Going back to the whole linear marriage issue, I still feel that currently we don't see the need for it. In The Moon, there is about a 10:1 ratio if I remember correctly of men to women. The population is unbalanced and linear marriage makes the search for women easier and less stressful. In some ways it empowers the women, but I still feel like it makes them an item. I may have a bias as I lived in Utah and learned/saw way too much about the FLDS and polygamy for any non-Mormon. I can easily see polygamy as the first step toward linear marriages, as one man and have as many wives as he pleases, but still isn't all the way to linear marriage. Given time, and the right environment, linear marriage might start in the current day. However, we lack the massive imbalance that is found in The Moon.
The whole having a prison colony turn into a stable environment is something we have seen. The best example would be Australia, as they are pretty peaceful current-day. Granted, not everyone there owns a gun like Switzerland, but I think Australia is more like our Luna City than anything else.
When we were discussing the issue of should Mike be held morally responsible for his actions, I couldn't help but think of the character Data from Star Trek: TNG and the episode from season 2 titled "Measure of a Man" in which a similar debate takes place. It's not about moral responsibility but one Federation officer wants to take Data apart so he can study him and possibly make more androids like him. Data objects because he is a Federation Officer and feels that even though his memory is stored in computer chips he will loose the experience of physically being there. In the end the debate on what it means to be "alive" and they decide that since Data is self-aware and can make independent decisions, they can't just treat him like a machine but at the same time he isn't "human." I feel it's the same way with Mike, part of me doesn't want him to be held responsible and the other part wants him to be held responsible. In the beginning I feel that Mike is more like a child, and when children go to court because they killed someone they aren't tried as an adult. Mike is similar in this way, he knows that all his actions aren't necessarily right, but he doesn't know any better because he only has one true friend in Mannie. However, he begins to learn to enjoy killing and knows full well what he is doing and that it's wrong. Philip brought up a good point in that if Mike were still "alive" at the end he would want to be held responsible. Mike wanted to be human and nothing makes you more human than being held responsible for your actions, even though the issue of punishment comes into play because you can't just turn off the computer that runs everything.
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I think you overreact a little with regard to the linear marriages. Keep in mind that linear marriages are not the polygny practiced by fundamentalist Mormon groups, but seem to more closely resemble female dominated polyandry--if anything, the men in these marriages become the sex items for the Women, who seem to have more freedom to come and go as the please (although, overall everyone is pretty much allowed to do as they wish in these marriages).
I would go so far as to postulate that you have it backwards. The conservative polygny practiced by the FLDS is actually as far as one can get from linear marriages in present society. If linear marriages are to from they would likely develop out of the decreasing rigidity surrounding the modern marriage. As utilitarianism (protection of property, raising children, etc) continues to fall out of our current understanding of marriage. One could see the rise of an alternative Corporation or such would could be formed for such social purposes, reserving temporary marriages for fits of lust and love.
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