The Long Earth discussion

Once I finish a book I often want to discuss the concepts and ideas I've read and get other people's take on them. I haven't seen anything like that mentioned on this board yet, so I'll post some thoughts.

First of all, it seems the concept of infinite Earths and thus unlimited resources is talked about very naively in the book. It seems like the main character's view is that war should be obsolete now that anybody can just go out and take anything they want, as much as they want. Except he's dead wrong on that. Effort is also a resource - which presents in many ways, not the least of which is distance. To use an example from the book, if I wanted to go out and mine for gold I would want to travel as little as possible. Basically just taking one step to West 1 or East 1, mine my gold and then step back to go home. Of course, once I take my one step I find out that somebody has already laid a claim to this gold area. Putting aside the question of how to make a claim in the first place, or who actually owns the land, I then take another step, and find out that somebody has already claimed that area too. Pioneers in the book travel for months to get to some distant Earths. What if the area I'm interested in has been spoken for for at least 1000 Earths? I would then need to travel for days or weeks to even get to where I need to go and then travel that same distance back if I wanted to still live in Datum! Does anybody see a problem here? What if I wanted to oust the guy in West 1 and take over? Let him travel to Earth 1000 for his gold. War is going to come much sooner than you'd think.

Also the geographical location of resources is never even thought about. Most of our oil reserves is in Middle East, I'm told. If not, then there are other natural resources that are more abundant in certain areas, you see where I'm going with this. In the book, the countries try to make claim to the area they currently occupy on other Earths. So USA says North America is property of USA on EVERY Earth. It makes sense, because if you live there and you want to step once or twice, you still want to end up in USA, not some other country with totally different culture and customs. However, what if someone wants to go and drill for oil in the Middle East on West 10? Oh, oh, I don't think Saudi Arabia guys are going to like that very much. Unlimited resources not so unlimited after all?

Second, I can't believe all the pioneers out there. It's a nice thought, but I feel the authors overlook the potential for conflict a lot. They seem to think that if space is unlimited, then you can just move where you want. But what about the EFFORT involved in setting up? Let's say you move to Earth 11,000 and set up a nice little colony for yourself. Then, one day, about 200 people with guns show up and say "Hey, we like what you've done here, we're gonna take over now, run along". I feel the authors will be flabbergasted. "But, there's so much space, go to Earth 11,001 and set up there?". "Umm, yeah, that would mean clearing the trees, building homes, forges, etc. That's months and years worth of work, we don't feel like doing all that, if you don't want a bullet in your head just leave peacefully, your home is mine now".

How's that for all your hard work? The pioneers would need to be armed to the teeth and no military is going to go help them all the way over there on Earth 11,000. Especially since they're not paying taxes, because they ran the "tax man" out of town. No takers?

What do you think about all this?