Richard V. Rupp

August 18, 2021

Good Wednesday morning. I'm author Richard V. Rupp, writing from Burbank, California. Welcome to Rupp's Notes/FBI Special Agent Hartman Series posts.

 

The good news is that it's finally cool here in Burbank. At least for today. All my windows are fully open. The bad news is that Los Angeles County has officially been notified by the Metropolitan Water District that we are running out of water. Rationing is on the way.

 

I will talk about hydroelectric generation, solar panels, and nuclear energy in a future post. But, I will indicate that Lake Mead which was created by Hoover Dam and provides water to 25 million people, is at its lowest level in history. Based on what I'm reading about climate change, you could probably build a nuclear power plant on the original shoreline of Lake Mead and not have to worry about it getting covered with water. So we could have electricity, but no water. That leads to the suggestion of investment in companies involved with desalination. Is that logical?

 

I love the fact that humans have developed the concept of logic. The LOGIC BLOG tells us - "Logic is the science and art of reasoning well. Logic as a science seeks to discover rules of reasoning; logic as an art seeks to apply those rules to rational discourse."

 

Now the use of logic is discriminatory. It works best with education and knowledge. Education and the ability to acquire knowledge "generally" are reserved for the wealthy. Therefore logic discriminates between those with wealth and those who are not wealthy.

 

In working on my upcoming novel SKYWARD, I ran into a  conundrum. How is a group of people who have been basically working for a private enterprise owned by the Bowman Twins and voluntarily elected to travel with the Twins to establish a colony on the Moon to be governed? Why do I ask this question? Because there must be some organizational structure to the Bowman Colony.

 

Everyone selected to populate the Bowman Colony on the Moon is a millennial who has a STEM education thus a science background. That makes them specialists in the use of logic and rational thinking. Education clearly impacts logic as respects outcomes and provides a strong indicator of attitudes and well-being. 

 

In case you are wondering. Someone with a STEM education uses logic models to arrive at a decision. Logic models are hypothesized descriptions of the chain of causes and effects leading to an outcome of interest (e.g., the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, annual traffic collisions, etc.). The logic model includes the theories, scientific evidence, assumptions, and beliefs that support it and its various processes.

 

If you wonder how a group of brainiac Millenials will survive together without the help of supporting staff, here's how. While there still are everyday chores like cleaning floors, picking crops, cooking, and serving meals, robotics takes care of the repetitive or heavy work involved. And, it is part of the team concept, which they have bought into.

 

In the Bowman Colony, there is individual freedom, but it can be suppressed for the greater good through logic.

 

A few notes are needed about incites for a logical conclusion about what governing structure is selected for the Bowman Colony. First, "individual freedom" allows you to pick a social structure you want to live under. Second, the scientific community is politically liberal. Slightly more than half of the scientists (52%) describe their own political views as liberal. It would be interesting to know this percentage of NASA staff. Logic is impacted by a person's environment? Science says the "environment influences human behavior and motivation to act."

 

So we have a young well educated liberal group contained in a hazardous environment that needs to work together to survive. Their conclusion is a social democracy (a democratic welfare state that incorporates capitalist and socialist practices).

 

In the Bowman Colony, all of the housing, food, and jobs are provided by Colony. There is at the outset a self-appointed governor (Norman Bowman). He agrees that he can only be removed by being voted out of office by 55% of the colonist. All of whom have the right to vote. There is a senior counsel comprised of the governor and all the senior heads of units (i.e., computer center, light industrial plant, heavy industrial plant, farm). There is a single appointed professional judge whose decisions can be overridden by the senior counsel. There is a monthly community town hall meeting where colonists can express a complaint or suggest an improvement to the governor, senior counsel, or judge.

  

Voilà! Through logic, the Bowman Colony has an organizational structure.

 

Cheers,

 

Richard V. Rupp, Author

Website – www.richardvrupp.com

Email – rupprisk@gmail.com

Copyright©2021 by Richard V. Rupp