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> Humanity has never made collective decisions for the whole planet ... League of Nations, later becoming the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Ri

> Humanity has never made collective decisions for the whole planet ... League of Nations, later becoming the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... hopefully you will have heard of those. Within the UN there are not that many members that complain much about the organization being dysfunctional or even useless. Unsurprisingly, all those who do are the USA and ones that are extremely dependent on the USA. One could argue that the USA is indeed an exceptional country, but not in a good way. The UN was explicitly set up with the goal of collectively solving global problems. The current status quo within the UN, where the USA regularly flaunts the treaties they signed/ratified or falsely accusing others of violations (without sufficient proof) just as justification for ditching their own commitments, says little about humanity and everything about the USA. I have no doubt that the USA will indeed do everything to "resolve" these issues rather the old fashioned way by violence. Hopefully the rest of mankind will be a bit smarter than that.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
”League of Nations, later becoming the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... hopefully you will have heard of those.” These organizations are/were a good thing but they haven’t been able to stop violence so far. The League of Nations couldn’t prevent WW2 and the UN couldn’t prevent a lot of atrocities and war since its creation. I wish they could. I also don’t think international collaboration will work once we have tens of millions of people having to move due to climate change or if overpopulation causes severe resource shortages.
- elmo2you 7y ago
  I can follow that line of reasoning, but I think it is biased (maybe unintentionally) to the point where its conclusion is inaccurate. Indeed, the League of Nations couldn't prevent WW2, neither did the UN prevent a lot of atrocities from happening. That is, aside from all the atrocities that it did actually prevent (probably numerously, but we will never know for they didn't happen). If not from starting, than at least from expanding to the point that they otherwise would have. As for WW2, besides its roots in the settlement of WW1, it was also the opportunistic selfish advantages that some particular countries (not talking about Germany) saw in it's unfolding, while pretending otherwise to the public, that made WW2 to unfold as it did (reminder: it was the USA who continued doing good business with Germany, until it was Hitler who declared war on the USA). The real question to ask is: what would we have without the UN? All there would be is bilateral agreements between individual countries. It is well known from history how easily those create extremely complex situations where a local conflict can often quickly spiral out into global conflicts (because of conflicting agreements between allies of the involved parties). WW1 probably being a good example of that, and in fact a primary motivator behind the creation of what eventually became the UN. Climate change will indeed cause all sorts of problems, violence no doubt among them. One thing is sure though, with only bilateral agreements between countries, it will be only more bloody and inhumane than with the UN at least striving for a global consensus approach. It's only with collective agreement that the effects of these challenges can be limited to their least worst outcomes. It will be bad either way, but that's no valid argument to fatalistically argue that nothing will matter. Of course, the USA could choose that none of this is their problem, and only look at their own self-interests. But that will rather sooner than later pave the way of their own inevitable demise (which in that case would probably be a very unpleasant one). As long as a substantial part of the US economy and international political dominance comes directly from how the country profits from conflict elsewhere on the globe, little chance that the USA will ever sincerely contribute to making this world a better place. This is not to say that other countries are benevolent or sincere, but it is the USA who openly advocates breaking down whatever instruments we still have to resolve issues by consensus instead of violence. The UN is by no means a perfect solution, but without it this world would likely be a far worse place. The world before it existed sure was. Something apparently only the USA (and a few vassals) seems to openly disagree with. I remember only a few other countries that did; mostly totalitarian ones and responsible for some of those atrocities that that the UN failed to prevent.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I think we are in agreement. The UN does good things but it's limited.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

”League of Nations, later becoming the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... hopefully you will have heard of those.” These organizations are/were a good thing but they haven’t been able to stop violence so far. The League of Nations couldn’t prevent WW2 and the UN couldn’t prevent a lot of atrocities and war since its creation. I wish they could. I also don’t think international collaboration will work once we have tens of millions of people having to move due to climate change or if overpopulation causes severe resource shortages.

elmo2you 7y ago
I can follow that line of reasoning, but I think it is biased (maybe unintentionally) to the point where its conclusion is inaccurate. Indeed, the League of Nations couldn't prevent WW2, neither did the UN prevent a lot of atrocities from happening. That is, aside from all the atrocities that it did actually prevent (probably numerously, but we will never know for they didn't happen). If not from starting, than at least from expanding to the point that they otherwise would have. As for WW2, besides its roots in the settlement of WW1, it was also the opportunistic selfish advantages that some particular countries (not talking about Germany) saw in it's unfolding, while pretending otherwise to the public, that made WW2 to unfold as it did (reminder: it was the USA who continued doing good business with Germany, until it was Hitler who declared war on the USA). The real question to ask is: what would we have without the UN? All there would be is bilateral agreements between individual countries. It is well known from history how easily those create extremely complex situations where a local conflict can often quickly spiral out into global conflicts (because of conflicting agreements between allies of the involved parties). WW1 probably being a good example of that, and in fact a primary motivator behind the creation of what eventually became the UN. Climate change will indeed cause all sorts of problems, violence no doubt among them. One thing is sure though, with only bilateral agreements between countries, it will be only more bloody and inhumane than with the UN at least striving for a global consensus approach. It's only with collective agreement that the effects of these challenges can be limited to their least worst outcomes. It will be bad either way, but that's no valid argument to fatalistically argue that nothing will matter. Of course, the USA could choose that none of this is their problem, and only look at their own self-interests. But that will rather sooner than later pave the way of their own inevitable demise (which in that case would probably be a very unpleasant one). As long as a substantial part of the US economy and international political dominance comes directly from how the country profits from conflict elsewhere on the globe, little chance that the USA will ever sincerely contribute to making this world a better place. This is not to say that other countries are benevolent or sincere, but it is the USA who openly advocates breaking down whatever instruments we still have to resolve issues by consensus instead of violence. The UN is by no means a perfect solution, but without it this world would likely be a far worse place. The world before it existed sure was. Something apparently only the USA (and a few vassals) seems to openly disagree with. I remember only a few other countries that did; mostly totalitarian ones and responsible for some of those atrocities that that the UN failed to prevent.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I think we are in agreement. The UN does good things but it's limited.