5 ms·

One of the things I periodically mentally noodle with is, what would the world look like if it was a lot easier for units to choose what larger units they would

by jerf 5y ago

One of the things I periodically mentally noodle with is, what would the world look like if it was a lot easier for units to choose what larger units they would aggregate into? Like, cities choosing a county, counties choosing a state, states choosing their country, etc. I originally was noodling with this in the context of a space civilization, where there is no equivalent of "solid ground", everything's always moving, and everything can move (i.e., even a "space station" can still move places, it just may be slower than a "space ship"), where these sorts of structures are probably inevitable because at the unit of 'space station' you can't hardly stop them from moving around between what various borders there may be. But you can still noodle with the idea on planet Earth, too. Obviously, our current systems have a lot of institutional inertia in the direction of centralization; for instance, the various impacts this will have on the United States due to how we choose representatives, etc. But you can imagine a world in which this gradually becomes more popular, and imagine what the follow-on effects may be. And also consider why it not how things work here. There have also been times and places in history where things did work more like this, such as when and where "city states" were the dominant organizations rather than "nations". (I present this as an interesting thought topic, not as the solution to the world's problems. I think one thing you will rapidly notice if you put serious thought into it is that especially on Earth, the nature of militaries has a lot of impact on why we find it advantageous to bundle into larger collectives than our neighbors. But I do find myself wondering whether over the next century or so we could save ourselves quite a few shooting wars if we were all more willing to break up amicably instead of fighting to the death over who gets to control tho overly-large, bloated collectives. Alas... we almost certainly won't.) (Another example... in the space case, your choice of governance might actually manifest as concretely as the operating system your space ship or space station runs on, with its corresponding grants of permission or lack thereof to whatever higher powers your choice of governance has. And then that raises a whole bunch of further interesting possibilities.... on Earth though I would expect geography to still loom large on all discussions of sovereignty, though.)

abnry 5y ago
I wonder if what you have in mind is like what Germany was before it was unified. Lots of city states that essentially ally together or don't. I don't think it is a stable situation once someone gains the means to conquer by force.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  But if everyone agrees to prevent conquering-by-force, why wouldn't it work?
  - ativzzz 5y ago
    Because whoever has the largest force wouldn't agree to it. For instance, if these counties chose to ignore all the rules and join Idaho, the U.S. has a very large force that it can use to prevent this from happening. In fact, it doesn't even have to use the force, simply having the force is probably enough.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Because you can break cities into boroughs and boroughs into neighborhoods and neighborhoods into blocks, and where does it stop? At some point, a tribe has to use force.
  - krapp 5y ago
    Humans don't work that way. We always create hierarchies of power and control, it's innate to our primate nature.
    - bilbo0s 5y ago
      Put more simply, no one would agree to the idealistic utopian-like rule of "no conquering".
      - krapp 5y ago
        Plenty would agree to it, with their fingers crossed behind their backs of course.
      - pharke 5y ago
        I'm reminded of a short sci-fi story I read long ago about an anarchical society where everyone possessed a weapon capable of destroying entire swathes of country side in an instant. It was some form of unlimited energy device that was also used for other less offensive purposes, but everyone carried a sidearm that could emit a beam of energy capable of melting a mountainside into glass. The story focusses around an attempted coup and has an illustrative ending demonstrating the power of such a weapon to deter the use of force to coerce others.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
brobdingnagians 5y ago
There is currently a process of devolution in the world, including Scotland, Catalonia, basically the entire former British empire, former Soviet states, and other places in the world. As areas become more peaceful, quite a few places start the see opportunities for governing themselves, and the benefits of creating the laws which directly impact their lives. Some countries technically have the right of secession codified in their laws [1]. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under secession, notes [2]: " As the fear of forcible annexation diminishes and trade barriers fall, smaller states become feasible, and independent statehood looks more feasible for regions within states." They then continue, "Second, in roughly the same time period, the idea that there is a strong case for some form of self-government for groups presently contained within states has gained ground." Really, the only major benefit of large states is in common military protection; another one would be facilitating economic trade, but that can be taken care of by creating economic zones, like what the EU started as, with sovereign members participating by means of standard treaties. Even military defense could be done by common consent. In Europe, quite a few countries with military ambitions were stopped by coalitions of countries. If a region has a peaceful and prosperous culture with a defensible geography, then it tends to be more advantageous to self-govern in a small region. With the unlimited right of secession, the main question is, if someone doesn't _want_ to be part of a country, why should they be _forced_ to be part of that country? You are born into a country, nominally without choice, but that doesn't mean that you should be required to assent to the laws. Of course, most of the time the benefits outweigh the problems, but if they don't, then it is simply coercion to make someone do something that isn't good for them. That's abusive. [1] https://www.nationalia.info/new/10936/ten-countries-that-grant-the-right-to-independence-to-some-of-their-territories-and-france https://www.nationalia.info/new/10936/ten-countries-that-gra... [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/secession/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/secession/
- sixdimensional 5y ago
  I feel there is a "seesaw" effect here though - relatively speaking - where when the conditions are right (peace/stability), the needle tends to head towards one direction (decentralization), but when the conditions are different (conflict/instability), the needle often heads the other way (centralization). There's also the thought that decentralization is seen as a threat by centralized players, therefore, even if it could be more effective, it may be prevented or delayed from taking hold.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
>One of the things I periodically mentally noodle with is, what would the world look like if it was a lot easier for units to choose what larger units they would aggregate into? This sounds like the idea of voluntary association, one of the cornerstones of anarchist philosophy. I don't have much more to add, but many other people have spent a lot of time "noodling" the idea and you may find it interesting.
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
A huge part of politics is distribution and use of resources. Resources are constrained by access, and distribution is constrained by ownership - not only of resources, but of the space between them. Where you are and what you have determines what you need and how you get it. This applies whether you're in space, on land, in the ocean, etc. Hell, it would apply if we were all just bits of data in the internet. It's all just relative access to matter in spacetime. Whenever people start moving around, or changing what other things move around (or how), conflict occurs.
mkka 5y ago
A great book series that touches on "micro-democracy" in a fictional setting is Malka Older's Infomacracy series. Highly recommend along these lines.
pchristensen 5y ago
You'd probably be interested in reading about a governance experiment going on in Honduras, called Prospera - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera It includes a codified section about choosing your own set of laws to abide by, and mechanisms to resolve disputes between them. It's a long read, but I found it fascinating and it's closely related to your idea.
sixdimensional 5y ago
I like your train of thought here, it's a good "noodle". If I might add some more to the noodling... :) I see an interesting alignment between the trends we are seeing in technology and politics. Actually, my senior thesis back in college (2003) was that the politics of information technology are disruptive to organizations. Not necessarily disruptive in a "sided" sense, in that "disruption" can be considered good, or bad, healthy or damaging, or both. There is a trend we see in information system/technology architectures towards "decentralized" and/or "federated" solutions. For example - "service mesh" [1] or "data mesh" [2], both higher level stack abstractions that came from lower level mesh networking concepts. And we even see "mesh" concepts in the form of knowledge graphs, social networks, peer-to-peer, etc. If you read up on this you will often see the word "federated" and it is so interesting that federation is both something we apply to technology/systems as well as political. I am quite sure that it is part of the key to what you are thinking about. There's a reason that countries have been referred to as "federations", why we call it the U.S. "federal" government, etc. I believe, among other things, it largely revolves around how one implements governance and ensures a working "system" in terms of standardization/policy. There is a desire to be autonomous yet interoperable, and this applies as much to "human" systems as well as purely technological systems. There is a link, after all, between how humans implement systems per Conway's Law [3] - organization's systems often are designed to mirror their communication structure. Institutions are just one kind of organizational unit, and there too you come across all kinds of interesting issues that have perhaps, barely been explored - one such example is "institutional trust" [4]. In summary, my own latest "noodling" on this area is that actually, our technological and political systems are still very much evolving. When you take into context the possibility that it is truly becoming possible within, how about we say, the next 100 years - that humanity my be able to truly exist off the Earth, in space, for longer periods of time - then that is going to open up a whole world of questions about these very systems which we think we have completely figured out. If there is one constant I think we can count on, it is probably change - but, ultimately survival (a key element of which is adaptability) will probably be the force that drives whatever the next 100 years look like - and that could be both good or bad overall for the development of new organizational structures. Personally, I feel that all of this is interwoven together in quite an interesting way and all related, as information systems are the backbones of organizations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_mesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_mesh [2] https://martinfowler.com/articles/data-monolith-to-mesh.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/data-monolith-to-mesh.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_trust_(social_sciences) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_trust_(social_sc...

by jerf 5y ago

abnry 5y ago

I wonder if what you have in mind is like what Germany was before it was unified. Lots of city states that essentially ally together or don't. I don't think it is a stable situation once someone gains the means to conquer by force.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
But if everyone agrees to prevent conquering-by-force, why wouldn't it work?
- ativzzz 5y ago
  Because whoever has the largest force wouldn't agree to it. For instance, if these counties chose to ignore all the rules and join Idaho, the U.S. has a very large force that it can use to prevent this from happening. In fact, it doesn't even have to use the force, simply having the force is probably enough.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Because you can break cities into boroughs and boroughs into neighborhoods and neighborhoods into blocks, and where does it stop? At some point, a tribe has to use force.
- krapp 5y ago
  Humans don't work that way. We always create hierarchies of power and control, it's innate to our primate nature.
  - bilbo0s 5y ago
    Put more simply, no one would agree to the idealistic utopian-like rule of "no conquering".
    - krapp 5y ago
      Plenty would agree to it, with their fingers crossed behind their backs of course.
    - pharke 5y ago
      I'm reminded of a short sci-fi story I read long ago about an anarchical society where everyone possessed a weapon capable of destroying entire swathes of country side in an instant. It was some form of unlimited energy device that was also used for other less offensive purposes, but everyone carried a sidearm that could emit a beam of energy capable of melting a mountainside into glass. The story focusses around an attempted coup and has an illustrative ending demonstrating the power of such a weapon to deter the use of force to coerce others.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

brobdingnagians 5y ago

There is currently a process of devolution in the world, including Scotland, Catalonia, basically the entire former British empire, former Soviet states, and other places in the world. As areas become more peaceful, quite a few places start the see opportunities for governing themselves, and the benefits of creating the laws which directly impact their lives. Some countries technically have the right of secession codified in their laws [1]. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under secession, notes [2]: " As the fear of forcible annexation diminishes and trade barriers fall, smaller states become feasible, and independent statehood looks more feasible for regions within states." They then continue, "Second, in roughly the same time period, the idea that there is a strong case for some form of self-government for groups presently contained within states has gained ground." Really, the only major benefit of large states is in common military protection; another one would be facilitating economic trade, but that can be taken care of by creating economic zones, like what the EU started as, with sovereign members participating by means of standard treaties. Even military defense could be done by common consent. In Europe, quite a few countries with military ambitions were stopped by coalitions of countries. If a region has a peaceful and prosperous culture with a defensible geography, then it tends to be more advantageous to self-govern in a small region. With the unlimited right of secession, the main question is, if someone doesn't _want_ to be part of a country, why should they be _forced_ to be part of that country? You are born into a country, nominally without choice, but that doesn't mean that you should be required to assent to the laws. Of course, most of the time the benefits outweigh the problems, but if they don't, then it is simply coercion to make someone do something that isn't good for them. That's abusive. [1] https://www.nationalia.info/new/10936/ten-countries-that-grant-the-right-to-independence-to-some-of-their-territories-and-france https://www.nationalia.info/new/10936/ten-countries-that-gra... [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/secession/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/secession/

sixdimensional 5y ago
I feel there is a "seesaw" effect here though - relatively speaking - where when the conditions are right (peace/stability), the needle tends to head towards one direction (decentralization), but when the conditions are different (conflict/instability), the needle often heads the other way (centralization). There's also the thought that decentralization is seen as a threat by centralized players, therefore, even if it could be more effective, it may be prevented or delayed from taking hold.

boomboomsubban 5y ago

>One of the things I periodically mentally noodle with is, what would the world look like if it was a lot easier for units to choose what larger units they would aggregate into? This sounds like the idea of voluntary association, one of the cornerstones of anarchist philosophy. I don't have much more to add, but many other people have spent a lot of time "noodling" the idea and you may find it interesting.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

A huge part of politics is distribution and use of resources. Resources are constrained by access, and distribution is constrained by ownership - not only of resources, but of the space between them. Where you are and what you have determines what you need and how you get it. This applies whether you're in space, on land, in the ocean, etc. Hell, it would apply if we were all just bits of data in the internet. It's all just relative access to matter in spacetime. Whenever people start moving around, or changing what other things move around (or how), conflict occurs.

mkka 5y ago

A great book series that touches on "micro-democracy" in a fictional setting is Malka Older's Infomacracy series. Highly recommend along these lines.

pchristensen 5y ago

You'd probably be interested in reading about a governance experiment going on in Honduras, called Prospera - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera It includes a codified section about choosing your own set of laws to abide by, and mechanisms to resolve disputes between them. It's a long read, but I found it fascinating and it's closely related to your idea.

sixdimensional 5y ago

I like your train of thought here, it's a good "noodle". If I might add some more to the noodling... :) I see an interesting alignment between the trends we are seeing in technology and politics. Actually, my senior thesis back in college (2003) was that the politics of information technology are disruptive to organizations. Not necessarily disruptive in a "sided" sense, in that "disruption" can be considered good, or bad, healthy or damaging, or both. There is a trend we see in information system/technology architectures towards "decentralized" and/or "federated" solutions. For example - "service mesh" [1] or "data mesh" [2], both higher level stack abstractions that came from lower level mesh networking concepts. And we even see "mesh" concepts in the form of knowledge graphs, social networks, peer-to-peer, etc. If you read up on this you will often see the word "federated" and it is so interesting that federation is both something we apply to technology/systems as well as political. I am quite sure that it is part of the key to what you are thinking about. There's a reason that countries have been referred to as "federations", why we call it the U.S. "federal" government, etc. I believe, among other things, it largely revolves around how one implements governance and ensures a working "system" in terms of standardization/policy. There is a desire to be autonomous yet interoperable, and this applies as much to "human" systems as well as purely technological systems. There is a link, after all, between how humans implement systems per Conway's Law [3] - organization's systems often are designed to mirror their communication structure. Institutions are just one kind of organizational unit, and there too you come across all kinds of interesting issues that have perhaps, barely been explored - one such example is "institutional trust" [4]. In summary, my own latest "noodling" on this area is that actually, our technological and political systems are still very much evolving. When you take into context the possibility that it is truly becoming possible within, how about we say, the next 100 years - that humanity my be able to truly exist off the Earth, in space, for longer periods of time - then that is going to open up a whole world of questions about these very systems which we think we have completely figured out. If there is one constant I think we can count on, it is probably change - but, ultimately survival (a key element of which is adaptability) will probably be the force that drives whatever the next 100 years look like - and that could be both good or bad overall for the development of new organizational structures. Personally, I feel that all of this is interwoven together in quite an interesting way and all related, as information systems are the backbones of organizations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_mesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_mesh [2] https://martinfowler.com/articles/data-monolith-to-mesh.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/data-monolith-to-mesh.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_trust_(social_sciences) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_trust_(social_sc...