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What was wrong with sovereign nations? A step towards what? This is the big scam of the 21st century. People think that big blobs are stronger than smaller, mo

by dudul 11y ago

What was wrong with sovereign nations? A step towards what? This is the big scam of the 21st century. People think that big blobs are stronger than smaller, more focused and cohesive entities. Smaller countries all over the world are doing just fine.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
A step towards unified global government, one day, hopefully. You don't need sovereign nations to reap benefits of distribution, and some things are really better centralized (I'd agree that centralization may be the big scam of the 20th century - decentralization is the scam of 21st. People somehow forget that decentralized usually means very wasteful.). UE is an example of a "blob" that is not much more focused or cohesive than individual nations were, but it seems at least like a step in the right direction.
- hugh4 11y ago
  Is that your best argument for the end of national sovereignty? Economies of scale?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Economies of scale, eventual ending of some unnecessary zero-sum games (a single government doesn't need to maintain much military, nor it will end up in an arms race), getting rid of nationalism, tying people's identity to the whole planet as opposed to an arbitrary subset of it. I don't really see the benefits of keeping national sovereignty. One could think that we should've grown past it already.
    - cousin_it 11y ago
      If a world government decides to spy on its own citizens, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        I'm assuming at this point we'll grow past the privacy thing as well, but I'm going to upgrade your argument to "if a world government decides to do something evil, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run", which is indeed a concern. I'm just not sure if having a safe haven for whistleblower is worth keeping around pockets of people pointing guns at each other like we do today. Also, the "safe haven" is something a whistleblower gets for giving a gun to one side to point at another, not at the goodness of any government's collective heart.
        hugh4 11y ago
        You're right, that's a relatively minor concern. How about the concern that the existence of a single government doesn't stop people shooting at each other, as indicated by, oh, say, the Syrian Civil War? Even in the optimal case where you somehow did achieve a one-world government that was democratic and benign (rather than resembling the average government) you would inevitably have groups of people thinking that this is a non-ideal government whose authority should be challenged. In the end you'd just wind up replacing all ordinary wars with civil wars. And the civil wars, instead of being confined to one country at a time, would rage simultaneously in all countries, always.

by dudul 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

A step towards unified global government, one day, hopefully. You don't need sovereign nations to reap benefits of distribution, and some things are really better centralized (I'd agree that centralization may be the big scam of the 20th century - decentralization is the scam of 21st. People somehow forget that decentralized usually means very wasteful.). UE is an example of a "blob" that is not much more focused or cohesive than individual nations were, but it seems at least like a step in the right direction.

hugh4 11y ago
Is that your best argument for the end of national sovereignty? Economies of scale?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Economies of scale, eventual ending of some unnecessary zero-sum games (a single government doesn't need to maintain much military, nor it will end up in an arms race), getting rid of nationalism, tying people's identity to the whole planet as opposed to an arbitrary subset of it. I don't really see the benefits of keeping national sovereignty. One could think that we should've grown past it already.
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    If a world government decides to spy on its own citizens, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I'm assuming at this point we'll grow past the privacy thing as well, but I'm going to upgrade your argument to "if a world government decides to do something evil, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run", which is indeed a concern. I'm just not sure if having a safe haven for whistleblower is worth keeping around pockets of people pointing guns at each other like we do today. Also, the "safe haven" is something a whistleblower gets for giving a gun to one side to point at another, not at the goodness of any government's collective heart.
      - hugh4 11y ago
        You're right, that's a relatively minor concern. How about the concern that the existence of a single government doesn't stop people shooting at each other, as indicated by, oh, say, the Syrian Civil War? Even in the optimal case where you somehow did achieve a one-world government that was democratic and benign (rather than resembling the average government) you would inevitably have groups of people thinking that this is a non-ideal government whose authority should be challenged. In the end you'd just wind up replacing all ordinary wars with civil wars. And the civil wars, instead of being confined to one country at a time, would rage simultaneously in all countries, always.