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> It has nothing to do with other nation's being an effective check on U.S. power. The example proves you wrong. Without another gov't protecting him, Assange

> It has nothing to do with other nation's being an effective check on U.S. power. The example proves you wrong. Without another gov't protecting him, Assange would absolutely be in a US jail right now, or dead. I didn't say that the Ecuadorian military kept him safe. It is the nation states playing against each other that has kept him safe. Whether that play is social or economic or militaristic is just a minor footnote. > He might as well be holed up in a private citizen's condo in California, if he could find a private citizen who was willing to take him. Not an acceptable alternative. Gov't would find him. Very unlikely he would make it out of the airport. You have to have the power of the nation state to play against the other nation state. Ecuador provides that in this case. It doesn't always work (US rolls over nations in middle east all the time), but it does work most of the time most of the people (for some definition of "most of the people" which would be people who live in nations that play the nation state game).

nostrademons 9y ago
He wouldn't, though, because with no nations, the U.S. wouldn't exist as a nation, nor would it have jails, nor would there be an "it" to have them. You can't take one side of the thought experiment, eliminate it, and then assume that the other side will run amok without it, because the whole point of the thought experiment was to imagine what would happen if we eliminate the concept of nation-states. The bigger question is "Is there some person or organization who would cause harm to Assange that he would not be able to protect himself against?" I don't know the answer to that. Go back to the Middle Ages and the answer would be that Assange would pledge his loyalty to one particular lord, who he agreed not to spill the beans on, and he would get protection from them in return. With city-states (popular in antiquity, and perhaps rising again), he would reside in a city, and (assuming he wasn't exiled), that city would provide for his defense and refuse to extradite him, and all the other cities can go to hell. The complexity today is that we have this whole other level of trans-national organizations: multinational corporations, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, Internet communities, hacker collectives, etc. Many of the "attacks" on these organizations can't be stopped by a national border; for example, Assange can continue releasing damaging information against the U.S. from within the Ecuadorian embassy, and he has done nothing to physically violate U.S. territory, and yet this doesn't matter because our lives are half lived in cyberspace anyway. The nation-state arose as a protective force to ensure that violence occurred only within well-defined wars at the edges of their territories, and citizens could basically count on peace when not at war. It basically succeeded at that, but it succeeded so well that the "battlegrounds" now have nothing to do with physical location and often little to do with physical force.
- ethanhunt_ 9y ago
  You make a good point, but his argument then quickly boils down to anarchist style stuff which isn't worth a debate in my opinion. If you removed all these power structures somehow, they would just be replaced by other (probably identical) power structures. > The nation-state arose as a protective force to ensure that violence occurred only within well-defined wars at the edges of their territories, and citizens could basically count on peace when not at war. It basically succeeded at that, but it succeeded so well that the "battlegrounds" now have nothing to do with physical location and often little to do with physical force. This is an interesting idea, so suppose the nation state is eliminated. Wouldn't there just be a new equivalent of the nation state that arises that is based not around physical borders but around digital borders in some way? People are always going to disagree about fundamental ideas, and they're going to band together to protect their ability to live according to those ideas. Which brings us back to the article's point #1: "Nation states, true to their name, tend to emphasize the interests of a particular nation above others.". We'll just end up with that again but instead of the US sanctioning Russia, we're going to have 4chan, reddit, and instagram launching DDoS attacks against each others' users.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    Well, you're certainly not going to eliminate the concept of power. I've heard that floated by some utopianists ("we'll have world government and then everybody will get along with everybody else") and I think it's ridiculous. I don't think that's what the article is suggesting, though. Rather, it's suggesting that we re-draw the boundaries of how we organize that power, with one level globally and another locally (probably at the city or territory level). I'd assume (based on similar writings) that this would work with a federated world government with very limited and specifically-enumerated powers. Basically, we accept certain principles as foundational (rule of law, property rights, non-violence, consent of the governed), and then transfer the monopoly on physical force to a world government whose only task is ensuring that individuals don't violate that. The world government would have very limited powers: aside from preserving peace, it'd basically just define the rules around trade disputes and redress of grievances, and delegate the arbitration of these disputes to a mutually-acceptable arbiter. Possibly it might also serve as a market-maker for externalities (eg. selling carbon credits) and coordinator for shared efforts (eg. fighting infectious disease, or interstellar space travel). It would also ensure freedom to move between municipalities as long as you accept the laws of the local municipality, i.e. borders cannot keep people in or out, but they do define the extent of how you must behave within the municipality. All other powers would go toward local municipalities. This includes a great deal of things currently reserved for a nation-state: drug laws, the place of religion, official languages, national holidays, traffic management, growth policies, possibly even things like free speech. So if San Franciscans want to smoke out, Emirates want to mandate the wearing of the hijab, Texans want complete freedom to carry a gun, Virginians want a holiday honoring Robert E. Lee, they all get that - within their own city. They just don't get to force other people to take on their customs. If Californians are upset by how everybody in Texas is packing heat, or Texans are upset by how Muslims wear a head scarf, or Muslims are upset by how San Franciscans smoke out all the time - too bad, they can define how people should behave in their own city, but they don't get to define how everybody else behaves. And the role of the world government is to ensure that, and put down any attempt at imposing your views on others by force.
jessaustin 9y ago
This argument is like what we hear from drivers of really big SUVs. "I've got to drive a big SUV! Otherwise I would be run over by one! You're crazy for riding a bicycle!"

nostrademons 9y ago

He wouldn't, though, because with no nations, the U.S. wouldn't exist as a nation, nor would it have jails, nor would there be an "it" to have them. You can't take one side of the thought experiment, eliminate it, and then assume that the other side will run amok without it, because the whole point of the thought experiment was to imagine what would happen if we eliminate the concept of nation-states. The bigger question is "Is there some person or organization who would cause harm to Assange that he would not be able to protect himself against?" I don't know the answer to that. Go back to the Middle Ages and the answer would be that Assange would pledge his loyalty to one particular lord, who he agreed not to spill the beans on, and he would get protection from them in return. With city-states (popular in antiquity, and perhaps rising again), he would reside in a city, and (assuming he wasn't exiled), that city would provide for his defense and refuse to extradite him, and all the other cities can go to hell. The complexity today is that we have this whole other level of trans-national organizations: multinational corporations, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, Internet communities, hacker collectives, etc. Many of the "attacks" on these organizations can't be stopped by a national border; for example, Assange can continue releasing damaging information against the U.S. from within the Ecuadorian embassy, and he has done nothing to physically violate U.S. territory, and yet this doesn't matter because our lives are half lived in cyberspace anyway. The nation-state arose as a protective force to ensure that violence occurred only within well-defined wars at the edges of their territories, and citizens could basically count on peace when not at war. It basically succeeded at that, but it succeeded so well that the "battlegrounds" now have nothing to do with physical location and often little to do with physical force.

ethanhunt_ 9y ago
You make a good point, but his argument then quickly boils down to anarchist style stuff which isn't worth a debate in my opinion. If you removed all these power structures somehow, they would just be replaced by other (probably identical) power structures. > The nation-state arose as a protective force to ensure that violence occurred only within well-defined wars at the edges of their territories, and citizens could basically count on peace when not at war. It basically succeeded at that, but it succeeded so well that the "battlegrounds" now have nothing to do with physical location and often little to do with physical force. This is an interesting idea, so suppose the nation state is eliminated. Wouldn't there just be a new equivalent of the nation state that arises that is based not around physical borders but around digital borders in some way? People are always going to disagree about fundamental ideas, and they're going to band together to protect their ability to live according to those ideas. Which brings us back to the article's point #1: "Nation states, true to their name, tend to emphasize the interests of a particular nation above others.". We'll just end up with that again but instead of the US sanctioning Russia, we're going to have 4chan, reddit, and instagram launching DDoS attacks against each others' users.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Well, you're certainly not going to eliminate the concept of power. I've heard that floated by some utopianists ("we'll have world government and then everybody will get along with everybody else") and I think it's ridiculous. I don't think that's what the article is suggesting, though. Rather, it's suggesting that we re-draw the boundaries of how we organize that power, with one level globally and another locally (probably at the city or territory level). I'd assume (based on similar writings) that this would work with a federated world government with very limited and specifically-enumerated powers. Basically, we accept certain principles as foundational (rule of law, property rights, non-violence, consent of the governed), and then transfer the monopoly on physical force to a world government whose only task is ensuring that individuals don't violate that. The world government would have very limited powers: aside from preserving peace, it'd basically just define the rules around trade disputes and redress of grievances, and delegate the arbitration of these disputes to a mutually-acceptable arbiter. Possibly it might also serve as a market-maker for externalities (eg. selling carbon credits) and coordinator for shared efforts (eg. fighting infectious disease, or interstellar space travel). It would also ensure freedom to move between municipalities as long as you accept the laws of the local municipality, i.e. borders cannot keep people in or out, but they do define the extent of how you must behave within the municipality. All other powers would go toward local municipalities. This includes a great deal of things currently reserved for a nation-state: drug laws, the place of religion, official languages, national holidays, traffic management, growth policies, possibly even things like free speech. So if San Franciscans want to smoke out, Emirates want to mandate the wearing of the hijab, Texans want complete freedom to carry a gun, Virginians want a holiday honoring Robert E. Lee, they all get that - within their own city. They just don't get to force other people to take on their customs. If Californians are upset by how everybody in Texas is packing heat, or Texans are upset by how Muslims wear a head scarf, or Muslims are upset by how San Franciscans smoke out all the time - too bad, they can define how people should behave in their own city, but they don't get to define how everybody else behaves. And the role of the world government is to ensure that, and put down any attempt at imposing your views on others by force.

jessaustin 9y ago

This argument is like what we hear from drivers of really big SUVs. "I've got to drive a big SUV! Otherwise I would be run over by one! You're crazy for riding a bicycle!"