8 ms·

Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible l

by gnu8 12y ago

Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line they currently reside on, or at what latitude and longitude on planet earth they were born? This is in no way an argument for anarchism. Political subdivisions are necessary for representing the people within them and balancing their interests against the other subdivisions. But there is no reason why any person should be excluded from basic rights and privileges because they aren't "owned" by any particular subdivision. Nothing could be less logical than that.

JumpCrisscross 12y ago
> What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line they currently reside on, or at what latitude and longitude on planet earth they were born? Those "rights and privileges" are enforced by physical means.
Retric 12y ago
Modern infrastructure (physical and social) can't handle massive population migrations. Consider a basic US example. City's deal with their homeless populations in different ways, but if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped. Further, cities can export their homeless by being overly draconian. Net result, it’s basically impossible to deal with the homeless problem at the local level. Now, scale that up to 2 Billion poor people around the world. PS: The tragedy of the commons applies to far more than just land. Closed national borders allow for significant social progress which is otherwise impossible as it would otherwise need to scale beyond what any country could possibly support.
- yeukhon 12y ago
  > if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped It's real. People move different state to live and to do business for various reasons but most are really the benefits that other states offer. There is a difference between nationalism (being loyal and passionate about one's nationality) and identity. This is particularly obvious when it comes to ethnicity and nationality. Do I identify myself as Chinese or Chinese American? As a Chinese do I identify myself as a Chinese-speaking HK person or a Chinese? Does one identifying oneself as American because of natural birth is the same as being a nationalist? When two New Yorkers ask each other "where are you from" is it significant to hear "I am from Queens", "I am from Bronx"? You don't hear two people say "I am human, an earthly being" because obviously they are human and it would be redundant to even say to each other as introduction. Context, audience matters. Having a nationality is one form of identity. Yet, some don't have that nationality tag like many here do. In China there is census register system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system). Basically you can live anywhere you want, but you will be treated as second-class resident outside of your birth/registered city/town. If you are wealthy, fine, if not, you are just as nobody as homeless. This including your education and social welfare. One of the key reasons for this is to manage population distribution and welfare distribution.
  - kleer001 12y ago
    Whoa, heavy duty! Thanks for the education about the Hukou system.
- DMac87 12y ago
  > City's deal with their homeless populations in different ways, but if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped. Further, cities can export their homeless by being overly draconian. I doubt the issue is as simple as I believe you intend - I don't think there are many examples of draconian cities eliminating homelessness via exports. I also don't think overly generous cities are swamped as much as you believe - size of city & climate are larger factors in homeless population size than generosity.
  - gtCameron 12y ago
    There are some examples out there of cities "exporting" homeless, or at least giving the opportunity. http://www.kgw.com/story/news/2014/07/26/12578644/ http://www.kgw.com/story/news/2014/07/26/12578644/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-francisco-sues-nevada-patient-dumping/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Has Utah seen an increase in homeless with their free housing program?
      - arthulia 12y ago
        Wouldn't they see a decrease since having a house makes you not homeless?
        klipt 12y ago
        How big is the supply of free houses? Can Utah house every homeless person in the US who decides to move to Utah for a free house?
- mortehu 12y ago
  > Modern infrastructure can't handle massive population migrations. Even when migration is allowed, people don't just move to better off-areas en masse. We see this with US states and countries in the Schengen Area. Somehow even Greenfield, CA ($9,226 per capita per year) manages to exist less than two hours from Palo Alto ($56,257 per capita per year). I think the Schengen treaty approach of slowly adding new countries is a good long-term strategy, and I think US should join it. The population of the Schengen area is already 100M higher than the population of US, and there are several cities there that have higher living standards than anywhere in the US.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    The problem is "brain drain". Educated people with in demand skills move to places where they can get the best compensation leaving behind people who are either retired or poor.
    - mvc 12y ago
      Since capital is mobile, it will find those people anyway (and leave behind the people who created the capital in the first place).
  - Retric 12y ago
    There are ~3.8 million Syrian Refugees the US has taken 335 of them. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/27/u-s-must-save-syria-s-refugees.html# http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/27/u-s-must-sa... Turkey population ~75 million has accepted 1.5 million of them with ~200,000 more looking to enter the country. For scale there are around 10 million illigal immigrants from Mexico. Picture another 5 million showing up next year with zero notice.
    - mortehu 12y ago
      The Syrian refugees are there because their cities are being sieged, not because they were seeking greener pastures. They're mostly in temporary camps, so I wouldn't say they have migrated in the sense I was thinking of. They would likely return home if the siege ended.
- guelo 12y ago
  > if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped. Is there any evidence that this has ever actually happened? I have a feeling it is one of those lies that get passed around by people trying to score political points.
  - Retric 12y ago
    This stuff is actually studied fairly well ex: A little over half of the homeless population stay put, but from the populaion that starts migrating. http://web.utk.edu/~edegeorg/TECH521/LaTeX/Migration.pdf http://web.utk.edu/~edegeorg/TECH521/LaTeX/Migration.pdf surveys identified the four most common reasons for mobility. (1) No jobs available (2) Eviction from housing (3) No affordable housing available *(4) No services available Additionally, those surveyed revealed strong common reasons for choosing the move destination. *(1) The presence of relatives or friends in the new community *(2) Shelters or missions were present in the new community (3) Jobs were available in the new community *(4) Good services and programs for the homeless were available in the new community Note, 1 is part of the feed back loop as a homeless person will often have other homeless friends.
mod 12y ago
I'd like to continue to see varying rights & privileges, however I'd like it to be easier to choose which set you'd like to belong to (migrate). If I don't like your set of rules, I want to be able to go somewhere that has more agreeable ones. I think that's still nationality, but a different type of nationality (choice rather than birthright) than we currently have.
happyscrappy 12y ago
>Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. Then so is private property. What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line is the house they currently reside in. I am sure you won't mind a free for all at your home.
rhino369 12y ago
Nationality confers both rights and expectations. Those rights and privileges are paid for by taxation on US nationals.
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Maybe not logical, but rights are a social construct. Nationality is a public recognition of 'here the social rules change'.
blfr 12y ago
Borders are essential. For groups, organizations, life itself. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/border-stories/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/border-stories/
trhway 12y ago
>Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. as well as planet or galaxy quadrant or specific species one was born on or at. Many people/societies have evolved past the stage of the valley/tribe/village and now the most of the human species is at region and nationality state. Some advanced people were able to evolve past that. It requires letting go identification characteristics that are just given by birth and mentally moving on to what her or his truely personal identification is, ie. result of her/his personal efforts, like education, life/work experience, personal spiritual and intellectual development, etc... > What rational basis is there there isn't. Just our low evolutionary stage. Deeply xenophobic.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > It requires letting go identification characteristics that are just given by birth and mentally moving on to what her or his truely personal identification is, ie. result of her/his personal efforts, like education, life/work experience, personal spiritual and intellectual development, etc... I don't know what's so great about this. Is HN, a conglomeration of (mostly male) economic and educational elite, a "more evolved" state of social organization than a small-town church, which might draw in people from different economic walks of life?
  - trhway 12y ago
    > Is HN, a conglomeration of (mostly male) economic and educational elite, a "more evolved" state of social organization than a small-town church, which might draw in people from different economic walks of life? in my view mentally associating yourself with any group is exactly the root of the division "us vs. them (and us obviously better [whatever that means] than them)" and things go downhill from that. In that regard any "elite" group (self-identifying itself as such) is pretty much indistinguishable from a small-town church.
- dropit_sphere 12y ago
  > there isn't. Just our low evolutionary stage. Deeply xenophobic. This seems to be a deeply confused comment. What about evolution is "high" or "low"? Which is a higher form of life, the housefly, or the Neanderthal? Which one is still around? If aliens with FTL travel and psychic powers were to visit us and start wiping us out, would their xenophobia[1] mark them as a being at a "lower" evolutionary stage? If so, what is the use of such a classification?[2] Evolution is not always "up." For that matter, "up" isn't always "up." "The feedback loop never really ends, so a tenth year polysentience can be a priceless jewel or a psychotic wreck," ~Alpha Centauri [1]And if they were the ones wiping us out, who would be more "phobic" (afraid), us or them? [2]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvolutionaryLevels http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvolutionaryLevel...
cbd1984 12y ago
> But there is no reason why any person should be excluded from basic rights and privileges because they aren't "owned" by any particular subdivision. This is something to work towards, but it runs up against some pretty basic problems. For one thing, enforcement of those rights will entail war. For another, some rights are contrary to local culture. For example, the right to leave Islam is contrary to the culture of a region which wants sharia law. The right for certain people to get married and live together and have sex (both of which are relevant even if marriage goes away) is contrary to certain other religious cultures. Are those cultures wrong? Are you going to tell people their culture is wrong?
- DanBC 12y ago
  Yes, I am happy to tell those people they are wrong. Freedom of religion -and that includes no religion- is a right I defend. (Article 18 UDHR) Freedom to marry is sadly ambiguously worded in UNDHR But I defend the right for people of age -regardless of gender- to marry and have a family. (Article 16)
  - mc32 12y ago
    The think is that while most of us will agree with your point of view, in the end it's just a point if view. These opinions are based on our frameworks --they aren't either natural or universal. So someone else can have completely different framework not based on traditional western thinking and come up with a logical framework which contradicts yours. We're fortunate in that most people have agreement on some principles and that we don't have to figure out why it's undesirable to make theft perfectly legal or make assault perfectly legal foe everyone, bug all of this just happens to be convention. We don't arrive at that because 2+2=4.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      You onow these are in the Universal Declaratin of Human Rights, right? And that these are things that many countries have agreed are human rights and are things that they should work to? And that they're now part of international law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_... And so, while they are just shot some people made up they have a bit more going for them than that.
aikah 12y ago
> Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. Then why don't you give up yours? > What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line they currently reside on, or at what latitude and longitude on planet earth they were born? Same can be said about private property. What the rational basis. Are you ready to give up the concept of ownership? I'd be glad to settle in your home, eat your food and poop in your toilets without flushing. > This is in no way an argument for anarchism. > Political subdivisions are necessary for representing the people within them and balancing their interests against the other subdivisions. But that's exactly what nations are. > But there is no reason why any person should be excluded from basic rights and privileges because they aren't "owned" by any particular subdivision. But you just said Political subdivisions are necessary ...
pjc50 12y ago
This is very much the EU approach of human rights rather than "constitutional" rights. They apply to immigrants, and this annoys the UK government immensely. There is also the Schengen right to reside in any EU country. The long term way this pans out is less clear. People don't lose their ethnicity when they change nationality. You end up with irridentists and conflicts, such as the "green line" across Cyprus.
- avar 12y ago
  You and mortehu upthread have mentioned Schengen in the context of being allowed to reside in any country within the area. That's not what Schengen is about, you're thinking of the European Economic Area. Schengen is a customs union which allows passport-free travel within its borders, but the EEA is the area you can freely migrate within.
cjcole 12y ago
I'll skip over the surface contradiction [1]. I believe that you're not really arguing against nations (or states) but against "exclusion". I think you're arguing that there may be political divisions, but that the individuals themselves should be the sole arbiters of which political division they (for lack of a better word) belong to at any given time. Any political subdivision should not be able to exclude someone. Is that fair? [1] The surface contradiction is that "nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept" while "political subdivisions are necessary". This apparent contradiction can be resolved in a few ways but I believe I get what you intended. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
rayiner 12y ago
You're confusing cause and effect. Both rights and borders are effects of the same cause: people banding together to defend each other. There's no rights in the state of nature--when a pack of dolphins kill a porpoise for fun, no rights have been violated--they arise only to the extent that people agree to use violence under certain conditions to protect members of their group. Borders are simply symptoms of the fact that groups of people naturally defend contiguous areas of physical territory, within which they undertake the obligation of enforcing "rights."
Torgo 12y ago
The benefit of nations is that there is not a universally agreed-upon set of values.
arca_vorago 12y ago
I think this is a dangerous attitude to take, and please allow me to explain why. Really it boils down to decentralization vs centralization. You mention that people are "excluded" from rights and privileges, but the problem with the globalist view you espouse is that by lumping in a nation and it's people with the world you remove the political lines in a meaningful form. National Sovereignty is the real issue at hand here, but it's a sensitive subject that not very many people like to touch. I've heard some fairly powerful beltway people reference it as dead, but if that's true our entire government is operating under a fallacy, there are some big implications here and I would love to see more academic research (as in, if anyone has any links I would appreciate them) on the subject. I do think the lessons of the internet are important here though, namely that if you try to claim no nationality, peoples nationality becomes Earth, and a global government along with it. I want to go the opposite direction, less federal power, more state power, more local power (constitutionally restricted of course). The only oath I ever swore was to protect and defend the Constitution, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and watch America be Europeanized without an intellectual fight, because my forefathers fought hard to establish the freedoms I have here that still don't exist anywhere else in the world. Yes I'm aware of the other countries higher levels of "actual" freedom, particularly the nordic ones, but I think our idealistic vision is still a superior one. For example, Vincent Reynouard of France was recently sentenced to two years in jail for his non-violent historical opinions regarding the Holocaust. I tend to side with Voltaire on free speech, apparently the French don't. These same issues are also readily apparent in the TPP. I think it is a good microcosm of the kind of affect on nations you will get with a reduction of nationalism, eg, equally exploited populace by a supranational oligarchy.
powertower 12y ago
That's like saying families is an obsolete concept and anyone should be able to come into your family and get all the benefits and rights and privileges as your born children get (including all the love and attention you give them, the twice a year dentist visit, breakfast, etc). Also rights aren't fundamental in nature, they only exist because groups of people come together, produce/work, and that work provides the benefits you call "rights". Others just consume those rights. And given that resources are limited, and that highly advanced societies require highly advanced skills, there is no "logic" in flooding countries with seekers of benefits who are mostly not going to add any value to that society for 3 generations while costing the resources of 10. They will simply consume.
- kleer001 12y ago
  > That's like saying families is an obsolete That's like saying a tennis ball and a planet are the same because they're both round. Scale, you're missing the scale of it.
  - powertower 12y ago
    > That's like saying a tennis ball and a planet are the same because they're both round. What is this random analogy and what does it have to do with mine? > Scale, you're missing the scale of it. The number of tennis balls that would fit in the volume of this planet has 25 digits in it. So no, it's not even close to the scale of anything. And what does being round have to do with it? I can't even figure out what your argument is.
    - sweettea 12y ago
      You're saying families are like nations, in that $arbitraryPerson can't just "come into your family/nation and get all the benefits and rights and privileges as your born children/citizens get". They're saying that the difference in scale makes the comparison invalid; a nation is, say, 8 orders of magnitude larger than a family, and, similarly, the earth is 25 orders of magnitude larger than a tennis ball. For the same reason that comparing the earth and tennis balls doesn't work because of scale, comparing a nation and families doesn't work because of scale.
kleer001 12y ago
Tragically this world is not ruled by reason, but rhetoric.
vacri 12y ago
What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges... 'Rights' and 'privileges' are just as abstract a concept as 'nationality'. Not to mention that they all rely on underlying 'culture' - different nations, rights, and privileges are all seen in different cultures.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Perhaps it should be, but it isn't - rather it's the norm of how we do things. It'll be obsolete when you have a passport and nobody cares about it or the country that issued it other than nostalgic hipsters and antiquarians.

by gnu8 12y ago

JumpCrisscross 12y ago

> What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line they currently reside on, or at what latitude and longitude on planet earth they were born? Those "rights and privileges" are enforced by physical means.

Retric 12y ago

Modern infrastructure (physical and social) can't handle massive population migrations. Consider a basic US example. City's deal with their homeless populations in different ways, but if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped. Further, cities can export their homeless by being overly draconian. Net result, it’s basically impossible to deal with the homeless problem at the local level. Now, scale that up to 2 Billion poor people around the world. PS: The tragedy of the commons applies to far more than just land. Closed national borders allow for significant social progress which is otherwise impossible as it would otherwise need to scale beyond what any country could possibly support.

yeukhon 12y ago
> if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped It's real. People move different state to live and to do business for various reasons but most are really the benefits that other states offer. There is a difference between nationalism (being loyal and passionate about one's nationality) and identity. This is particularly obvious when it comes to ethnicity and nationality. Do I identify myself as Chinese or Chinese American? As a Chinese do I identify myself as a Chinese-speaking HK person or a Chinese? Does one identifying oneself as American because of natural birth is the same as being a nationalist? When two New Yorkers ask each other "where are you from" is it significant to hear "I am from Queens", "I am from Bronx"? You don't hear two people say "I am human, an earthly being" because obviously they are human and it would be redundant to even say to each other as introduction. Context, audience matters. Having a nationality is one form of identity. Yet, some don't have that nationality tag like many here do. In China there is census register system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system). Basically you can live anywhere you want, but you will be treated as second-class resident outside of your birth/registered city/town. If you are wealthy, fine, if not, you are just as nobody as homeless. This including your education and social welfare. One of the key reasons for this is to manage population distribution and welfare distribution.
- kleer001 12y ago
  Whoa, heavy duty! Thanks for the education about the Hukou system.
DMac87 12y ago
> City's deal with their homeless populations in different ways, but if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped. Further, cities can export their homeless by being overly draconian. I doubt the issue is as simple as I believe you intend - I don't think there are many examples of draconian cities eliminating homelessness via exports. I also don't think overly generous cities are swamped as much as you believe - size of city & climate are larger factors in homeless population size than generosity.
- gtCameron 12y ago
  There are some examples out there of cities "exporting" homeless, or at least giving the opportunity. http://www.kgw.com/story/news/2014/07/26/12578644/ http://www.kgw.com/story/news/2014/07/26/12578644/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-francisco-sues-nevada-patient-dumping/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Has Utah seen an increase in homeless with their free housing program?
    - arthulia 12y ago
      Wouldn't they see a decrease since having a house makes you not homeless?
      - klipt 12y ago
        How big is the supply of free houses? Can Utah house every homeless person in the US who decides to move to Utah for a free house?
mortehu 12y ago
> Modern infrastructure can't handle massive population migrations. Even when migration is allowed, people don't just move to better off-areas en masse. We see this with US states and countries in the Schengen Area. Somehow even Greenfield, CA ($9,226 per capita per year) manages to exist less than two hours from Palo Alto ($56,257 per capita per year). I think the Schengen treaty approach of slowly adding new countries is a good long-term strategy, and I think US should join it. The population of the Schengen area is already 100M higher than the population of US, and there are several cities there that have higher living standards than anywhere in the US.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  The problem is "brain drain". Educated people with in demand skills move to places where they can get the best compensation leaving behind people who are either retired or poor.
  - mvc 12y ago
    Since capital is mobile, it will find those people anyway (and leave behind the people who created the capital in the first place).
- Retric 12y ago
  There are ~3.8 million Syrian Refugees the US has taken 335 of them. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/27/u-s-must-save-syria-s-refugees.html# http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/27/u-s-must-sa... Turkey population ~75 million has accepted 1.5 million of them with ~200,000 more looking to enter the country. For scale there are around 10 million illigal immigrants from Mexico. Picture another 5 million showing up next year with zero notice.
  - mortehu 12y ago
    The Syrian refugees are there because their cities are being sieged, not because they were seeking greener pastures. They're mostly in temporary camps, so I wouldn't say they have migrated in the sense I was thinking of. They would likely return home if the siege ended.
guelo 12y ago
> if any city is overly generous it quickly gets swamped. Is there any evidence that this has ever actually happened? I have a feeling it is one of those lies that get passed around by people trying to score political points.
- Retric 12y ago
  This stuff is actually studied fairly well ex: A little over half of the homeless population stay put, but from the populaion that starts migrating. http://web.utk.edu/~edegeorg/TECH521/LaTeX/Migration.pdf http://web.utk.edu/~edegeorg/TECH521/LaTeX/Migration.pdf surveys identified the four most common reasons for mobility. (1) No jobs available (2) Eviction from housing (3) No affordable housing available *(4) No services available Additionally, those surveyed revealed strong common reasons for choosing the move destination. *(1) The presence of relatives or friends in the new community *(2) Shelters or missions were present in the new community (3) Jobs were available in the new community *(4) Good services and programs for the homeless were available in the new community Note, 1 is part of the feed back loop as a homeless person will often have other homeless friends.

mod 12y ago

I'd like to continue to see varying rights & privileges, however I'd like it to be easier to choose which set you'd like to belong to (migrate). If I don't like your set of rules, I want to be able to go somewhere that has more agreeable ones. I think that's still nationality, but a different type of nationality (choice rather than birthright) than we currently have.

happyscrappy 12y ago

>Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. Then so is private property. What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line is the house they currently reside in. I am sure you won't mind a free for all at your home.

rhino369 12y ago

Nationality confers both rights and expectations. Those rights and privileges are paid for by taxation on US nationals.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Maybe not logical, but rights are a social construct. Nationality is a public recognition of 'here the social rules change'.

blfr 12y ago

Borders are essential. For groups, organizations, life itself. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/border-stories/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/border-stories/

trhway 12y ago

>Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. as well as planet or galaxy quadrant or specific species one was born on or at. Many people/societies have evolved past the stage of the valley/tribe/village and now the most of the human species is at region and nationality state. Some advanced people were able to evolve past that. It requires letting go identification characteristics that are just given by birth and mentally moving on to what her or his truely personal identification is, ie. result of her/his personal efforts, like education, life/work experience, personal spiritual and intellectual development, etc... > What rational basis is there there isn't. Just our low evolutionary stage. Deeply xenophobic.

rayiner 12y ago
> It requires letting go identification characteristics that are just given by birth and mentally moving on to what her or his truely personal identification is, ie. result of her/his personal efforts, like education, life/work experience, personal spiritual and intellectual development, etc... I don't know what's so great about this. Is HN, a conglomeration of (mostly male) economic and educational elite, a "more evolved" state of social organization than a small-town church, which might draw in people from different economic walks of life?
- trhway 12y ago
  > Is HN, a conglomeration of (mostly male) economic and educational elite, a "more evolved" state of social organization than a small-town church, which might draw in people from different economic walks of life? in my view mentally associating yourself with any group is exactly the root of the division "us vs. them (and us obviously better [whatever that means] than them)" and things go downhill from that. In that regard any "elite" group (self-identifying itself as such) is pretty much indistinguishable from a small-town church.
dropit_sphere 12y ago
> there isn't. Just our low evolutionary stage. Deeply xenophobic. This seems to be a deeply confused comment. What about evolution is "high" or "low"? Which is a higher form of life, the housefly, or the Neanderthal? Which one is still around? If aliens with FTL travel and psychic powers were to visit us and start wiping us out, would their xenophobia[1] mark them as a being at a "lower" evolutionary stage? If so, what is the use of such a classification?[2] Evolution is not always "up." For that matter, "up" isn't always "up." "The feedback loop never really ends, so a tenth year polysentience can be a priceless jewel or a psychotic wreck," ~Alpha Centauri [1]And if they were the ones wiping us out, who would be more "phobic" (afraid), us or them? [2]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvolutionaryLevels http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvolutionaryLevel...

cbd1984 12y ago

> But there is no reason why any person should be excluded from basic rights and privileges because they aren't "owned" by any particular subdivision. This is something to work towards, but it runs up against some pretty basic problems. For one thing, enforcement of those rights will entail war. For another, some rights are contrary to local culture. For example, the right to leave Islam is contrary to the culture of a region which wants sharia law. The right for certain people to get married and live together and have sex (both of which are relevant even if marriage goes away) is contrary to certain other religious cultures. Are those cultures wrong? Are you going to tell people their culture is wrong?

DanBC 12y ago
Yes, I am happy to tell those people they are wrong. Freedom of religion -and that includes no religion- is a right I defend. (Article 18 UDHR) Freedom to marry is sadly ambiguously worded in UNDHR But I defend the right for people of age -regardless of gender- to marry and have a family. (Article 16)
- mc32 12y ago
  The think is that while most of us will agree with your point of view, in the end it's just a point if view. These opinions are based on our frameworks --they aren't either natural or universal. So someone else can have completely different framework not based on traditional western thinking and come up with a logical framework which contradicts yours. We're fortunate in that most people have agreement on some principles and that we don't have to figure out why it's undesirable to make theft perfectly legal or make assault perfectly legal foe everyone, bug all of this just happens to be convention. We don't arrive at that because 2+2=4.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    You onow these are in the Universal Declaratin of Human Rights, right? And that these are things that many countries have agreed are human rights and are things that they should work to? And that they're now part of international law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_... And so, while they are just shot some people made up they have a bit more going for them than that.

aikah 12y ago

> Nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept. Then why don't you give up yours? > What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges based on what side of an invisible line they currently reside on, or at what latitude and longitude on planet earth they were born? Same can be said about private property. What the rational basis. Are you ready to give up the concept of ownership? I'd be glad to settle in your home, eat your food and poop in your toilets without flushing. > This is in no way an argument for anarchism. > Political subdivisions are necessary for representing the people within them and balancing their interests against the other subdivisions. But that's exactly what nations are. > But there is no reason why any person should be excluded from basic rights and privileges because they aren't "owned" by any particular subdivision. But you just said Political subdivisions are necessary ...

pjc50 12y ago

This is very much the EU approach of human rights rather than "constitutional" rights. They apply to immigrants, and this annoys the UK government immensely. There is also the Schengen right to reside in any EU country. The long term way this pans out is less clear. People don't lose their ethnicity when they change nationality. You end up with irridentists and conflicts, such as the "green line" across Cyprus.

avar 12y ago
You and mortehu upthread have mentioned Schengen in the context of being allowed to reside in any country within the area. That's not what Schengen is about, you're thinking of the European Economic Area. Schengen is a customs union which allows passport-free travel within its borders, but the EEA is the area you can freely migrate within.

cjcole 12y ago

I'll skip over the surface contradiction [1]. I believe that you're not really arguing against nations (or states) but against "exclusion". I think you're arguing that there may be political divisions, but that the individuals themselves should be the sole arbiters of which political division they (for lack of a better word) belong to at any given time. Any political subdivision should not be able to exclude someone. Is that fair? [1] The surface contradiction is that "nationality is ultimately an obsolete concept" while "political subdivisions are necessary". This apparent contradiction can be resolved in a few ways but I believe I get what you intended. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

rayiner 12y ago

You're confusing cause and effect. Both rights and borders are effects of the same cause: people banding together to defend each other. There's no rights in the state of nature--when a pack of dolphins kill a porpoise for fun, no rights have been violated--they arise only to the extent that people agree to use violence under certain conditions to protect members of their group. Borders are simply symptoms of the fact that groups of people naturally defend contiguous areas of physical territory, within which they undertake the obligation of enforcing "rights."

Torgo 12y ago

The benefit of nations is that there is not a universally agreed-upon set of values.

arca_vorago 12y ago

I think this is a dangerous attitude to take, and please allow me to explain why. Really it boils down to decentralization vs centralization. You mention that people are "excluded" from rights and privileges, but the problem with the globalist view you espouse is that by lumping in a nation and it's people with the world you remove the political lines in a meaningful form. National Sovereignty is the real issue at hand here, but it's a sensitive subject that not very many people like to touch. I've heard some fairly powerful beltway people reference it as dead, but if that's true our entire government is operating under a fallacy, there are some big implications here and I would love to see more academic research (as in, if anyone has any links I would appreciate them) on the subject. I do think the lessons of the internet are important here though, namely that if you try to claim no nationality, peoples nationality becomes Earth, and a global government along with it. I want to go the opposite direction, less federal power, more state power, more local power (constitutionally restricted of course). The only oath I ever swore was to protect and defend the Constitution, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and watch America be Europeanized without an intellectual fight, because my forefathers fought hard to establish the freedoms I have here that still don't exist anywhere else in the world. Yes I'm aware of the other countries higher levels of "actual" freedom, particularly the nordic ones, but I think our idealistic vision is still a superior one. For example, Vincent Reynouard of France was recently sentenced to two years in jail for his non-violent historical opinions regarding the Holocaust. I tend to side with Voltaire on free speech, apparently the French don't. These same issues are also readily apparent in the TPP. I think it is a good microcosm of the kind of affect on nations you will get with a reduction of nationalism, eg, equally exploited populace by a supranational oligarchy.

powertower 12y ago

That's like saying families is an obsolete concept and anyone should be able to come into your family and get all the benefits and rights and privileges as your born children get (including all the love and attention you give them, the twice a year dentist visit, breakfast, etc). Also rights aren't fundamental in nature, they only exist because groups of people come together, produce/work, and that work provides the benefits you call "rights". Others just consume those rights. And given that resources are limited, and that highly advanced societies require highly advanced skills, there is no "logic" in flooding countries with seekers of benefits who are mostly not going to add any value to that society for 3 generations while costing the resources of 10. They will simply consume.

kleer001 12y ago
> That's like saying families is an obsolete That's like saying a tennis ball and a planet are the same because they're both round. Scale, you're missing the scale of it.
- powertower 12y ago
  > That's like saying a tennis ball and a planet are the same because they're both round. What is this random analogy and what does it have to do with mine? > Scale, you're missing the scale of it. The number of tennis balls that would fit in the volume of this planet has 25 digits in it. So no, it's not even close to the scale of anything. And what does being round have to do with it? I can't even figure out what your argument is.
  - sweettea 12y ago
    You're saying families are like nations, in that $arbitraryPerson can't just "come into your family/nation and get all the benefits and rights and privileges as your born children/citizens get". They're saying that the difference in scale makes the comparison invalid; a nation is, say, 8 orders of magnitude larger than a family, and, similarly, the earth is 25 orders of magnitude larger than a tennis ball. For the same reason that comparing the earth and tennis balls doesn't work because of scale, comparing a nation and families doesn't work because of scale.

kleer001 12y ago

Tragically this world is not ruled by reason, but rhetoric.

vacri 12y ago

What rational basis is there for people having varying rights and privileges... 'Rights' and 'privileges' are just as abstract a concept as 'nationality'. Not to mention that they all rely on underlying 'culture' - different nations, rights, and privileges are all seen in different cultures.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Perhaps it should be, but it isn't - rather it's the norm of how we do things. It'll be obsolete when you have a passport and nobody cares about it or the country that issued it other than nostalgic hipsters and antiquarians.