Is it ethical to colonize Mars?

[Fist and Faith]

Ownership of land is an interesting and complex issue.

The Native Americans were here for millennia before the Europeans arrived. Does that mean the Europeans should have recognized the Native American rights to it, and turned around? I guess that's not practical. The world is only so big, and growing populations need somewhere to live. And it's in our nature to explore. If we sit in our hometowns all our lives, we're barely human.

Does that mean the Europeans should have committed the unspeakable atrocities they did to take the land from the Native Americans. IMO, it was evil. I don't care what argument any of you try to make to defend it, it was wrong. Good and Evil are subjective, and my subjective stance is that it was evil.

We are a gregarious species. No question about it. We want to live in communities. So we have to figure out how to have stable communities. We have rules. I do not own my house and the land it's on because of force. If I did, I would not longer own it, because someone bigger and stronger would have taken it away from me. And that is not a stable community.

OTOH, the laws we have are backed by force. The police have guns. That's why someone bigger and stronger has not taken my home away from me. Most people would not, because they agree that might does not equal right, and they want a stable, safe community. But without the guns backing up our laws, the many, if not majority of, people who think might makes right would certainly take. As has so often been the case in the past, and is still the case in various parts of the world.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

No matter what you read in the history books, native Americans were decimated by disease that was spread incidentally rather than intentionally. The plague blanket mythos notwithstanding. Not that it didn't occur, but by then it was a fait accompli. Early settlers largely occupied uninhabited settlements that had been depopulated by smallpox etc. Entire nations were decimated without any direct European contact, for example the Mississippian culture. Without germs, America would not exist. See South Africa for examples of colonization of areas with disease resistant populations. It didn't work nearly as well.