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My gut reaction was yes, world government. But as someone else mentioned, these are problems amongst the US states even with a superceding government. I'm sta

My gut reaction was yes, world government. But as someone else mentioned, these are problems amongst the US states even with a superceding government. I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever have a government that is not geographically defined, and if so, what it might look like.

imglorp 6y ago
There could certainly be virtual, geography-free, government-like, organizations that would be orthogonal to local government. You could be a "citizen" of both maybe? One could imagine health care, professional services, etc in exchange for some taxation? You still need local gov obviously for roads, police, etc. One might even argue these virtual governments make more sense than, say, employer sponsored healthcare. Estonia has one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Residency_of_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Residency_of_Estonia
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  Exactly! I mean, in a way, governments seem like SaaS, just trying to provide all services, with tax being the membership fee, some members being more subsidized by other members. Geographic governments make sense for many reasons and yet it seems that virtual governments could provide other services. I wonder how much the Cathloic church is similar to this idea of a virtual or rather, geographically distributed government. Anyways, I appreciate you exploring this with me.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    > some members being more subsidized by other members Good point, another essential part of civilization. You might add though, that some citizen/users can contribute in ways other than fees: in communes/collectives, you might say contribute some professional services in exchange for virtgov ones. Although barter is still basically money, the virtgov can sell that work product outside, like a corporation, because the lines are fuzzy anyway.
    - jimkleiber 6y ago
      yea, good point. Maybe that virtgov becomes really good at providing emotional healthcare to its citizens and another gov, virtgov, corp, or org wants to get better at that, it could provide training or consulting for a fee
cortesoft 6y ago
I really like having different states and cities be able to make different decisions about the tax/service balance... some states and cities can have higher taxes and provide more services, while others can have low taxes with few services. People are then free to decide which type of system they prefer to live in. I would hate to have to have only one single balance decided for everyone in the world.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I strongly agree! I liie the variations and local differences. The local decision making power. I don’t want it all to be the same. I just think with the internet, while our bodies may be in one place, we interact with people from so many other places. For example, in this thread, I may be interacting with people from maybe 5 different US states and maybe 5 other countries. Which region’s law applies? The one where I am physically present? The one where the HN owner is registered? The one where the HN server is located? If an employee lives in Florida but works for Facebook remotely, a company based in California but maybe registered in Delaware, which state’s labor laws apply to that employee? Maybe these things are obvious to others and I’m just far behind on understanding legal jurisdiction, but I just think things aren’t so clearly defined as “local” anymore.

imglorp 6y ago

There could certainly be virtual, geography-free, government-like, organizations that would be orthogonal to local government. You could be a "citizen" of both maybe? One could imagine health care, professional services, etc in exchange for some taxation? You still need local gov obviously for roads, police, etc. One might even argue these virtual governments make more sense than, say, employer sponsored healthcare. Estonia has one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Residency_of_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Residency_of_Estonia

jimkleiber 6y ago
Exactly! I mean, in a way, governments seem like SaaS, just trying to provide all services, with tax being the membership fee, some members being more subsidized by other members. Geographic governments make sense for many reasons and yet it seems that virtual governments could provide other services. I wonder how much the Cathloic church is similar to this idea of a virtual or rather, geographically distributed government. Anyways, I appreciate you exploring this with me.
- imglorp 6y ago
  > some members being more subsidized by other members Good point, another essential part of civilization. You might add though, that some citizen/users can contribute in ways other than fees: in communes/collectives, you might say contribute some professional services in exchange for virtgov ones. Although barter is still basically money, the virtgov can sell that work product outside, like a corporation, because the lines are fuzzy anyway.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    yea, good point. Maybe that virtgov becomes really good at providing emotional healthcare to its citizens and another gov, virtgov, corp, or org wants to get better at that, it could provide training or consulting for a fee

cortesoft 6y ago

I really like having different states and cities be able to make different decisions about the tax/service balance... some states and cities can have higher taxes and provide more services, while others can have low taxes with few services. People are then free to decide which type of system they prefer to live in. I would hate to have to have only one single balance decided for everyone in the world.

jimkleiber 6y ago
I strongly agree! I liie the variations and local differences. The local decision making power. I don’t want it all to be the same. I just think with the internet, while our bodies may be in one place, we interact with people from so many other places. For example, in this thread, I may be interacting with people from maybe 5 different US states and maybe 5 other countries. Which region’s law applies? The one where I am physically present? The one where the HN owner is registered? The one where the HN server is located? If an employee lives in Florida but works for Facebook remotely, a company based in California but maybe registered in Delaware, which state’s labor laws apply to that employee? Maybe these things are obvious to others and I’m just far behind on understanding legal jurisdiction, but I just think things aren’t so clearly defined as “local” anymore.