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How does respecting national sovereignty rather than letting your government be trampled over by international corporations run counter to a globally connected

by jrs95 9y ago

How does respecting national sovereignty rather than letting your government be trampled over by international corporations run counter to a globally connected internet? This sort of attitude might seem like "nationalist populism" now, but it wasn't that long ago that "the left" was on the same page. I still am personally, but there seems to be a disturbing trend where anti-Trump sentiment is being leveraged to promote a corporate agenda.

wybiral 9y ago
I'm not arguing against populism, more so the nationalist aspect of the "nationalist populism". Particularly the idea that "diversity is the root of our problems" and "immigration is inherently bad". These ideas seem central to most of the nationalist movements in western society recently.
- jrs95 9y ago
  I generally agree. "Nationalism" is often just a euphemism for xenophobia which is not only immoral but counter productive if what you were really concerned about was the national interest. At the same time, I wish we could have a reasonable discussion about what level of immigration, free trade, etc is most beneficial for the people. There are legitimate issues that can arise from these things, but there's far too much toxicity in the debate for any nuanced view to really be politically viable it seems. And the policies that would benefit workers don't really seem to be materializing from either side that claims to represent them.
  - wybiral 9y ago
    Absolutely. We need less polarization and more nuanced debate. It's one of those issues where it appears that party lines have been drawn around it and both sides seem to be drifting more and more extreme. I don't think that the average person is that polarized on some of these issues, but instead I think party members are afraid of being shunned for not fervently agreeing.
PeterisP 9y ago
One issue is with diverging values and rules. If national sovereignty overrides everything, one country mandates X, and another mandates not-X - then that's not compatible with a globally connected internet; since each of them will require the "other" thing to be removed from "their" internet, and that leads to segmentation, blocking and separation. What do you do when country A requires all maps to show that some territory belongs to them, and country B requires the same? What do you do when country A requires particular data to be stored so that they have access to it, and country B requires that the same data is stored so that country A does not have access to it? What if country A wants people to be say X without restrictions, and country B wants everyone to be prohibited from saying X? If you separate everything cleanly into "areas of sovereignty" then you can't really have a single, globally connected, integrated internet, as services/content can't satisfy all conflicting requirements and thus be available everywhere the same; if you do not, then the sovereignty of at least some countries will be limited. For me, the best solution would be if we could come to some agreement about some global, universal rules/principles for the internet, but that inevitably requires countries to hand over some of their sovereignty and abstain from any making requirements contrary to these rules.
- deltron3030 9y ago
  You don't need to go that far. Problems already start on the local level, where you have cities and city people ruling over rural people and their interests, totally different lifestyles. There needs to be a way to shrink to homogenous units, and then use technology to organize everything. The bureaucracy of centralized governments was practical, but it didn't kept up with the diversification of society. The self driving car stuff could effect housing too, think about self driving mobile homes, that cluster and arrange based on your preferences, basically going back to a nomadic way of living, but in a techy way. This could be a solution to many problems of the static nature of cities, and problems that start perpetuating upwards from there.

by jrs95 9y ago

wybiral 9y ago

I'm not arguing against populism, more so the nationalist aspect of the "nationalist populism". Particularly the idea that "diversity is the root of our problems" and "immigration is inherently bad". These ideas seem central to most of the nationalist movements in western society recently.

jrs95 9y ago
I generally agree. "Nationalism" is often just a euphemism for xenophobia which is not only immoral but counter productive if what you were really concerned about was the national interest. At the same time, I wish we could have a reasonable discussion about what level of immigration, free trade, etc is most beneficial for the people. There are legitimate issues that can arise from these things, but there's far too much toxicity in the debate for any nuanced view to really be politically viable it seems. And the policies that would benefit workers don't really seem to be materializing from either side that claims to represent them.
- wybiral 9y ago
  Absolutely. We need less polarization and more nuanced debate. It's one of those issues where it appears that party lines have been drawn around it and both sides seem to be drifting more and more extreme. I don't think that the average person is that polarized on some of these issues, but instead I think party members are afraid of being shunned for not fervently agreeing.

PeterisP 9y ago

One issue is with diverging values and rules. If national sovereignty overrides everything, one country mandates X, and another mandates not-X - then that's not compatible with a globally connected internet; since each of them will require the "other" thing to be removed from "their" internet, and that leads to segmentation, blocking and separation. What do you do when country A requires all maps to show that some territory belongs to them, and country B requires the same? What do you do when country A requires particular data to be stored so that they have access to it, and country B requires that the same data is stored so that country A does not have access to it? What if country A wants people to be say X without restrictions, and country B wants everyone to be prohibited from saying X? If you separate everything cleanly into "areas of sovereignty" then you can't really have a single, globally connected, integrated internet, as services/content can't satisfy all conflicting requirements and thus be available everywhere the same; if you do not, then the sovereignty of at least some countries will be limited. For me, the best solution would be if we could come to some agreement about some global, universal rules/principles for the internet, but that inevitably requires countries to hand over some of their sovereignty and abstain from any making requirements contrary to these rules.

deltron3030 9y ago
You don't need to go that far. Problems already start on the local level, where you have cities and city people ruling over rural people and their interests, totally different lifestyles. There needs to be a way to shrink to homogenous units, and then use technology to organize everything. The bureaucracy of centralized governments was practical, but it didn't kept up with the diversification of society. The self driving car stuff could effect housing too, think about self driving mobile homes, that cluster and arrange based on your preferences, basically going back to a nomadic way of living, but in a techy way. This could be a solution to many problems of the static nature of cities, and problems that start perpetuating upwards from there.