You and a small group of people survived the earth's destruction . your group finds a habitable planet for...

Question

repopulation of the species . you are the leader , what sort of government or religion would you start ?... you are the only hope ?
what would your society be like ?

oops , wrong section .

Answer 1

socialist.
Learn to have good values, share and help each other. Don't learn to try to have it all and others have much less. Money does not equal happiness.

Answer 2

This is an awesome question, (By the way there are a couple of good simulation games which cover this kind of topic).

Lets assume the new planet doesn't have any plants but has some type of primitive algae or something an an oxygen atmosphere.

Lets also assume you have a couple of thousand colonists - too few and you get into genetic hot water, to many and you have crowd control problems - right up front.

Basically you have 1 goal - to encourage the survival of the race, so before you wake everyone up from "hypersleep" or whatever for at least a couple of years if not decades, small teams will have to be deployed to do some serious work preparing the planet.

A small set (2-3) semi-independent outposts of 30-90 people each to do 3 things - this would be done in nearly a semi-military fashion so order and group cohesion would be important.

1. Find and determine the immediately available resources - animals,mineral/metals deposits etc.

2. Determine the local weather of the planet and plant plants and start forrests., breed food plants and animals, colonize them liberally around the planet as the local environment permits - repeat until at least 1-2 % of the land-surface of the planet is developed along earth standard lines.


3. Determine the best most easily developable / safest places for cities to be founded, developing cities in close proximity to the food and resources will make developing economies easier over time.

4. Once you've figured that stuff out waking up the passengers in waves, so that the outpost(s) can be developed without creating problems or causing famines, again a benevolent dictatorship or monarchy or some ruling council would probably still be practical and desirable because there would need to be made alot of quick "management" type decisions where democracy might be impractical.

5. After the first settlement or two is well developed and farming and textiles and basic material needs can be met practically you have to start focusing on building machines that can do the farming and help with construction etc.

6. After these basic industries have been established, you get to do the two best things.

7. Declare a democracy - for the most part democracy is the best form of government and is least intrusive upon the individual (at least in theory), setup a strong judicial and moral code system.

Religion need not apply - practically speaking (presumably) what saved us wasn't "divine intervention" but good old fashioned know-how so that's what becomes / has really always been sacred - knowledge and education and creativity.

Certainly the heft and moral benefits of religion cannot be over-looked but de-emphasis of religious differences must be paramount especially in the 1st generation otherwise we could become resigned to more bloodshed as a result of differences of faith.

8. Bring all the people down - Orderly arrivals and anticipating new people will allow the colonists to be properly prepared for. If you do this right, you can avoid the basis of abject empoverishedness which exists on today, so doing the recolonization in small groups which can be indoctrinated to the planet in a controlled fashion is critical.

This is not to say that money would originally be meaningfull - clearly it wouldn't, but after you have a certain population size and certainly once everyone is off the starship, you can start thinking about money and such.

9. Focus on having kids - while it would be great to say have "Lots" of kids, that is not the smart way to do things. Free/manditory college level education would be critical.

While it would be "easier" to have an underclass of workers and an upper class of rulers, this doesn't work so well for the preservation of society.

Especially coming from a "technological" civilization. Avoiding a lords and nobles vs. peasants and peons could help you avoid a collapse back to some medieval type situation where knowledge could become lost.

10. Redevelop Earth level technologies - after 2-4 generations it should be possible to start to redevelop many (if not all) of the technological bases of our old society.

It would be important to determine more about our immediate whereabouts in our new solar system.

It would be imperative to not loose the technology to go back and forth from the starship but it would be hard going at the first.

Ultimately , the original or a new ship should be prepared to help colonize either other planets in the starsystem or repaired and re-supplied to go to another star.

Answer 3

first I would not start a religion. Religions are used by man to subjugate or rule over certain people. They may be correct in that there is aGod etc. but people use them for personal gain.
The government would be a truly communist one in which all people were able to apply themselves to the best of their abilities and would not be judged against a benchmark but rather accepted for their strong points and placed in a position which allows them to do the greatest good for themselves and everyone else. Sometimes the greatest good may revolve around happiness not necessarily ability. (eg a brilliant surgeon who prefers driving taxis, would be allowed to drive taxis if there were other surgeons available)(He's actually working on the Gold Coast, True story!)
The government would have to be honest and open in all of their dealings and there would not be any privacy act. This would be so ingrained in the culture that it would not pose a problem.
Zero tolerance on crimes against others.
Eg death for assault without cause and death for rape. Due to the harshness of these penalties, these penalties would only be applied where guilt was blatantly obvious.


ACTUALLY the more I think about it, we'd only develop into the same arseholes we are today so I would neuter EVERY single remaining human and live happily ever after.

Answer 4

I would set up a "Council of Elders" type of government, with the "Council" consisting of persons who have particular skills necessary to ensure survival of the species -- the specific skills would be determined by the unique circumstances presented by the planet on which we find ourselves. Since I have to assume that the survivors chose me as their leader for a reason, I would have the final say so if there is disagreement over a certain action, but would rely on the "Elders" to give the proper advice otherwise.

As for establishing a religion, I would not be interested in doing that.

Answer 5

Democratic - how did I end up leader? Do the majority of the small group want me? If they don't - we'll never get anywhere.

Renewable and reviewable term 'in power'.

Religion = your own belief. The Jew(s) in the group don't work 'Saturday', whatever day we establish as that one on new planet, fine. They work Fridays and/or Sundays, to free up the Muslims and Christians in the group. The Christians, don't work Sunday - they work Saturday or Monday. Muslims work Thursdays and Sundays.

7 days working, with somebody from one of those religions - and any others - working = better growth for 'colony', while giving everyone 2 days off.

Answer 6

Wow, God created two planets? You steal, you loose a hand. Common sense a must. Everyone must contribute to eat. Majority rules for all major decisions. Good question.

Answer 7

First of all I would forget religion, I don't want to start the mess all over again