Tournament: Woodward | Round: 2 | Opponent: Peninsula Nishio | Judge: Naomi Alan
Appropriation
Reinstein 99 says that
Appropriation would allow private entities to claim comprehensive property rights
This is different from use which is
According to Oxford Languages
Take advantage of the value or advantage of something
Philosophical principle that ~Libertarian ideals~ suggests that a government's involvement in civil economical and social matters should be limited, and that the issues should be settled amongst civilians. Libertarianism seeks to provide free-will participants the ability to make decisive decisions without the government determining or influencing the outcome, as long as it does not harm other individuals. Libertarianism is based off the belief that each individual owns every aspect of their lives and thus should have the ability to control it.
As a society, we generally recognize that people need individual liberties and rights. Individuals control what they do and thus we must respect their rights.. Feser:
But if individuals are inviolable ends-in-themselves (as Kant describes them) and self-owners, it follows, Nozick says, that they have certain rights, in particular (and here again following Locke) rights to their lives, liberty, and the fruits of their labor. To own something, after all, just is to have a right to it, or, more accurately, to possess the bundle of rights - rights to possess something, to dispose of it, to determine what may be done with it, etc. - that constitute ownership; and thus to own oneself is to have such rights to the various elements that make up one's self. These rights function, Nozick says, as side-constraints on the actions of others; they set limits on how others may, morally speaking, treat a person. So, for example, since you own yourself, and thus have a right to yourself, others are constrained morally not to kill or maim you (since this would involve destroying or damaging your property), or to kidnap you or forcibly remove one of your bodily organs for transplantation in someone else (since this would involve stealing your property). They are also constrained not to force you against your will to work for another's purposes, even if those purposes are good ones. For if you own yourself, it follows that you have a right to determine whether and how you will use your self-owned body and its powers, e.g. either to work or to refrain from working.
Individuals have rights, so people must respect your actions and cannot restrict you. This also means the government cannot restrict you unless it is to prevent harm of another person. In order to make sure these rights are protected, we have to restrict the government. Because of this, the government’s only obligation is to protect rights. Feser 2:
The various programs of the modern liberal welfare state are thus immoral, not only because they are inefficient and incompetently administered, but because they make slaves of the citizens of such a state. Indeed, the only sort of state that can be morally justified is what Nozick calls a minimal state or "night-watchman" state, a government which protects individuals, via police and military forces, from force, fraud, and theft, and administers courts of law, but does nothing else. In particular, such a state cannot regulate what citizens eat, drink, or smoke (since this would interfere with their right to use their self-owned bodies as they see fit), cannot control what they publish or read (since this would interfere with their right to use the property they've acquired with their self-owned labor - e.g. printing presses and paper - as they wish),
Also, if a government has total control over society they can become corrupted easily. They have no one to be accountable to and thus can abuse their power. Thus, we have to restrict governmental authority
1~ Denying direct private appropriation of outer space exacerbates preexisting inequalities and access to property creating an extremely unequal playing field. Rebecca Lowe, a political philosophy and economic researcher who specializes in moral property rights, writes on February 10, 2022,
Lowe, Rebecca, "Space Invaders: Property Rights on the Moon", 10 February 2022, https://www.adamsmith.org/research/space-invaders
Perhaps it is time, therefore, to consider a different approach. Problems regarding
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entrenched by a nation-focused approach to the governance of space opportunities.
2~ Private companies are the ones who bear the financial and reputational burden of space exploration, and not only would their ability to appropriate improve their capability to help the world but they also have a direct right to it. Rebecca Lowe continues,
Lowe, Rebecca, "Space Invaders: Property Rights on the Moon", 10 February 2022, https://www.adamsmith.org/research/space-invaders
It is clear that the private sector now drives certain space capacities. And private
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increasingly significant portion of the serious financial and reputational risk of space progress.
Subpoint A: Mining
Reinstein 99
Ezra J. Reinstein (JD, Associate at Kirkland and Ellis), Owning Outer Space, 20 Nw. J. Int'l L. and Bus. 59 (1999). JDN. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njilb/vol20/iss1/7
Perhaps the most lucrative area of development is the mining of celestial bodies
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that 2,000 NEAs larger than 1 km in diameter exist.12
Asteroid mining protects the environment—it leads to solar-powered satellites and offsets terrestrial extraction
Taylor 19
Chris Taylor is a veteran journalist. Previously senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and West Coast web editor for Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. "How asteroid mining will save the Earth — and mint trillionaires." Mashable, 2019, mashable.com/feature/asteroid-mining-space-economy. ~QC~
The mission is essential, Joyce declares, to save Earth from its
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to ship stuff in zero-G environments.
Subpoint B: Innovation
Competition in space between private entities lowers costs and barriers of entry for other companies increasing technological innovation
Lizzy Gurdus, FEB 27 2021, CNBC, "Private companies such as SpaceX are driving costs down for everyone in the space race, says man behind UFO ETF", ~https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/27/private-companies-like-spacex-are-driving-industry-costs-down-ceo.html~~ ahs ja
Private space companies are paving the industry’s path to profits, says the man behind
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one of positive benefit for all, while making opportunities inclusive to all.
AUGUST 10, 2016 BY MATT WILLIAMS, "How Far is the Asteroid Belt from Earth?" https://www.universetoday.com/130136/far-asteroid-belt-earth/ LHP AV
Distance from Earth: The distance between the Asteroid Belt and Earth varies considerably depending
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Jupiter (4.2 AU) when they are at their closest.
And, Jupiter is our savior, Louise 21:
Nickie Louise, NOVEMBER 7, 2021,"Here is how Jupiter protects Earth from asteroids and saves us from destruction," https://techstartups.com/2021/11/07/jupiter-protects-earth-asteroids/ LHP AV
Have you ever wondered why asteroids have not hit our planet? Asteroids are small
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Jupiter. Below is a video of how Jupiter saves Earth from destruction.
If it can deflect asteroids, it would obviously pull space dust.
Space junk is already orbitting us, and the aff can never solve the root cause – at best, they only reduce new debris. – but the only way to guarantee debris crashes don’t happen is to actually remove the debris instead of just marginally stopping how much new debris gets created (bucket example can be used in 2n). According to Rhimbassen, private appropriation is key to active debris removal, also known as ADR, the only real, long-term solution to debris,
Maria Lucas-Rhimbassen*, Cristiana Santos*, George Antony Long, Lucien Rapp* 2019, "Conceptual model for a profitable return on investment from space debris as abiotic space resource" https://chaire-sirius.eu/documents/c798f8-eucass-fp0602-1906190421.pdf
Indeed, new technological initiatives evolving around ADR confirm the possibility of recycling space debris
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difficult, which may deter OOS efforts and ADR initiatives such as recyclers.
Asteroid mining isn’t profitable and doesn’t tradeoff with terrestrial mining
Elvis 17 ~(Martin, X-Ray Astronomy PhD @Leicester University, A. Stark, B. Stalder, and C. Desira) "Astronomical Prospecting of Asteroid Resources," European Planetary Science Congress, 2017~ TDI
Asteroids number in the millions and the total mass of industrially useful raw materials they
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~90, have no spectral information, and so have undetermined types.