yeah the status quo is pretty depressing. but i don't accept it, and a lot other people don't either. that still means something. maybe for not much longer, as fox news shows a lot of people can have their opinions assembled for them by corporate cash
you have to use your terms more precisely. fascism is a nice scare word, but what you describe as an accepted ideology died in failure in world war ii. you need to update your terminology. i am not interested in debate about how and why fascism is corporatism, i am interested in defeating corporatism. as such, fascism, is just a bugaboo, a scary word, and not a useful intellectually valid concept
what we are really fighting is corporatism, and corporatism alone, corrupting our democracy. the oligarchy in beijing, which will eventually come to own all multinational corporations as their economic power becomes the greatest in the world, will wield their influence through corporations to subvert our democracy
that's the danger
fascism, communism: these are dead terms from the previous century. i will not use those terms because i wish to be taken seriously, and no one serious thinks of the idea of fascism or communism as valid ideologies anymore. one died in 1945, one died in 1990. the year is 2011. update your terminology please. i'm interested in intellectually useful terms, not scary boogeyman words from the dustbin of history
"Consumers have a ton of power as well, they could have chosen at any point simply not to buy cheap imported goods and it would've ended right then and there"
that really is how you do it. you expect standards for the companies and countries who wish to do business with in your country, or you don't trade with them. that's really how to do it. unfortunately, the free flow of money in our politics means the opposite will happen: our standards will be destroyed under the corruptive power of corporate money, soon to be under the control of beijing
it will be very hard to fight the corrupting influence of money in our politics (thanks roberts court, you fucking antiamerican scumbags), but it is the only way forward
your use of the words fascism and anarchy are completely laughable. you don't understand these terms, so your thoughts are without probative value and need not be answered
surely you can agree that the oligarchy (you are correct, better terminology needed) of the grumpy old men in beijing is a natural fit for corporations. and that the natural trajectory of our economic future is the eventual consolidation of multinationals under their control. the chinese are rapidly coming to own them. that is the threat i am worried about. does it bother you? or do you think this isn't the future?
capitalism is the competition between equals in the marketplace. corporatism is the abuse of and domination of the marketplace by its largest players
to maintain a truly capitalistic marketplace, you need government regulation to level the playing field between the large and the small (despite what some deluded naive fools will tell you otherwise). the unfortunate reality is that currently in the west corporations simply corrupt the government's regulatory laws and enforcement apparatus to entrench their position, rather than oppose their position, as the government naturally should
i'm not saying getting corporate corruption out of our government is easy, but i am saying that it is the only way we can move forward. because unfortunately, the chinese government will simply use our own corporate corruption against us, in the form of multinational corporations interfering with our internal politics with their money. if we don't fight corporate influence of our democracy, we are facing the ultimate victory of autocracy and corporatism over capitalism and democracy in the form of the rise of china, which will use our own unfortunate collusion with corporations against us eventually, as beijing becomes the eventual master of multinationals
intellectual property IS a joke. as you can see, the chinese have proven to you what a joke it is. the way to fight the chinese is to only do business with them and only allow their business into your country, as long as their business abides by certain standards, such as worker's rights. supporting intellectual property is not an effective strategy
furthermore, intellectual property is a concept that the chinese will just as happily wield against those in the west when their power is entrenched enough. the very idea of intellectual property is exactly the sort of anti-capitalist rent seeking monopolistic practices autocratic corporations like the chinese government engage in, that should be opposed, in the NAME OF capitalism and free markets
show me where i am wrong and you have effectively opposed my points. however, just attacking me personally means you have nothing to say against my points, and therefore my points are correct
the greatest enemy capitalism has ever known throughout the history of economics is not communism or socialism, but corporatism. a corporation is a top down autocratic organization that seeks nothing but more profit, be damned any other concerns, like fairness or egaltarianism. when they get large enough, corporations dominate their marketplace by dirty tricks like undercutting competitors prices to destroy them, and rent seeking agreements once they own the whole marketplace by colluding with other large players. ideally, a government would regulate the marketplace and even the playing field for smaller competitors against larger players (oh, you believe no government regulation results in a cleaner more perfect capitalist marketplace? you're a naive idiot). unfortunately, in the west now, corporations corrupt the government and use the government's rules and regulatory powers to not bind them, but instead entrench their marketplace positions and their powers even more
so it is in the west: democracy corrupted by corporatism. but this is but a prelude for the coming truly insidious game. see, us silly westerners have championed capitalism for a long time, but us silly westerners also have this silly anchor around our neck called democracy, respect for the individual. the chinese have no such silly limitations: the citizens have no rights, they are slaves to the autocratic system. you know, autocracy: the corporate model of governance. the future is clear: the chinese autocracy will face the world as one monolithic internally cooperating perfect autocratic corporate behemoth. and it will simply devour the rest of the world. no one can compete with them in size, leverage, production capacity, capital reserves, anything: the chinese will dominate in all regards, and just destroy all else by dominating all marketplaces all over the world
and now that our oh-so-wise supreme court has made corporate donations perfectly legal (justice roberts, you are an asshole and the most anti-american person who has ever lived: protect citizens rights, not corporation rights, you scumbag), and now that there is no need for pesky inquiries like: where the source of the money comes form, the chinese will just buy our democracy outright. multinational corporations now gleefully use chinese workers without rights to make cheap crap. the chinese autocracy will simply buy these multinational eventually and those multinationals to do their bidding in the usa instead, in reverse. the professional prostitutes on the right who will spin anything for their corporate masters (scare us with government death panels when we talk about healthcare or government censorship when we talk about net neutrality): they'll just shill for the chinese owned mutlinationals by finding the right words to spin the complete sublimation of our democracy into corporatocracy as being a Real American (tm). and if the usa has no power against this, why and how would any smaller weaker country fare in the face of the ultimate corporate behemoth known as chinese autocracy?
welcome to the new world. chinese autocracy+capitalism=the ultimate corporate domination of the entire world
soon we will all be slaves to the power structure in beijing. soon we will all be like the typical chinese citizen: workers without rights, chattel to work the mines and factories, nothing more. our democracy flat out bought, sold, and desecrated by multimationals following orders form beijing
that's the future folks. isn't unregulated capitalism grand?
feeling good about yourself, because you made the ECONOMICALLY INTELLIGENT CHOICE, is also a side effect, yes. you are trying to tell me this is a bad thing?
i'm not ready to concede its easier to get more water on mars
but let's make believe i do concede the point
i still have: magnetosphere, isobaric pressure, isothermic temperature, and more solar intensity for energy
enjoy the bitter cold in your pressure cooker behind cinder block and metal, with no windows for fear of cancer. you have to expend more energy maintaining temperature, lighting, and pressure, and yet on venus, there's a lot more energy available
i'm lazily floating above the clouds, with my big windows, maintaining isobaric pressure and isothermic temperature with a few swishes of my solar powered fans
it might be harder for me to find water? if you say so. and yet everything else is easier
getting rid of gas guzzlers is not about destroying "fun" or even the environment. it's about prudent planning for the future as oil gets deeper and brazil, india, and the world economy heats up. increased demand and decreased supply leads to higher prices. i'm glad you're rich and you don't have to worry about that, but most people have a problem if gas prices go over $5/ gallon
so you basically agree that it is a lot easier to sequester water from venusian atmosphere than mine it on mars
mars may have more water. but getting it is much greater energy expenditure when there is less solar energy available
its also just a plain dangerous hassle
dust gumming up mechanical gears and joints. radiation. bitterly cold. digging deep underground. an atmosphere that sublimates whatever you mine. or its a rock hydrate, and that's certainly an energy intensive effort to sequester the water there
while on venus cloud city you have no radiation. you are isobaric with earth atmosphere. you are isothermic with comfortable temperatures. plenty of solar energy. and you just turn on a fan and forget about the process. well, there is the sulfuric acid, heh
alright good point. you'd get earth like days and nights at that speed
one nice thing about venus's dense atmosphere and slow days is that the whole place is isothermic. you wouldn't have massive temperature shifts like on mars
moving atmosphere is obviously less energy intensive than moving rock. going through tons of atmosphere is a heck of a lot easier than getting to your little pool of liquid water 1 km down
and with what energy?
compare the solar intensity on cloud tops of venus to the surface of mars
my solar arrays on venus is moving tons of atmosphere a minute thorugh a simple suction tube and sequestering the water with ease. while you need a solar array 100x as large in the much dimmer martian light, to pick up one boulder. now you have to power your drills, your earth movers, your extraction equipment. oh, and better get that water isolated before the atmosphere touches it and it sublimates into nothing
or, just pick a spot, flip on the solar powered fans, and, at a lazy speed no faster than a person walks, maintain constant position in the sky. say a nice position in permanent twilight that also happens to be the perfect temperature gradient. no need to artificially maintain temperature or pressure or lighting in your cloud city, and all of the energy problems therein
but on mars, you'd be living in a pressure cooker compared to the atmosphere outside, you'd be have to expend a lot of energy on heating in those cold martian nights of -100 to -200 F, and you'd have to have all sorts of artificial lighting
since venus has an induced magnetosphere, you can have windows everywhere. but don't try windows on your mars buildings, unless you like cancer, since mars has no magnetosphere. entombed in metal and cinder block pressure cooker with no windows, from the bitterly cold, very thin irradiated air of the red martian dry dust outside
or floating in perfect lighting, perfect temperature and perfectly isobaric pressure on a venusian cloud city, with windows everywhere looking out above the swirling yellow clouds (isn't sulfuric acid beautiful? *sigh* lol)
see a venusian storm coming? move out of the way. see a martian dust storm coming? get ready to clean the grit out of the robotic mining joints in a few days
well now you're just saying "bad things can happen on venus". well bad things can happen on mars too
and since your floating cities on venus are isobaric with outside atmosphere, a rupture would result in just isostatic pressure gradient: repair at leisure. that wouldn't present an explosive situation or a hole continuing to tear itself open. although, there is the sulfuric acid, heh
while on mars, since you'd be living in basically pressure cookers compared to the outside pressure, every little hole in your buildings would represent a growing fissure, an emergency, or even an explosive situation
look:
1. atmospheric pressure on venus floating colonies would be isobaric with the outside: human friendly atmospheric pressure naturally floats on venus, like helium balloons do on earth. while on mars you'd be living in pressure cookers, constantly in danger of explosive decompression
2. gravity on venus is just about the same as on earth. gravity on mars is a joke. this has biological consequences (brittle frail bone density, etc)
3. venus has an induced magnetosphere from its ionosphere. mars has no magnetosphere. do your colonists like cancer? well, your buildings would have to be dense rock or metal anyway because of the pressure. but don't try building any windows or ever going outside. meanwhile, you could have windows on a venusian cloud city and you aren't dealing with any radiation
4. the venusian day is so slow, your floating city could pick a spot in permanent twilight and move at the same speed as a walking person and constantly remain at ideal temperature and lighting. meanwhile, mars is bitterly cold and you'd have to deal with the even colder martian nights: -100 to -200 F! and your colony certainly isn't mobile: it can't move from martian dust storms. but your venusian cloud city could just float away and reposition itself from any storms. although, the 24 hour martian day IS nice
look: both venus and mars have many pluses and minuses. but presently, viewing all pluses and minuses, i view the idea of venusian cloud cities as much more attractive than any martian colonial scheme
the venus day is very weird. one it is so long, longer than the venusian year. two, the planet rotates retrograde: the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. so this retrograde motion also "speeds up" the rising and setting of the sun as observed on venus. so there is a weird effect as venus goes around the sun: there are two kind of venusian days- the sidereal day, representing one complete rotation, and the solar day, represented by the sun rising and setting in the sky. for venus, the sidereal day is much longer than the solar day, around double in size: one venus year is exactly 1.92 venus solar days
further weirdness is that venus and earth are closest to each other every 584 earth days. which for some odd reason is nearly exactly 5 venusian solar days. bizarre astronomical harmonics
the point being, a cloud city moving in the same retrograde direction as venus' rotation, and it doesn't have to be very fast, could make the effective solar day in the cloud city comparable to an earth solar day
the point is there is very little ice on mars. just like there is very little water vapor on venus
i also think mining mars and separating the ice from the dry ice and the martian rocks is a much more labor intensive effort than simply siphoning up massive amounts of venusian atmosphere and sequestering the water vapor
nevermind the fact you have a lot more power at your disposal on venus, since you are so much closer to the sun
if your standards for saying there is "a lot" of hydrogen on mars are that loose, then the concentration of water vapor in venus's atmosphere is more than suitable for your needs
the same atmosphere that is basically nothing but hot dense carbon dioxide, from which your solar powered nanobots are continually spinning carbon tube nanofibers that are then assembled into gigantic ultrastrong self-sealing cloud cities for happy colonists. the oxygen from breaking down CO2 is for breathing... the limited nitrogen and water vapor making the rest of life possible. mars has pretty much the same atmosphere, but way less dense. advantage: venus. waaaaay more sulfur than needed though
mars:
too cold sun too feeble no magnetosphere human unfriendly gravity human unfriendly atmospheric pressure
your venusian cloud city is slowly moving with the venusian day, constantly in twilight for perfect temperature. with perfect atmospheric pressure, gravity, and magnetosphere. none of which mars can offer
Slashdot Mirror
wow, i didn't know that
yeah the status quo is pretty depressing. but i don't accept it, and a lot other people don't either. that still means something. maybe for not much longer, as fox news shows a lot of people can have their opinions assembled for them by corporate cash
you have to use your terms more precisely. fascism is a nice scare word, but what you describe as an accepted ideology died in failure in world war ii. you need to update your terminology. i am not interested in debate about how and why fascism is corporatism, i am interested in defeating corporatism. as such, fascism, is just a bugaboo, a scary word, and not a useful intellectually valid concept
what we are really fighting is corporatism, and corporatism alone, corrupting our democracy. the oligarchy in beijing, which will eventually come to own all multinational corporations as their economic power becomes the greatest in the world, will wield their influence through corporations to subvert our democracy
that's the danger
fascism, communism: these are dead terms from the previous century. i will not use those terms because i wish to be taken seriously, and no one serious thinks of the idea of fascism or communism as valid ideologies anymore. one died in 1945, one died in 1990. the year is 2011. update your terminology please. i'm interested in intellectually useful terms, not scary boogeyman words from the dustbin of history
"Consumers have a ton of power as well, they could have chosen at any point simply not to buy cheap imported goods and it would've ended right then and there"
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
you're a funny person
that really is how you do it. you expect standards for the companies and countries who wish to do business with in your country, or you don't trade with them. that's really how to do it. unfortunately, the free flow of money in our politics means the opposite will happen: our standards will be destroyed under the corruptive power of corporate money, soon to be under the control of beijing
it will be very hard to fight the corrupting influence of money in our politics (thanks roberts court, you fucking antiamerican scumbags), but it is the only way forward
your use of the words fascism and anarchy are completely laughable. you don't understand these terms, so your thoughts are without probative value and need not be answered
surely you can agree that the oligarchy (you are correct, better terminology needed) of the grumpy old men in beijing is a natural fit for corporations. and that the natural trajectory of our economic future is the eventual consolidation of multinationals under their control. the chinese are rapidly coming to own them. that is the threat i am worried about. does it bother you? or do you think this isn't the future?
capitalism is the competition between equals in the marketplace. corporatism is the abuse of and domination of the marketplace by its largest players
to maintain a truly capitalistic marketplace, you need government regulation to level the playing field between the large and the small (despite what some deluded naive fools will tell you otherwise). the unfortunate reality is that currently in the west corporations simply corrupt the government's regulatory laws and enforcement apparatus to entrench their position, rather than oppose their position, as the government naturally should
i'm not saying getting corporate corruption out of our government is easy, but i am saying that it is the only way we can move forward. because unfortunately, the chinese government will simply use our own corporate corruption against us, in the form of multinational corporations interfering with our internal politics with their money. if we don't fight corporate influence of our democracy, we are facing the ultimate victory of autocracy and corporatism over capitalism and democracy in the form of the rise of china, which will use our own unfortunate collusion with corporations against us eventually, as beijing becomes the eventual master of multinationals
intellectual property IS a joke. as you can see, the chinese have proven to you what a joke it is. the way to fight the chinese is to only do business with them and only allow their business into your country, as long as their business abides by certain standards, such as worker's rights. supporting intellectual property is not an effective strategy
furthermore, intellectual property is a concept that the chinese will just as happily wield against those in the west when their power is entrenched enough. the very idea of intellectual property is exactly the sort of anti-capitalist rent seeking monopolistic practices autocratic corporations like the chinese government engage in, that should be opposed, in the NAME OF capitalism and free markets
ok
and yet i am still waiting for a refutation, and not hearing any
like what country?
show me where i am wrong and you have effectively opposed my points. however, just attacking me personally means you have nothing to say against my points, and therefore my points are correct
the greatest enemy capitalism has ever known throughout the history of economics is not communism or socialism, but corporatism. a corporation is a top down autocratic organization that seeks nothing but more profit, be damned any other concerns, like fairness or egaltarianism. when they get large enough, corporations dominate their marketplace by dirty tricks like undercutting competitors prices to destroy them, and rent seeking agreements once they own the whole marketplace by colluding with other large players. ideally, a government would regulate the marketplace and even the playing field for smaller competitors against larger players (oh, you believe no government regulation results in a cleaner more perfect capitalist marketplace? you're a naive idiot). unfortunately, in the west now, corporations corrupt the government and use the government's rules and regulatory powers to not bind them, but instead entrench their marketplace positions and their powers even more
so it is in the west: democracy corrupted by corporatism. but this is but a prelude for the coming truly insidious game. see, us silly westerners have championed capitalism for a long time, but us silly westerners also have this silly anchor around our neck called democracy, respect for the individual. the chinese have no such silly limitations: the citizens have no rights, they are slaves to the autocratic system. you know, autocracy: the corporate model of governance. the future is clear: the chinese autocracy will face the world as one monolithic internally cooperating perfect autocratic corporate behemoth. and it will simply devour the rest of the world. no one can compete with them in size, leverage, production capacity, capital reserves, anything: the chinese will dominate in all regards, and just destroy all else by dominating all marketplaces all over the world
and now that our oh-so-wise supreme court has made corporate donations perfectly legal (justice roberts, you are an asshole and the most anti-american person who has ever lived: protect citizens rights, not corporation rights, you scumbag), and now that there is no need for pesky inquiries like: where the source of the money comes form, the chinese will just buy our democracy outright. multinational corporations now gleefully use chinese workers without rights to make cheap crap. the chinese autocracy will simply buy these multinational eventually and those multinationals to do their bidding in the usa instead, in reverse. the professional prostitutes on the right who will spin anything for their corporate masters (scare us with government death panels when we talk about healthcare or government censorship when we talk about net neutrality): they'll just shill for the chinese owned mutlinationals by finding the right words to spin the complete sublimation of our democracy into corporatocracy as being a Real American (tm). and if the usa has no power against this, why and how would any smaller weaker country fare in the face of the ultimate corporate behemoth known as chinese autocracy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
welcome to the new world. chinese autocracy+capitalism=the ultimate corporate domination of the entire world
soon we will all be slaves to the power structure in beijing. soon we will all be like the typical chinese citizen: workers without rights, chattel to work the mines and factories, nothing more. our democracy flat out bought, sold, and desecrated by multimationals following orders form beijing
that's the future folks. isn't unregulated capitalism grand?
hybrids use less gas
which is the whole fucking point
feeling good about yourself, because you made the ECONOMICALLY INTELLIGENT CHOICE, is also a side effect, yes. you are trying to tell me this is a bad thing?
i'm not ready to concede its easier to get more water on mars
but let's make believe i do concede the point
i still have: magnetosphere, isobaric pressure, isothermic temperature, and more solar intensity for energy
enjoy the bitter cold in your pressure cooker behind cinder block and metal, with no windows for fear of cancer. you have to expend more energy maintaining temperature, lighting, and pressure, and yet on venus, there's a lot more energy available
i'm lazily floating above the clouds, with my big windows, maintaining isobaric pressure and isothermic temperature with a few swishes of my solar powered fans
it might be harder for me to find water? if you say so. and yet everything else is easier
getting rid of gas guzzlers is not about destroying "fun" or even the environment. it's about prudent planning for the future as oil gets deeper and brazil, india, and the world economy heats up. increased demand and decreased supply leads to higher prices. i'm glad you're rich and you don't have to worry about that, but most people have a problem if gas prices go over $5/ gallon
besides, you never heard of a tesla?
so you basically agree that it is a lot easier to sequester water from venusian atmosphere than mine it on mars
mars may have more water. but getting it is much greater energy expenditure when there is less solar energy available
its also just a plain dangerous hassle
dust gumming up mechanical gears and joints. radiation. bitterly cold. digging deep underground. an atmosphere that sublimates whatever you mine. or its a rock hydrate, and that's certainly an energy intensive effort to sequester the water there
while on venus cloud city you have no radiation. you are isobaric with earth atmosphere. you are isothermic with comfortable temperatures. plenty of solar energy. and you just turn on a fan and forget about the process. well, there is the sulfuric acid, heh
alright good point. you'd get earth like days and nights at that speed
one nice thing about venus's dense atmosphere and slow days is that the whole place is isothermic. you wouldn't have massive temperature shifts like on mars
moving atmosphere is obviously less energy intensive than moving rock. going through tons of atmosphere is a heck of a lot easier than getting to your little pool of liquid water 1 km down
and with what energy?
compare the solar intensity on cloud tops of venus to the surface of mars
my solar arrays on venus is moving tons of atmosphere a minute thorugh a simple suction tube and sequestering the water with ease. while you need a solar array 100x as large in the much dimmer martian light, to pick up one boulder. now you have to power your drills, your earth movers, your extraction equipment. oh, and better get that water isolated before the atmosphere touches it and it sublimates into nothing
or, just pick a spot, flip on the solar powered fans, and, at a lazy speed no faster than a person walks, maintain constant position in the sky. say a nice position in permanent twilight that also happens to be the perfect temperature gradient. no need to artificially maintain temperature or pressure or lighting in your cloud city, and all of the energy problems therein
but on mars, you'd be living in a pressure cooker compared to the atmosphere outside, you'd be have to expend a lot of energy on heating in those cold martian nights of -100 to -200 F, and you'd have to have all sorts of artificial lighting
since venus has an induced magnetosphere, you can have windows everywhere. but don't try windows on your mars buildings, unless you like cancer, since mars has no magnetosphere. entombed in metal and cinder block pressure cooker with no windows, from the bitterly cold, very thin irradiated air of the red martian dry dust outside
or floating in perfect lighting, perfect temperature and perfectly isobaric pressure on a venusian cloud city, with windows everywhere looking out above the swirling yellow clouds (isn't sulfuric acid beautiful? *sigh* lol)
see a venusian storm coming? move out of the way. see a martian dust storm coming? get ready to clean the grit out of the robotic mining joints in a few days
well now you're just saying "bad things can happen on venus". well bad things can happen on mars too
and since your floating cities on venus are isobaric with outside atmosphere, a rupture would result in just isostatic pressure gradient: repair at leisure. that wouldn't present an explosive situation or a hole continuing to tear itself open. although, there is the sulfuric acid, heh
while on mars, since you'd be living in basically pressure cookers compared to the outside pressure, every little hole in your buildings would represent a growing fissure, an emergency, or even an explosive situation
look:
1. atmospheric pressure on venus floating colonies would be isobaric with the outside: human friendly atmospheric pressure naturally floats on venus, like helium balloons do on earth. while on mars you'd be living in pressure cookers, constantly in danger of explosive decompression
2. gravity on venus is just about the same as on earth. gravity on mars is a joke. this has biological consequences (brittle frail bone density, etc)
3. venus has an induced magnetosphere from its ionosphere. mars has no magnetosphere. do your colonists like cancer? well, your buildings would have to be dense rock or metal anyway because of the pressure. but don't try building any windows or ever going outside. meanwhile, you could have windows on a venusian cloud city and you aren't dealing with any radiation
4. the venusian day is so slow, your floating city could pick a spot in permanent twilight and move at the same speed as a walking person and constantly remain at ideal temperature and lighting. meanwhile, mars is bitterly cold and you'd have to deal with the even colder martian nights: -100 to -200 F! and your colony certainly isn't mobile: it can't move from martian dust storms. but your venusian cloud city could just float away and reposition itself from any storms. although, the 24 hour martian day IS nice
look: both venus and mars have many pluses and minuses. but presently, viewing all pluses and minuses, i view the idea of venusian cloud cities as much more attractive than any martian colonial scheme
what's the ease by which water can be extracted from rocks/ separated from gravel and dry ice?
what's the ease by which massive quantities of atmosphere can be sucked up and the water vapor sequestered?
i'd say the second is easier
but you'd need a lot of energy to do either. so:
what's the available solar energy density on mars?
what's the available solar energy density on venus?
agreed
the venus day is very weird. one it is so long, longer than the venusian year. two, the planet rotates retrograde: the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. so this retrograde motion also "speeds up" the rising and setting of the sun as observed on venus. so there is a weird effect as venus goes around the sun: there are two kind of venusian days- the sidereal day, representing one complete rotation, and the solar day, represented by the sun rising and setting in the sky. for venus, the sidereal day is much longer than the solar day, around double in size: one venus year is exactly 1.92 venus solar days
further weirdness is that venus and earth are closest to each other every 584 earth days. which for some odd reason is nearly exactly 5 venusian solar days. bizarre astronomical harmonics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Orbit_and_rotation
the point being, a cloud city moving in the same retrograde direction as venus' rotation, and it doesn't have to be very fast, could make the effective solar day in the cloud city comparable to an earth solar day
the point is there is very little ice on mars. just like there is very little water vapor on venus
i also think mining mars and separating the ice from the dry ice and the martian rocks is a much more labor intensive effort than simply siphoning up massive amounts of venusian atmosphere and sequestering the water vapor
nevermind the fact you have a lot more power at your disposal on venus, since you are so much closer to the sun
if your standards for saying there is "a lot" of hydrogen on mars are that loose, then the concentration of water vapor in venus's atmosphere is more than suitable for your needs
the same atmosphere that is basically nothing but hot dense carbon dioxide, from which your solar powered nanobots are continually spinning carbon tube nanofibers that are then assembled into gigantic ultrastrong self-sealing cloud cities for happy colonists. the oxygen from breaking down CO2 is for breathing... the limited nitrogen and water vapor making the rest of life possible. mars has pretty much the same atmosphere, but way less dense. advantage: venus. waaaaay more sulfur than needed though
mars:
too cold
sun too feeble
no magnetosphere
human unfriendly gravity
human unfriendly atmospheric pressure
your venusian cloud city is slowly moving with the venusian day, constantly in twilight for perfect temperature. with perfect atmospheric pressure, gravity, and magnetosphere. none of which mars can offer
the one thing robots hate more than humidity and oxidation is ultrafine dry martian dust. it gums up everything