7 ms·

I believe in the future it will seem ridiculous that people from many countries are prevented from traveling to some other richer countries, while the people fr

I believe in the future it will seem ridiculous that people from many countries are prevented from traveling to some other richer countries, while the people from the rich countries can freely move about as they please.

jacquesm 16y ago
That's a pet peeve of mine and it really gets me every time I'm confronted with it. The sooner the world will have no borders the better.
- pdx 16y ago
  > The sooner the world will have no borders the better. I think you should really think that over. A world with no borders is a world with one government. Currently, if your government becomes something you can't tolerate, you can usually move to another country, or at least dream of moving. With a single, world government, your only option is revolution, which I believe is rapidly becoming almost impossible and certainly would be against the might and resources of a world government. Are you really willing to resign your children, grandchildren, and humanity in general to some unknown world government of the future? Are you really so trusting? Even if you don't believe that under such a system, human rights would erode at an alarming rate, you should at least shun it for the very reason that there is no diversity that will save you in case of unforeseen events. You want the world to be a field of wheat, all of a single strain. You would never advocate such a plan with actual wheat, since you know that diversity is a form of insurance.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Why should I trust or distrust a world government more or less than the current ones? What is the last time in living memory that people in a developed country revolted against their rulers? Poland? That was more of a strike, and that weapon will always be available.
    - pdx 16y ago
      When something is possible, it is often not necessary. That it's possible that I may strike you in the nose if you're rude enough is generally enough to keep you from being rude enough to cause me to need to strike you. That revolution is possible is generally enough for governments not to trample too heavily on their population. In both cases, the actual act is not carried out, just the possibility of it is enough. But I agree that the gulf between civilian and government might is fearfully large already, which makes moving to another country a much better option. Of course, your world won't have that option.
      - Robin_Message 16y ago
        But you're back to the point of the OP - for all the people that want to exercise the option (e.g. some residents of China, North Korea or Iran) moving to another country isn't an option, so having separate countries isn't helping them anyway. Also, since the EU has borders with free movement (and doesn't even check on internal borders), which meets the grandparent's goal of being able to easily move countries, you are wrong to say this inevitably means forming a single world government. (Edited for appalling grammar)
        pdx 16y ago
        How old is the EU? Already, after only a few years, the erosion of sovereignty of the individual countries is well along. I think it proves the point more than refutes it.
        Robin_Message 16y ago
        About 50. Nations have chosen to delegate some parts of their running certainly - more so than the US states in some areas, less so in most others. Any answer to the first point? This debate is immaterial since in countries that people actually want to leave: a. their own government won't let them leave and b. our governments won't let them come. The question I suppose is, can we find a way to reduce our borders without creating a world government, since that is clearly a bad thing? I believe we can, will and should.
  - zargon 16y ago
    A world with no borders is a world with one government. Or a world with no government. Saying many governments is better than one government is like saying more slave masters is better than one, since some of them might be more lenient.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      A world with no government lasts exactly as long as it takes for some charismatic guy to round up some armed men and set up a new government. Out of 300-500 million people in the 13th century we had Genghis Khan--how many Genghis Khans are we going to find out of 7 billion people? Humanity's had two steady states--hunting and gathering, and governments. It's an interesting question how authority functioned in hunter-gatherer tribes prior to the invention of civilization and government, but since then, government has been the only steady state. It's even more of a steady state than hunting and gathering, because the hunter-gatherers kept realizing they were better warriors than the grain-fed populations of a civilization, so they conquered neighboring civilizations and set up their own government.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        There is some contradiction in this thread, on the one hand the whole world population is deemed to be incapable of rising up against a 'bad' world government and on the other all it takes is one charismatic guy to round up 'some armed men'.
        philwelch 16y ago
        I don't think you'd end up with a single world government. I think you'd end up with thousands of smaller conquerers carving out territory for themselves, and a gradual process where empires grow, break apart, join together, etc.. You know, basically the entire history of the world over again, except with nuclear weapons.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        This belief, while widely held is utterly unproven. Things are vastly different now than they were in Genghis Khan's time. Further, in Africa hunter/gatherer was doing pretty well for the most part until the imperialists interfered. The issues before were poor education and slow communication. If your neighbor country decided to conquer you, by the time you were mobilized to defend yourself you had already lost. Education has gotten vastly better over time. We didn't switch away from Monarchy because the monarchy decided to give up their power. The people became too educated to be controlled in this manner. Communication is also practically instant now. If a Genghis Khan began conquering a government-less world with our current level of technology, by the time he finished conquering the first neighbor he would already be surrounded by everyone else. I'm not saying Anarchy could work, but rather that we don't know yet. It's never been properly tried. Of course you would expect this. Governments don't want it to be tried because if it did somehow manage to work they would lose their power.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  While I too would like to see the borders opened up a bit, there does have to be some control. If you just let everyone do whatever they want you end up with London: an endless massive sprawl that produces and consumes the majority of resources in England. It would have been much better to control the flow of immigration a bit better and have more big cities than one insanely large one and wouldn't make most of the country look like free loaders on financial topology charts.
cynicalkane 16y ago
Are you proposing that the US should open the floodgates to whoever wants to come over here? I'm not anti-immigration by any means, but letting everyone in all at once seems like a clearly bad idea.
- Retric 16y ago
  Post globalization the ratio of poor to rich countries will be such that people will only understand your argument on the intellectual level.
- fleitz 16y ago
  It's a great idea, it will quickly eliminate most entitlement programs as people start to worry about "immigrants" receiving benefits.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    As someone who is rather attached to the idea of entitlement programs, I fear you're right. However the amount of good that could be done by more open borders is likely to be much greater than the good done social programs, so this looks like a place I'll have to just grin and bear it.
- bluesnowmonkey 16y ago
  But it's not clear. What would go wrong? You can move about very freely in the US. If you live in Florida, you can quit your job and move to Alaska today. No notice, no paperwork at all. You just go live there. And this system works fine in practice. But if you decide to stop along the way and live in Canada, well suddenly it's an international incident. You have to apply in advance -- pay fees and fill out forms. They will physically examine your body. Committees you never meet will look into the most private details of your life and evaluate whether you are worthy to move to Canada. It will take a long time and you might be denied. Why is it dangerous to let people cross imaginary lines? People don't suddenly become vile and dangerous at 49° N.
  - jbarham 16y ago
run4yourlives 16y ago
There seems to be a common belief, even among the educated, that the security of nations is somehow completely unrelated to the security of the individual. In reality, one is the macro; the other, micro. They are solutions to the exact same problem at a different scale. The same way that you lock your door, we collectively close a border. The same way that we call the cops on the drug house, we bomb << entity >> . So, to re-phrase your future view a little: If you foresee us being able to dispel the notion of door locks in favour of trusting our fellow humans completely, you can imagine your border free world. I am a little more pessimistic, to be honest.
- epochwolf 16y ago
  I can't agree with this enough. Granted the comparison of countries with drug houses is a little simplistic. :)
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    How about"The same way that we call the cops on the guy we think is running a drug house, we bomb << entity >>. :-) It's complex enough to make the point, but I certainly do appreciate that it isn't that straightforward in the real world.
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      Even at the local level, this is problematic - it's depressingly easy to find reports of incorrectly targeted police action. In such a case, the security-first approach (of both the police and the homeowner) has resulted in wrongful arrests and death not withstanding everyone acting in good faith. Correspondingly, enforcing internal or external security with absolutist certitude virtually guarantees a serious error sooner or later.
      - run4yourlives 16y ago
        You are missing my point.
- 16y ago
jbarham 16y ago
"Good fences make good neighbors." What's true at the local level is also true at a national level.

jacquesm 16y ago

That's a pet peeve of mine and it really gets me every time I'm confronted with it. The sooner the world will have no borders the better.

pdx 16y ago
> The sooner the world will have no borders the better. I think you should really think that over. A world with no borders is a world with one government. Currently, if your government becomes something you can't tolerate, you can usually move to another country, or at least dream of moving. With a single, world government, your only option is revolution, which I believe is rapidly becoming almost impossible and certainly would be against the might and resources of a world government. Are you really willing to resign your children, grandchildren, and humanity in general to some unknown world government of the future? Are you really so trusting? Even if you don't believe that under such a system, human rights would erode at an alarming rate, you should at least shun it for the very reason that there is no diversity that will save you in case of unforeseen events. You want the world to be a field of wheat, all of a single strain. You would never advocate such a plan with actual wheat, since you know that diversity is a form of insurance.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Why should I trust or distrust a world government more or less than the current ones? What is the last time in living memory that people in a developed country revolted against their rulers? Poland? That was more of a strike, and that weapon will always be available.
  - pdx 16y ago
    When something is possible, it is often not necessary. That it's possible that I may strike you in the nose if you're rude enough is generally enough to keep you from being rude enough to cause me to need to strike you. That revolution is possible is generally enough for governments not to trample too heavily on their population. In both cases, the actual act is not carried out, just the possibility of it is enough. But I agree that the gulf between civilian and government might is fearfully large already, which makes moving to another country a much better option. Of course, your world won't have that option.
    - Robin_Message 16y ago
      But you're back to the point of the OP - for all the people that want to exercise the option (e.g. some residents of China, North Korea or Iran) moving to another country isn't an option, so having separate countries isn't helping them anyway. Also, since the EU has borders with free movement (and doesn't even check on internal borders), which meets the grandparent's goal of being able to easily move countries, you are wrong to say this inevitably means forming a single world government. (Edited for appalling grammar)
      - pdx 16y ago
        How old is the EU? Already, after only a few years, the erosion of sovereignty of the individual countries is well along. I think it proves the point more than refutes it.
        Robin_Message 16y ago
        About 50. Nations have chosen to delegate some parts of their running certainly - more so than the US states in some areas, less so in most others. Any answer to the first point? This debate is immaterial since in countries that people actually want to leave: a. their own government won't let them leave and b. our governments won't let them come. The question I suppose is, can we find a way to reduce our borders without creating a world government, since that is clearly a bad thing? I believe we can, will and should.
- zargon 16y ago
  A world with no borders is a world with one government. Or a world with no government. Saying many governments is better than one government is like saying more slave masters is better than one, since some of them might be more lenient.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    A world with no government lasts exactly as long as it takes for some charismatic guy to round up some armed men and set up a new government. Out of 300-500 million people in the 13th century we had Genghis Khan--how many Genghis Khans are we going to find out of 7 billion people? Humanity's had two steady states--hunting and gathering, and governments. It's an interesting question how authority functioned in hunter-gatherer tribes prior to the invention of civilization and government, but since then, government has been the only steady state. It's even more of a steady state than hunting and gathering, because the hunter-gatherers kept realizing they were better warriors than the grain-fed populations of a civilization, so they conquered neighboring civilizations and set up their own government.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      There is some contradiction in this thread, on the one hand the whole world population is deemed to be incapable of rising up against a 'bad' world government and on the other all it takes is one charismatic guy to round up 'some armed men'.
      - philwelch 16y ago
        I don't think you'd end up with a single world government. I think you'd end up with thousands of smaller conquerers carving out territory for themselves, and a gradual process where empires grow, break apart, join together, etc.. You know, basically the entire history of the world over again, except with nuclear weapons.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      This belief, while widely held is utterly unproven. Things are vastly different now than they were in Genghis Khan's time. Further, in Africa hunter/gatherer was doing pretty well for the most part until the imperialists interfered. The issues before were poor education and slow communication. If your neighbor country decided to conquer you, by the time you were mobilized to defend yourself you had already lost. Education has gotten vastly better over time. We didn't switch away from Monarchy because the monarchy decided to give up their power. The people became too educated to be controlled in this manner. Communication is also practically instant now. If a Genghis Khan began conquering a government-less world with our current level of technology, by the time he finished conquering the first neighbor he would already be surrounded by everyone else. I'm not saying Anarchy could work, but rather that we don't know yet. It's never been properly tried. Of course you would expect this. Governments don't want it to be tried because if it did somehow manage to work they would lose their power.
loewenskind 16y ago
While I too would like to see the borders opened up a bit, there does have to be some control. If you just let everyone do whatever they want you end up with London: an endless massive sprawl that produces and consumes the majority of resources in England. It would have been much better to control the flow of immigration a bit better and have more big cities than one insanely large one and wouldn't make most of the country look like free loaders on financial topology charts.

cynicalkane 16y ago

Are you proposing that the US should open the floodgates to whoever wants to come over here? I'm not anti-immigration by any means, but letting everyone in all at once seems like a clearly bad idea.

Retric 16y ago
Post globalization the ratio of poor to rich countries will be such that people will only understand your argument on the intellectual level.
fleitz 16y ago
It's a great idea, it will quickly eliminate most entitlement programs as people start to worry about "immigrants" receiving benefits.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  As someone who is rather attached to the idea of entitlement programs, I fear you're right. However the amount of good that could be done by more open borders is likely to be much greater than the good done social programs, so this looks like a place I'll have to just grin and bear it.
bluesnowmonkey 16y ago
But it's not clear. What would go wrong? You can move about very freely in the US. If you live in Florida, you can quit your job and move to Alaska today. No notice, no paperwork at all. You just go live there. And this system works fine in practice. But if you decide to stop along the way and live in Canada, well suddenly it's an international incident. You have to apply in advance -- pay fees and fill out forms. They will physically examine your body. Committees you never meet will look into the most private details of your life and evaluate whether you are worthy to move to Canada. It will take a long time and you might be denied. Why is it dangerous to let people cross imaginary lines? People don't suddenly become vile and dangerous at 49° N.
- jbarham 16y ago

run4yourlives 16y ago

There seems to be a common belief, even among the educated, that the security of nations is somehow completely unrelated to the security of the individual. In reality, one is the macro; the other, micro. They are solutions to the exact same problem at a different scale. The same way that you lock your door, we collectively close a border. The same way that we call the cops on the drug house, we bomb << entity >> . So, to re-phrase your future view a little: If you foresee us being able to dispel the notion of door locks in favour of trusting our fellow humans completely, you can imagine your border free world. I am a little more pessimistic, to be honest.

epochwolf 16y ago
I can't agree with this enough. Granted the comparison of countries with drug houses is a little simplistic. :)
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  How about"The same way that we call the cops on the guy we think is running a drug house, we bomb << entity >>. :-) It's complex enough to make the point, but I certainly do appreciate that it isn't that straightforward in the real world.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Even at the local level, this is problematic - it's depressingly easy to find reports of incorrectly targeted police action. In such a case, the security-first approach (of both the police and the homeowner) has resulted in wrongful arrests and death not withstanding everyone acting in good faith. Correspondingly, enforcing internal or external security with absolutist certitude virtually guarantees a serious error sooner or later.
    - run4yourlives 16y ago
      You are missing my point.
16y ago

jbarham 16y ago

"Good fences make good neighbors." What's true at the local level is also true at a national level.