I fully understand. The problems inherent in such a thing always leave the possibility of dictatorial government open—but this also exists with the current setup and seldom do other nations feel obliged to openly support a rebellion simply because they do not wish such a thing if they were to experience a revolt of their own. However, this is not what MUST happen. There is also the chance that such a government might be everything we've ever thought we wanted in one.

The chance of revolution within such an entity would (of necessity) have to be one started and supported by elements from within. Can you think of any way to structure a governing body that would make such abuses less likely? If not, how would you suggest that the current system of nations of haves, and have-nots, be kept from each others throats in the future? How would you structure a "multi-national" body (analogous to the UN) to mediate in the plethora of grievances that nations have traditionally had between themselves?

What would you suggest that the world of the future use to enforce international law in the future? Currently, the systems in place seem to have little real power to act, and one wonders whether the whole system is even in the right "ballpark" for any future chores.

Paramadman

I really do not "envision" anything in particular. My sole assumption is that--eventually--logic will prevail, and humanity will decide to chart a course to the future piloted by reason. This seems unlikely now (I know) but ultimately, if we wish to survive, we must leave behind age-old notions of "separateness" and replace them with one of inclusion, if for no other reason than that it is wrong—scientifically and morally wrong—to set ourselves apart this way. All humans are descended from a single woman who lived in West Africa about 160,000 years ago, and our “genetic divergence” is incredibly small. All efforts aimed at ignoring this truth are psychotic because it represents a failure to distinguish between the “real” and the “unreal”, and this failure of reason is the very definition of psychosis.

Failing at this (considering the technology to destroy ourselves will become far more powerful in the next 50 years) is not really an option. There are (theoretically) potential weapons that draw on power far greater than a traditional nuke, and we will ultimately avail ourselves of them. When that time is reached--if we are still living with the same systems of government--we will die.

Pointing out the possible failures of a future world government offers insight into the pitfalls, but makes no suggestions about how to prevent them. Think about it for awhile and see if you (knowing these problems) can determine a way to form one without them, or with the potential greatly reduced.

Paramadman

Okay. Tell me how the first example differs from the second. I see them as being (in essence) indistinguishable from one another. If the “corporate world government” differs tangibly from the other, I currently fail to see it.

If you assume that (in the future) people can determine to build a society that has little (or no) connection to any that have existed before, and can indeed start from "scratch" and build this society in a manner to prevent or limit such autocratic rule, extend yourself and see if you are capable of conceiving what forms such a government could take.

Let’s turn this into a “thought-experiment” like Einstein was so fond of.

All of the rules have changed, and there is "now" convincing evidence that the traits of humanity that lead to such aberrant behavior , have been identified biologically, and the human race is now "breeding" this trait away (in its malignant form) while leaving its complement (human drive to succeed) fully developed. In other words, the need to succeed is now driven by a desire to make all of humanity the beneficiary of --rather than the pawn of--people driven to succeed. All of the current human traits of greed, avarice, and sloth, have been similarly dispensed with.

What happens now?

No problem! You are just the kind of person I would like to see working on this problem. Geezers (like me) usually have their thoughts too canalized to offer much in the way of truly new ideas. This is not impossible (I hope!) but it's always the problem of "young" people to arrive at the newest of truths because they are not a likely to become so enamored of the forest that they fail to notice the trees. The problem with aging is to be found in the tendency to become a little too comfortable with what you know. I (for instance) am far more likely to use words like "claptrap", "silly", "stupid", "foolish" or even "goddamn idiocy", than I was as a young man. This is both good and bad...because sometimes such "mature" judgment is correct. The idea really is "claptrap", but not always. NEVER always. The only thing that keeps me from becoming the thing I hated most as a young man (an old idiot that can't accept the truth when he sees it) is that I've become more honest than many and consider WHY I think that something new is wrong...then examine it anew before declaring it so. If after reexamination I still find it be wrong, the adjectives will flow!

Flesh out your "utopian" idea and compare it to other people’s thoughts. You just may be the "genius" that this tired old world needs. However--if you can take a small piece of "mature wisdom"--thinking about a new world is never enough. One must not merely lay out the ideals themselves but flesh them out into a set of rules designed to make your system work, and giving these a logical flow that FORCES acceptance--even against the readers will--due to the undeniable conclusion that they draw.

I look forward to hearing what you come up with!

Paramadman

Subsidiarity is a must, both for justice and practicability. People not affected by a decision should not be involved in that decision's making. (This could reasonably be extended all the way down to the individual rights level...)

On the global level, something not too unlike the current WTO; enforcement of free trade while also prohibiting unfair practices like dumping. On local levels, well, local levels decide for themselves.

The fundamental one is equality. Not necessarily equal standards of living--those standards are one thing that can't be agreed upon--but equal standing under the law. Also, equal (albeit transferable) rights to the world's resources. Any world state lacking this property is more an empire than a federation.

What kinds of moral decisions does a world government need to be making, that can't be left up to smaller regions? Maybe ensure a few basic human rights, such as freedom of movement or right to education, but that's about it.

Jesus, prove his point, why don't you?

Human reason is extremely untrustworthy. The purpose of creating a global government would be to reduce the scale of reason's errors--e.g., trying to control of climate change, preventing terrorism, etc.--not to form the scope for a new one. A global government should absolutely not have the authority for social experimentation.

But, at this point, most of what we do is guided by our memes rather than our genes, and our memes, since they change on a rather faster scale than genes, are significantly more diverse.

Sundog

This is a good point, what about pressure from internal sources? Certainly a world government's military wouldn't be the only military around; police and national-guard type units would still be needed at local levels, under local control. Really, the world government only needs enough force that it can tip the balance against any region that breaks the rules and triggers a war; regions only need enough force that they can tip the balance against any country within them that breaks the rules; and so on downwards.

But what happens if the central government becomes corrupt? All the small regions would be under its control, so what would stand up to it? The millitary, police, and national gaurd would all be under the control of the central government, either directly or indirectly. What is to stop a worldwide central government from becoming corrupt when it controls all the declared, organized armed forces in the world?

Ah, but what about 3C? It also sounds much like Rupert Murdock’s descendants combining with Microsoft in order to remove all competing means of communications...

I'm curious herc, has everybody become so cynical that even the possibility of a "centralized" government working in the best interest of all is simply dismissed? I expected at least a few possible models along these lines to be suggested...

I admit that you point about China is well taken. The logic of Sun Tzu is to act when the time is right and a government serious about "ruling the world" must take the advice of Sun Tzu into consideration.

The really scary thing about China is their absolute belief that they are the supreme "race" on earth. And (if I'm honest about it) to me it seems that they have much to go on in this belief. I've been in many countries and have seen many of the world’s major societies but the casual assumption of superiority of the Chinese is unique in my experience. Institutionalized racism on a colossal scale coupled with what may be the highest average intelligence on earth...

Damn...you've given me such cheery thoughts tonight...

Paramadman

Dunno that it's cynicism, on my part, so much as a basic take on things in which "centralized" and "best interest of all" are mutually exclusive attributes of complex socioeconomic policymaking.

I don't think centralization is inevitable, for instance, or that all apparent moves in that direction actually further the designs of evil. Just that, in John Gall's words, "do it without a system if you can" is very good advice.

If push comes to shove, Microsoft and Murdoch's heirs are going to be important customer service and advertising branches of a couple of Chinese manufacturing conglomerates, for instance: unless either one of them can carry on without batteries, chips, screens, cords, coils, capacitors, cameras, LEDs, and little motors.

Wal Mart already is, de facto and essentially, a marketing branch of Chinese industry - and the largest single employer in a lot of the US. How long ago was it that Wal Mart last advertised that all its stuff was made in the USA? Not ten years, IIRC. Wasn't true, of course - but plausible; now it would be a joke. Things are changing fast. The question is, who needs whom more? For how long? Are Neil Bush's little arrangements with some Chinese the accidently revealed tip of an iceberg, or just one more tale of corruption fogging this admin?

Decentralization would mean disintegration of some big systems already established, IMHO - risk of chaos, but worth it?

You're forgetting, herco60med - India has near parity of population with China, and a higher population growth rate. Plus a superior technology base.

If you really want a global government, then take a leaf from a reasonably successful multi-government system, correct the problems that have emerged, and bring it in voluntarily. The US constitution has worked very well, until certain "end runs" resulted in too great a concentration of power in Washington.

So, take the fundamental concept of separation of powers, and strengthen it significantly. Give the global government ONLY those powers it absolutely must have, and ABSOLUTELY FORBID it to deal with any subject outside of those areas. And I mean absolutely - don't even allow it to CONSIDER such things.

That will be the only way to prevent it from grabbing power over time. And even that might not work.

Not forgetting, just can't see India behaving as a unit at that scale. India might well be a major power in a decentralized world government - - - - -

The UN is only ineffective because nations have individual veto powers, thus effective resolutions are undermined by vested interest politics.

I think the proposal is a body which has authority above that of individual nations, perhaps similar to federal vs state levels of authority. Rather than veto powers there some element of consensus required. Sure some will decry the inevitable "evil authoritarian argument". But then this particular pattern has been at the root of nearly all wars in history. There has been a slow but continual centralisation of government. From tribes to city states to Capitocracy(or is that democapitalism?). Business may instead be soon to take over, because it is the current entity capable of easily crossing established historical political boundaries. The EU is a political attempt to breach those same boundaries.

paramadman is right - the internet is allowing the world to talk to each other. A global community is developing, one that I think some "old farted" political leaders, and a majority of the voting public of Australia and the US, do not fully understood, or perhaps that should be believe in. If you remember that the current generation of leaders grew up with memories of war. To my grandparents, Japan is a place to be derided and rejected - my grandfather fought in Papua New Guinea in WWII. To my friends Japan is a great place to get electrical goods and cool shoes, if slightly kooky. I personally love the place.

Current political leaders grew up in an "us vs them" environment. Most on the internet realise that political boundaries are nothing more than artificial constructs. They don't really mean anything anymore. You can often get to another country faster than you can get to the next major city (and I live in Australia!). You can sit down in your lounge room on your laptop and argue with people from all over the world. You can buy stuff from just about everywhere. There isn't really an "us" or a "them" any more.

Some seem to think that disagreements between nations can only be resolved with threats +/- bloodshed. How many more need to die before history runs it's inevitable course?

And that course being?

Hmm, that is an odd statement. As Flower brought up, I'd also like to know what course you are talking about. But on another note: What do you mean by people dying over a course of history? This statement makes no sence; because everyone dies through the course of history. I assume you mean casualties, but you may need to relook your statement, and make it more clear. Who is dying?

The inevitable course referred to by Wot? is simply that eventually--if we wish to prevent war--we must learn from the past and change for the future. Otherwise, it IS inevitable that we will go on fighting and dying--until there is nobody left to die.

The choice is TRULY ours...

Paramadman

Step 1. Teach anayletical thing in schools. They already do in Europe.

Step 2. Require courses in the study of tribalism.

Step 3. Find a way to keep the portals of the WWW from being controled
by the power structure. They are already working on this.

When the access to the WWW is controled by a small number of
ISP's what you can access can be controlled. Only the sites that
"the public wants" will be available. It works well for TV.

But television is ONE WAY communication--controlled by those who transmit the signal whether it’s by broadcast, satellite or cable--and this lends itself to such actions. The internet has no such limitations. This coupled with the fact that anyone with a computer and a modem can connect to the web without need of an outside ISP (proper setup of course) will create an "underground" resistance that would make such efforts in WWII seem almost quaint...

The internet is one of the few things that really is too big to be controlled.
Any efforts along those lines would cause the REAL power-behind-the-net (computer and software experts) to do whatever is necessary to save their "baby" from the "dogs of world control". Without the complicity of these guys--and some of the best are rather anarchistic at best--they can't control their employee’s email content...

However I agree with the need for teaching analytical reasoning. I cannot understand how the "system" we have now could ever have come into existence. The only thing that is absolutely vital in prep school curriculums is inclusion of teaching them HOW to think rather than teaching them the rote facts. Without this critical thinking skill--what use information?

Paramadman

Although I agree with you, I do have a question. Wasn't the original purpose of schools, (at least in America,) to create a working class society? Just to educate so that they are able to work? Unfourtunatly, one does not need to think in order work, and as a goverment, it can be seen how they do not teach the ability to think: too much effort for too little profit..... Most people in power treat the goverment as a buisness, and always have. Yay for capitalism in that respect.

I hate to disagree with you because I think that I understand how you came to this opinion. An important aspect of this that you’ve overlooked is that a politician/government wins a large amount of leeway in their actions, if the electorate is too ignorant to understand the deception. That is, in a nation of people who know nothing of analytical thinking, a "slick" politician can answer any question by saying nothing. They have "changed the question" and the more people that do not understand this the easier they are (as a group) to control.

Without critical thinking skills people have no protection from those who DO possess it. And through their ignorance, they will live their lives in slavery—one made all-the-more insidious by the illusion of freedom it creates in the little minds that they have "taught" to "think" without reason...

Paramadman

I do agree that we should have analytical thinking taught in schools, I never said I didn't. I was stating the goverment's point of view. And as the politicians who can sway the people however they want are in power...... I sincerly doubt there will be any change. It's a stupid paradox. The politicians enjoy being in easy power over how the populus believes, and the populus is, (more or less,) happy with their illusion of freedom.


I am, unfoutunatly, beginning to believe true freedom itself is simply an illusion....

As long as it is your illusion it might become another’s reality and (since it’s your illusion) it must take you along for the ride. Don't fold your hand yet, kid.

If we have a large scale nuclear war...I suppose that "anarchy" is a close enough description of our return to hunting and gathering. The only problem is that the earth can support no more than 20-25 million people living as hunter/gatherers--and this represents an optimum condition that is so extremely unlikely to happen, that I expect the real numbers will drop below a million or two within a year of ending the conflict...

Paramadman

Of course...the majority of people not only don't KNOW the truth they could not LEARN it if they spent their lives in search of it! Worse than this, the same majority does not really want this "freedom", will not support it, and have no desire to decide anything more complicated than which fork to use with the salad. Freedom (when it exists) does so because of people who are NOT part of the harried masses. NOT afraid of going their own way. NOT of "average" intellect and willing risk death to make these decisions for themselves. These people take everybody else along for the ride, and then, the newly "freed" populace can begin the process of throwing it away again.

Historically, freedom must literally be thrust upon most humans. They are not merely "scared" of it--they have a MORTAL FEAR of it (a phobia if you will) and will go to great lengths to avoid its terrifying embrace. By doing this they avoid the true source of their fear--that someone else will realize that are both stupid and cowardly--and thereby are absolved from taking personal responsibility for something larger than themselves. I have never understood this kind of fear, but I've seen it enough over my lifetime to have become convinced that this is what best explains why freedom has been won--then lost--so many times in the past.

No slave was ever freed by proclamation, nor can someone who will die before giving up their freedom ever truly be enslaved. We'll have to mature as a species for a while longer before "freedom" can be maintained for everyone, and hope that the “geek” underground can keep the fires alive for the rest…

Paramadman

Jobs? Who needs jobs? In this society, there would be no jobs. People would live thier live doing whatever they wanted to do.

As for the 'end product', I would say that the invention of a machine that is capable of constantly stimulating the human 'pleasure center' would lead to an eternally happy life for all. Whether this is a utopia or a dystopia is up to you.

The problem with these "ideal" governments is that they must be populated by "ideal" people. And the governed must also somehow draw upon a core of "ideal" values.

The only thing that a single world government would do is to concentrate government resources into a single resource.

...

bad idea

...

It's a bad idea because people are shit. Even if most people are "good", we only need a cadre of like-minded shits to take over. And then they can take this ideal, "Star Trek/UFP/World Government" and grind the rest of us to grist.

No thanks.

The potential “evil” of large corporations is not a small thing. Even the most rabid of conservative would be unlikely (if pressed) to simply dismiss this. However, the flip-side must be examined as well; must large corporations ALWAYS do evil? Is there any chance at all that a “benign” corporate system could be expected to work in favor of “humanity over pure profit”?

You raise some interesting questions, but theoretical considerations of “moral/ethic’s” aside, what are the true strengths and true weaknesses of small companies, and what are their advantages/disadvantages compared to a large corporation? You have some obvious questions of flexibility (which I heartily agree with) and I’ve found that companies dealing with engineering become too bloated beyond a certain point to be highly competitive designing new products and solutions. The critical threshold I have (arbitrarily) set at 300 employees. I choice this number because my research of high-tech providers of hard/software products and services, begin at (just about) this point to begin licensing new products from smaller developers—rather than producing new products “in-house”.

If you are into bringing innovative new products to market it seems to become more difficult to do such development the larger the company becomes. It is not “impossible” for a large company to be an innovator—but a fair number of truly large ones have done little that was new in recent history, and those that have released such innovative products have acquired them (rather than designed them) from smaller companies—either through absorption of the smaller company or simple licensing of the new product—for the last twenty-twenty-five years. From this I foresee the major corporations becoming less the developers of new products than the distributors of such, and will remain important for this into the foreseeable future.

The larger cash reserves held by these large corporations will make proper advertising of new products (television/radio/print/internet—other?) their specialty and are probably necessary for this because of the need to have these products enter the publics minds. The costs of the more traditional media outlets are unlikely to get smaller over time—nor will internet marketing be quite the “poor mans mass media” because of its shear size. In order to reach the maximum numbers of consumers the budgets will remain in traditional media for a long time, and thus, the monetary resources of a large conglomerate will remain a large part of the picture.

I predict that (in the future) a great number of small developers will be partially funded by big business, and will (in effect) be the “brains” of technical innovation, and (rather than the common “take over/mergers” you see today, these companies will remain separate entities contractually bound to large corporations (in a lose affiliation on a per product basis) who will do the “big money” side of bringing new product to market by manufacturing and then distributing the new product/service. In the end there may be only a few large companies, but these will no longer be designers of product but rather, the developers of markets.
Supreme Lord of Roadkill

Ten years ago I would have rolled my eyes, sworn under my breath, and dismissed this off-hand. I still find many problems with a “true” democracy—because there is potentially devastating problems inherent in counting noses every time the government is asked to provide (let’s say) a new access road for a town of 50. Although some of the problems with this are solved by digital interconnectivity I see the human side of this equation being problematic. It is already difficult to get the massive participation of those eligible to vote in anything like the numbers necessary for a true democracy, and there remains substantial numbers of people who seem apathetic (or simply disinterested) in doing so.

Perhaps this human problem will change in the future—but I see no evidence of it yet…
Supreme Lord of Roadkill

There is another (perhaps more fundamental) reason to eliminate the modern notion of economics. The entire world has—over the last one hundred years or so—implemented a monetary policy that has replaced “tangible” assets (gold, platinum, and other commodities) with a number of highly artificial symbolic ties to theoretical “commodities” like GNP, GDP (and others) and base their currencies value on these indicators (often by issuing long-term bonds that “sell” a portion of a nations debt) and use the numbers to determine everything from interest rates to how much paper to have in circulation. Whilst admitting for argument that even such “tangible” commodities as “gold” are—in fact—themselves a fictional device, they at least had the psychological impact of requiring a physical amount of it in reserve to “back up” their paper—or accept the lowering of the currencies buying power.

The current system has changed money into a purely arbitrary thing that offers options not possible under the older “commodity” based system. For instance, our modern currencies are fiat—and this has traditionally been a weakness. However, it has the very real potential of eliminating such things as depressions. Since the whole world has become economically tied together in a way fundamentally different from anything that existed prior to now, if (for instance) the United States were to be faced with a sudden downturn, the rest of the world could potentially be brought down with it. However, since money is truly nothing more than a symbol, this could be headed off by the rest of the world “forgiving” debt, or agreeing to “erase” the problem by decree, in an effort to prevent an economic collapse that would affect everybody else. This is now a theoretical possibility and (I suspect) that in the next fifty years or so, the powers that be will begin to lose the last of their “old world” economic feelings and begin to realize the full implications of the “new-world” system. The only thing preventing this today is old notions of what constitutes “value”—and these always die hard—but it is inevitable that (in the long run) the new economics will become as philosophically “satisfying” as the old world system, and the next generation of economists will realize the full potentials inherent in the new (and much more flexible) economics.

In the next 100 years we should do away with most of the obstacles that prevent a logical barrier to a “one world economy”, and—over a slightly longer timescale—we should eventually do away with economics all together. The possibility is a real one and the world has already taken the first steps. All that remains is the psychological adherence to old-world economics that is truly analogous to the change over from Newtonian universe to an Einsteinian one that physics faced in the early 20th Century. The old guard will die out, and the new guns of the future will take over, and, ultimately, they will lead the world first to an economic boom fueled by reason and then, into a future in which economics (as we understand it) will become as redundant as sneakers on a python…
Supreme Lord of Roadkill

This economic revolution will also do much of what you say here. For when all people—regardless of location or the placement of arbitrary lines on a map—are full participants in an “economy” that is designed to work for humanity at large instead of simple nationalism, the end of war is certain.

If all members of the human species are directly connected by economic ties that have eliminated nationalism, what need then war?
hellhound

Hellhound, I’m rather surprised at you here! There are as many ways to “concentrate resources” outside of “traditional” nationalistic government, than within the context of a single one, and in fact, why should we limit ourselves to “government” (in the usual sense) at all? Is it not possible to intelligently design a system to handle these roles without the “traditional” need for a bureaucratic “political” class? I could envision a system that had pre-defined the most important needs of society like, food, shelter, transportation infrastructure, communications interconnections, health care, education, and other things, that required only a minimum number of permanent human resources to operate.

Consider; when all of humanity has gotten past the superficial differences that keep them separate currently—in other words, they have accepted the genetic evidence already extant that all humans are genetically related to one another—the primary barrier that keeps us artificially apart is gone. Following this with a decision to treat economics as what it is—an artificial construct without ding an sic whose purpose is to serve humanity rather than promote antiquated notions of nationalism—and pulling together as a species to promote species survival is no longer an impossible dream. I grant you that such change will be difficult—if for no other reason than normal human cussedness is what it is. But there is no physical barrier there at all, and the single greatest hurdle will be sociological/psychological and this is merely difficult—not impossible.

I grant you that this change would be impossible in today’s world, but as the reality of the fictional basis for economics becomes clearer in the next few centuries, the realization that GOVERNMENT (as we know it) is ALSO fictional will also (inevitably) occur. Once its unreality has become clear, the change over to something similar to what SLOR outlined becomes inevitable given only time.

It has long been stated that it would take an extra-terrestrial enemy to force humanity together in this way. I agree with this notion. However, I suspect that this will be provided by our own species absolute need to expand into the universe at large, and WE will (in fact) BE this “extra-terrestrial” threat that will ultimately bring us to the only logical solution we have open to us. Coming together as a species is the only action we can take that will allow our species a real chance of survival indefinitely into the future. We have very real physical reasons why we cannot stay on Earth “forever”, not the least of which being that the sun will begin to grow in intensity in the future. This will eventually reach levels that are incompatible with human life, and (in a small matter of about one billion years) the sun will have “grown” so much in total radiation output that the Earth’s oceans will be boiled away—but it will become uninhabitable by our kind of life well before this..

Only a people with a species—rather than nationalistic—orientation has any hope of long-term survival, and the communications revolution that is still ongoing, will make this eventuality clear, thus driving the necessary planet-wide change from a maintenance of the older “regional” ties, to a newer lexicon in which geography is dismissed as an unreal distinction, and replaced by a “one-world” view. We will be required to do this eventually—or our species will go the way of the dinosaur…

Black Sheep
Since a "neo-communism" is a reasonalbe tag for my predictions for the future I have no substanative changes to make to your basic post. I might disagree with some of the minutiae, but I find the basic form of such a world to be fundamentally the same as my own idea. I thank all of you for making these posts and I encourage more input from both yourselves as well as others.

This world has changed much in the past 500 years (or so) and has done this in ways that have made it fundamentally different from all others that came before. The great increase in ability to communicate that has occurred since the invention of the telegraph (the true beginning of the “modern world”) has made this planet a much "smaller" place. The unprecedented growth of mass communication in the 20th Century continues on into the 21st, and with the internet bringing diverse groups of people together in such things as this forum, will take all of us—no matter where we might live physically—into proximity so close, that we may as well be neighbors.

This "global community" being created by the internet, is the key first step that will lead to the creation of a global "point-of-view", and it is such a view that will bring the (currently) disparate elements of regional government/economics (as practiced in different forms by each human society) and put the best of these ideas together into a system that can rid our planet of the illogical, wasteful, and utterly unnecessary bigotry that currently keeps us separate. Although they will try—the nations of the world have no hope of stopping this trend, and will slowly lose their present abilities to lead us into the folly of war, hunger, ignorance and all of the many and varied demons that these imply. The unreal distinction we currently make about one another will eventually fall—and when this day arrives we shall cease to be Americans, Europeans, Asians, or Africans, and become what we truly are—human beings—each with the same fundamental needs, wants, and desires.

We are one—not multiple people. Paramadman is the same kind of human as is Hellhound, and Demonweed is the same as Dark Raven. We are the same (all of us) and when this realization has finally set in viscerally, we will rise up to our true potential to take our place as emissaries of the only "race" that is true, that of "earthlings".

The time is soon at hand when we must leave our species childhood behind and take our adult place. We are species of explorers and we have chased every mystery we've ever faced on earth, and we've always been willing to move long distances in search of new horizons. The universe beckons us to retake this mantle…and take it we will! We shall not let a little thing like danger, great distance or difficulty keep us from new horizons...we simply await the latest Columbus to point the way to a truly new world.

We are a species that dies when confined, wastes when unchallenged, and chafes when we’re idle. It is our destiny to explore or to die. There really isn't another option for us...

Paramadman

The OP was about a "world government" ... I have strong reservations about concentrating power further than necessary - this should not surprise you, as I have long espoused Libertarian ideals on this board.

No-one has ever suggested that the sole source of human discord and conflict, much less heterogeneity, is due to genetics. What a colossal strawman!

My take is that we are wired for conflict, either genetically, or as a natural consequence of our environment. Look at any species, and a balance of conflict and coexistence prevails. Check any of the inter-species relations, and you have a combination of food chain, parallel competition and cooperation and symbiosis.

We can certainly harness this energy, and craft cultures and governments to help curb the excesses, but I am convinced that it is part of the life cycle.

Fictional?! Nations, corporations, trade, wealth, commerce: these are reality. As in objective reality. Governments are real objects, exerting real influence over our lives.

What is it about the passage of time that makes people think that things will just sort of happen? The current historical record suggests that human progress is non-linear and uncertain, periods of progress, regress, cycles of conflict and peace...

I don't see a linear future trend to some sort of idyllic, utopian society.

I can't argue with your science there. It is a fact, or at least a strong theory that planets and suns "die". Current cosmology allows for galaxies to die.

The challenge of expanding beyond our solar system is challenge beyond the scope of this OP. In my opinion, it isn't sufficient to drive a global government.
What is needed there is a combined space program, first to establish sustainable human presence throughout our solar system. Next, we need a really smart physicist to break the light barrier, or perhaps to exploit Bose-Enstein "worm-holes", just to get to other star systems.

Even so, the natural lifespan of species as a whole doesn't much beyond a few million years, if that. Humans will be gone well before Sol takes it fiery exit from the stage.

You're starting to sound a bit like Rove/Bush there, with your "Post-Reality/Impose Reality" language. Certainly, it is human imperative to change reality, more properly to attempt such modification. But it is folly and arrogant to dismiss current reality as being "unreal".

We'll be going extinct regardless of our long term behaviour. We'll eventually go extinct with a dead-end, or be "phased-out" by evolutionary processes, leaving behind successful descendent species.

Progress among human society has never been achieved by communal consensus. It has always been spearheaded by a leading nation or group, then replicated/hegemonied/exported/forced upon the rest of the human societies. Even if you add an artifical "uni-society", it will either be impotent and superficial, or it will cause reactionary sub-cultures to form, if for no other reason in response to the presence of the "uni-society".

Nature is unstable, changing. As a part of nature, we are going to reflect that nature. We can moderate the extremes, but we cannot divorce ourselves from the Savage Garden.

Of course I realized this truth. There was a time that I took a “libertarian” slant on things…still do in some ways, but I am constitutionally unable to accept any system that retaining logical inconsistencies—and since this covers all such human systems to date, I suppose that I can lay claim to none of them.

The libertarians have many strong points. Their fundamental belief that the highest of human attributes is our ability to be self-sufficient is one that I strongly agree with. I begin to lose the libertarians over matters of a virtually total lack of centralized government, a tendency (although not absolute—being as I’ve known many libertarians who did not follow this) to avoid keeping standing armies, and the artificial divisions between “nations” that is also integral to every other currently extant political/economic system.
Hellhound

Indeed? And wherein lays the rub? Mankind has long divided themselves up along lines drawn using the specious concept called “race”. This word has no meaning whatsoever (in a scientific sense) and a continued belief that it does is a huge obstacle to peace, and represents a psychotic disassociation from reality. It is most commonly expressed as artificially separating one “race” from the “others” by means of policies designed to make “us” the “real people”, them “inferior” or “not people” and thus allows false justification of hideous acts of barbarism and abuse whose sole true purpose is economic exploitation, religious gerrymandering and fascist demagoguery. The eventual destruction of this mindless belief in the fundamental “separateness” of human “races” is inevitable, because its fundamental incorrectness is manifest, and will ultimately result in our destruction as species if not wiped out…
Hellhound

I do not question this position. Humans are indeed “wired for conflict”, only a fool would claim otherwise given our history, and simple observation of our primate cousins does much to support the contention. However, why must this tendency be directed against OURSELVES? Much has been made of the difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom, and much has been predicated on our “self-awareness” which can be defined as our “intellect”. If we accept that we are aggressive, our “intellect” should then be able to direct this trait in any way we choose to direct it—otherwise we are not in any legitimate way “superior” to the “lower” animals, and this would be something that I do not believe you are looking to say.

Aggression is not only negative—it is also positive, or one could reasonably determine that such a genetic trait would not have survived. It can be turned either inward or outward, and I suggest that turning this aggression outward—specifically toward the solar system and beyond—will keep that part of our intrinsic makeup working FOR us, rather than against us. Once you have the human race all pulling in the same direction we will have that which is necessary for using our aggression to push us onward—and outward—into a future that needs not be one of “pink monkeys” attempting to kill all of the “brown monkeys”, and is this not superior to continuing to act as if a “Chinese” person, or “African” person, is not exactly the same kind of human being as an “European” person—who are themselves the same as an “Indian” person?

Hellhound

Yes. Fictional they are and nothing more than this at all. Let’s take each separately and see what we can find out about your contention that each is “real” and not simply a mental construct.

1. Nation: A nation is a grouping of people who share cultural ties to one another, and is defined as lying within the geographic boundaries they set. These “nations” usually set up a “government” to define the roles of both individuals and the society overall, and set up a system of laws designed to facilitate the most harmonious interactions between the individual members of the society possible to them at the time. Usually, these societies are themselves fractured into regional areas with common interests (like US States) and are further subdivided into smaller and smaller groupings such as municipalities, counties, towns, villages and cities. These nations (and smaller subunits) are defined and described by a series of lines drawn on a sheet of paper called a map, and held together by a single (or a few) pieces of paper that hold their “constitutions”, “legal codes”, and other documents that are usually set up at a “federal” level, and (as such) apply to all other subdivisions—which are “obliged” to follow them. Each of the subdivision draft similar documents for themselves in order to define how their local members are to act, carry out commerce, and set standards for how to deal with each under all conditions. These “state” constitutions are only binding if they are in agreement with limitations set up federally, and are, therefore, subject to overrule at the federal level.

Exactly what of these is “real” here is it the lines drawn up on paper or perhaps it is the “constitutions” also drawn up on paper? What makes these things real?

A brick will be a brick no matter what is “mandated” by anyone. A bar of gold will remain a bar of gold even if someone writes a “constitution” that says it is lump of shit. That is because both of these items is “real”, they have “corporeal” existence independent of the “thoughts” behind them, and would exist as what they are—even if humans had never named them at all.

This is not true however, of any of the concepts called “nation”, “corporations”, “trade”, “wealth” or “commerce”. These are high order abstractions and symbols representing the actions of human beings, but they are no more “real” than Moby Dick, no more tangible than a thought, and nothing that we can do will ever change this fact. All of the things we think of that cannot exist outside of human conception of them are—by definition—constructs of the human mind with not ding an sic, and therefore, are fictions and nothing more.
Hellhound

As a physicist I do not accept that time “passes” in any fashion, let alone a linear one. Time might just be another mental construct we create because we see the universe too coarsely to interpret “time” correctly. There is one school of thought that states time is nothing but a series of discrete “slices” each on the order 10^-42 seconds duration that “stack” up behind us like playing cards, and our minds construct a gestalt of this that creates the illusion of a “flow” of time. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to contradict this, and all efforts to disprove it have (so far) proved futile.

However, what ever view of “time” one has, our “history” has only as much relation to our “future” as we decide to give it. We are neither bound to follow the mandates of history, nor locked into a “vicious circle” of deplorable actions. We have a choice to made at every point, and (if we are to believe that humanity is “special”) we must take steps to remove the element of chance that has driven the course of every other animals destiny, take over these reins ourselves, and intelligently direct our course. We will soon be doing so on a genetic level, and it is folly to do this yet leave alone the much simpler intervention that can change our collective destiny. How can we leave this to chance when we are going to take over the function of the evolution of our species—not to mention the evolution of every other species on this (and other) planets?

I’m sorry, Hellhound but the only “straw man” here is to be found in your argument, because (it would seem) you have decided that chance rules over human initiative, dice rolls over intellect…and this is not only wrong but incompatible with our continued exist. It is also at odds with our history for has not the human species changed constantly over time? Have we not done so in a fashion that has fundamentally changed in every form imaginable for at least four million years? Why do you assume that the way we’ve “always” done it—will be the way we “always” do it?

I hereby direct you to the ancestor who first tamed fire…
Hellhound

Science has that property—it’s sometimes very hard to question.

We will have access to energy several orders of magnitude greater than anything we’ve had before, and this will happen in the next 50-150 years. Almost anything that does not directly break the laws of physic becomes possible with enough energy. I suspect that we’ll have the ability to cover the distances between stars within our galaxy just a soon as we have the available energy to work with ideas for such systems already extant. I won’t try to guess what form this might take, but suffice to say that there are several equally valid options that lack only sufficient energy to make them practical.

Btw, I believe you are referring to an Einstein-Rosen bridge, rather than he and Bose. Rosen was a mathematician who used the equations of general relativity (as applied to what are now called black holes) and discovered that infinite curvature of spacetime resulted (in his interpretation) a possible “opening” of spacetime beyond the singularity, that can be interpreted as a “worm hole” to either of several possible fantastic destinations. It could open to another point in our universe, a point within another universe similar to our own, or even an “anti-gravity” universe in which gravity would be repulsive. Rosen died not long after this and Dr. Einstein presented his paper posthumously—even though he tended to disagree with the conclusions drawn from the paper.

The Bose-Einstein condensate was recently produced, and this probably explains your quote.

Hellhound

Perhaps, you are correct but you certainly do not have to be. Humanity can chose to live or chose to die, and we are the only species we know of for which this is true. I chose to live, and (I strongly suspect) so will the rest of our species.

The “Rove/Bush” analogy is not correct however. I have demonstrated (I believe I’ve made a very strong case) that concepts you claimed had tangible reality, in fact, do not. If a thing is nothing more than a mental construct, we are in no way committed to keeping it around. They have been useful (to be sure) but they can—and I suggest will—be junked when we decide the time has come.

In the end, we must accept that “reality” is not to be found in “thought experiments”, but only in things that can exist independently of human thought or intervention. All things other than these are—by definition—unreal, and subject to loss of even intangible existence when we decide to let them go…
Hellhound