if we establish new polities and habitations in what are clearly accepted as international waters, will they leave us alone?

The government of Thailand certainly didn’t leave Chad Elwartowski and his now-wife Nadia Summergirl alone, even though their tiny seastead was clearly in international waters. Nope. These dangerous rogues had violated “Thai sovereignty”—a crime punishable by the death penalty, as it turns out.

Greedy governments

You see, the Thai government claims the sea within 200 miles of its coast as an “exclusive economic zone.” Chad and Nadia’s six-square-meter octagonal hut, floating in international waters was—somehow—a grave threat.

In case my disdain has not fully come through, allow me to make it clearer. Governments are disgusting criminal enterprises, and the people who work for them ought to be ashamed of themselves. That is as toned-down a statement on the subject as I can possibly make.

Make no mistake: this is what governments do. They claim everything as their property. They claim your property as their property. In essence, they claim you as their property. Government is the worst institution ever to be extruded from the twisted mind of man. Nothing is safe from their grubby little hands.

Including space…

The Next Frontier

We may currently be limited to living within the confines of planet Earth, but that will not last forever. Barring some sort of disaster that sends us back to the stone age, we will be colonizing space at some point (comparatively) soon. And you know damn well what governments—if we are unlucky enough to have them still exist—are going to do when that happens.

They are going to claim that every square inch of space is under their jurisdiction.

Sure, they won‘t say it now. That would be pointless and silly. But as soon as it makes the least bit of practical sense, they are going to start carving up space like a roast.

The third planet around Barnard’s Star is being colonized as part of an Anglo-Canadian joint venture, and as such, is sovereign Commonwealth territory.

Proxima Centauri 5 is the property of the Russian Federation.

There is a formal dispute between the United States and Brazil over control of Tau Ceti 4. Official ownership of the planet will be resolved by the United Nations later this year…

Once the technology exists for you to move out into space, and you do so, there is going to be some government telling you that you have colonized their land. That they have jurisdiction over you. That you owe them property taxes. Even if you got there without their help.

You know it’s gonna happen…unless someone does something about it.

We need to start laying the early groundwork for the notion that this cannot happen. That space does not belong to them. That we can homestead wherever we damn well please.

They turned this into prison planet. We cannot allow them to do the same to space.

How things come to be owned

Nothing is easy when it comes to philosophy.

The basics of natural law are intuitive and easy, but even the bright, shining principles of natural law are put to the test by logical challenges in particular marginal circumstances. If ever we become convinced that all human questions are perfectly answered by “the one rule” or “the three laws” or whatever—there is a good chance that we are not thinking things through all the way.

Yes, the principles of natural law are real, intuitive, and clear. But human life is messy, and out on the margins, even universal principles can become more difficult to apply.

We don’t want to get too far into the weeds, but in order to continue our discussion of space, we must venture a short distance into one such question…

Synthesizing Locke and others, we arrive at a classical theory of how previously unowned things can become property. Simply put, you acquire previously unowned things by homesteading them. By mixing your labor with them, as Locke put it.

From a natural law standpoint, this is entirely legitimate…

You own yourself, exclusively and inalienably. Your labor—your thoughts, choices, and actions—are an extension of that self-ownership. In order to survive, you need property. In order for the property to be useful to you, it must be exclusive. It cannot be everyone’s bed, broom, house, or morsel of food. It must be yours. So when you extend your self-ownership out into the world and labor upon a previously unowned thing, it becomes yours.

So far, so good. But logical challenges and marginal questions arise. For example, philosopher Robert Nozick posed an interesting challenge to Locke’s labor-mixing dictum. He asked,

What if I dump a can of tomato juice into the ocean? Have I mixed my labor with the whole ocean? Do I now own the whole ocean?

Part of the intuitive beauty of natural law is that we all know that the answer is, “No, of course you don’t own the whole ocean just because you dumped a can of tomato juice into it. Don’t be silly.” Part of the difficulty of philosophical analysis, however, is that it is not always easy to say exactly why it is silly.

When arguing about this, people tend to get caught up on Locke’s use of the word “labor.” But it is not the labor that creates the property right; it is the self-ownership that animates, actuates, and justifies that labor. The labor is simply the bridge by which you extend your self-ownership into the world.

Original acquisition of property is justified when the property in question is unowned, and when you have not initiated force upon anyone else to get it. But you cannot simply claim that an endless tract of land belongs to you because you said so. Property rights are created through homesteading. You cannot claim the galaxy, a continent, or an entire mountain range through original acquisition. You can only homestead that which you can actively use or transform.1 Homesteading is a manifestation of self-ownership.

Thus, while we may not be able to draw perfect lines, thinking about this in terms of self-ownership helps us to understand how far property rights ought to be able to extend. Dumping a can of tomato juice does not extend your self-ownership, via your labor, to every place that a molecule of that juice can reach. Your self-ownership, rather, can only extend to what you can productively and actively homestead.

Keeping up a farm, a dwelling, or a factory requires ongoing thoughts, actions, and choices. Those are an extension of your self-ownership, and thus it is reasonable for you to originally acquire, and then continue to own, that farm, dwelling, or factory, and the piece of land upon which sits.

Painting a picture

This all gets easier with examples.

Let us say that my wife and I, along with our three children, ride out into unclaimed, unowned territory with 30 head of cattle. We fence off an amount of acres large enough for the herd to grow to 1,000 head. The linear footage of fence line is just about the maximum that the five of us are able to maintain and protect.

That is a reasonable original acquisition of property.

Now let us imagine that we claim an area 500 times larger and say, “All of this is ours; anyone who comes and lives out here must pay us rent.” That is not reasonable, and no one would take it seriously.

One is a reasonable extension of self-ownership. The other is not.

So, how does all of this apply to our discussion of space? Simple…

As discussed above, it is a near-certainty that when space exploration and colonization become a practical reality, governments are going to try to claim every square inch of space as being “theirs.”

Every single such claim will be illegitimate. But they’re still going to do it…

Let’s imagine that 3,000 ‘citizens’ of Country X pool their money, build an O’Neill Cylinder (or some other space habitat), put it in geosynchronous orbit, and declare independence.

Not so fast, say the rulers of Country X. It is in our airspace. And so they continue to claim the ‘right’ to tax and control those 3,000 people.

Let us say that Country X signed some sort of “international agreement” saying that they cannot claim anything past a certain distance above the Earth. No matter—they will simply do what the Thai government did to the seasteaders and claim that the habitat is in a special “economic exclusion zone” or “national security buffer zone” or whatever. It won’t matter if that is a totally made-up concept. They have the guns. They have the ships.

And if you challenge their made-up garbage, say that they cannot claim space infinitely, and reaffirm your independence, they will just come and kill you.

Because government, that’s why.

So let us say that the 3,000 don’t put it in their ‘airspace.’ (Spacespace?) Instead, they put it at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon. Or maybe even out further (note: I am not an astrophysicist). What happens then?

Ooh, sorry, too bad. You are citizens of Country X; therefore, your space habitat is sovereign Country X territory, and we can continue to tax and control you.

So then this intrepid group scraps the O’Neill Cylinder, renounces their citizenship, and colonizes Mars.

Whoops—haven’t you heard? The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have already divided up Mars into zones. Your colony is in the…

Russian Zone, and you have three weeks to remove it entirely,
Chinese Zone, and it is now the property of the Chinese government,
British Zone, and you are required to let 4,000 rapists immigrate into your colony,
United States Zone, and you must pay property tax, income tax, estate tax, sales tax, gas tax, space tax, and eating-Pringles-straight-out-of-the-can tax.

And when it becomes possible to fly further out—to planets around Barnard’s Star or Proxima Centauri or anywhere else—you can count on those same governments having already claimed those too.

NO ONE may claim entire planets

Humankind needs to lay down the (natural) law well before any of that happens. We need to stop playing along with the charade that governments are legitimate or inevitable. We need to ignore their menacing tone. We need to man up and say

SPACE ISN’T YOURS.

It may seem premature to talk about this, but it is all part of a long-game strategy. We cannot wait until it becomes an issue. We must begin to make it clear now.

If you want the philosophical justification, I have provided it above.

If you colonize a little section of space—an amount that you can homestead—then that is yours.
If a bunch of people pool their resources and do it, the same thing applies.
If a hyper-wealthy person builds a space colony and takes on renters, that colony is his.

In each case, active homesteading of previously unowned things creates ownership.

But governments aren’t going to do that. Governments are going to just claim that it all belongs to them.

And we need to tell them NO—just like you would any snot-nosed, petulant toddler.

Why are we talking about something so far in the future? Stay tuned…

This is the mechanism by which original acquisition takes place. Once a property is originally acquired, title to it can be exchanged with others in voluntary transactions. At that point, it is no longer necessary to be actively using or transforming the property. Indeed, we do not want everyone constantly having to churn up the soil and chop down the trees justo maintain their ownership. The environmental impact of such a requirement would be devastating. Property is originally acquired through homesteading; it is thereafter maintained through property titles or similar claims.