OK, say one day the world has evolved to the point where we are all a similar race, with similar beliefs, traditions, lifestyles, etc, well then we would be one nation... maybe I'm being too negative, but I'd guess that could be another thousand years away! We're still a world of many divese people living in very diverse nations, and I think it's not in our nature to treat everyone equally. Pack mentalities, desires for domination, and all sorts of disastrous characteristics are part of our hard wired design, we're like animals with well evolved communication, reasoning and creative abilities, but still not that much different from animals. Don't blame me, that's God's fault!
Some very interesting viewpoints so far in this thread; please keep them coming! What I'm finding most interesting is how people are defaulting to the idea of a controlling body governing peoples ideals and personal life. Does anybody consider that what we see government as now is not the best way that it could be, and that this by default wouldn't work on the scale we are talking about? By no measure do I imagine current bureaucracy would scale well to govern an entire world, nor do I entertain any notion that a singular person would aptly represent an entire global civilization. Wouldn't it make the most sense to sit down and come up with the best way to govern universal issues with a singular global body, rather than stretch our current (arguably flawed) systems? A global government would only serve it's purposed task by touching only those things that universally effect people: money, law. There is no room here for nationalism to step in and bias. Local authorities (as positioned by a global governance, obviously) would control localized public services and deal with collection of various taxation services. This is where national pride would step in, and bias would be a direct problem through unfair usage of funds for various services/people. Things on a local level will be almost identical to how they would be now, but most if not all judicial concerns would take on a global theme. By no means is this a small issue, but I do believe it is one that could be handled. But on the positive, no more would individual states have the burden of setting their own laws (rather, to do so would be a disadvantage to their populace), nor would the individual citizen have to concern themselves by local immigration laws, boarder patrols, localized copyright, or worry if they need to carry a hi-vis jacket in their boot when they go through a country for fear of getting a fine (France). You will notice though, that you can still be as patriotic as you want, curse those "foreigners" as much as you want, but the inequality between the nations just wouldn't exist any longer despite the arbitrary lines in the sand, which can only be a good thing. It is only through a global effort, and through means such as a global government that we could ever hope to close the extreme disparity between nations, and increase global average life span (and indeed, living conditions) to what you or I would be willing to accept for ourselves. Having an attitude of "I/people am/are patriotic, therefore I don't want that smelly country over there having anything to do with me" is deeply selfish, and about as inhuman as one can get without directly causing others to come to harm by ones own hand. Am I operating under an umbrella of fantasy? Absolutely. But I can also see that the advantages of a global concern vastly outweigh any real issues I've seen expressed within this thread.
If we had a sole government wipe every nation's slate clean, and treat everyone around the world equally, it would be chaos. Some countries need more government help with water, some also need food, some just need public transport and/or road works, some need more police, some need all of the above, etc. Who decides where and how the money is spent? People will not be happy when potholes aren't being filled, and bridges crumble, because the NWO is making new roads in third world countries. If we are going to keep every nation's money seperate, and each nation prioritizes their own interests, well that's how things are now. As for the many different laws around the world, they have developed over the years, custom made to suit each nation - sure some countries are much more unfair than others, but we can't instantly change these things without war. The world may possibly evolve for the better, but take a look at how we're doing so far. Each year, more and more money is spent on war, I don't even know how many wars there are going on right now. Soon enough there will be websites with live war action feeds from the front lines, with ads for gambling sites, to bet on every aspect of these wars. We're living in a chaotic world, it's been getting worse and worse since Adam bit that damn apple.
This whole thing with one world government is its not going to be made overnight, nor is it going to be one to meet the needs of everyone. It will evolve (if it happens) Power will move where it is needed and well placed. From world wide to your local council. Baring disaters (economic/ war or extinction etc) the move towards international integration has been coming and has already been on its way for decades. Such as the EU or NATO. (both in different ways) Countries want to change and improve their human rights to EU standards to join since they have seen it improve the economies of much similar countries. I'm not saying that the EU has a one world government agenda but I do think it will have a role in creating it.
There's one of the issues. The world is comprised of many disparate peoples with divergent beliefs. You will, simply put, never eradicate that. Nor should you try. But because of that fact, any government (being made of people) will, consciously or unconsciously favor one set of people. Any representative groups, in the concept of a plurality, will represent the ethnic or religious background they come from. And abolishing religion doesn't work, we see what happens in countries that try. Taken further, some religions ARE the law in some areas, and taking that away will REALLY cause unrest. This is one of the core issues-nobody's gonna give up their faith. But you would have to in order to get everyone on the same page. And I don't wanna hear anything about "we'll outgrow it," that's bunk and you know it. Faith is one of the things that makes us uniquely human, and we all have it in something-whether it's Christ, Allah or Stephen Hawking. The way we have things set up now is a lot closer to ideal than one government ignoring the needs of its entire populace.
Today in my communications class, we touched upon culture, and the simple fact that it's difficult to communicate much less forgo the traditions of your own culture. With that in mind, it's not that a world government is a bad thing, it's not even pessimism. It boils down to necessity, if we don't need to, we won't. And while it would be nice, there's so many differing philosophies on how everything should be done that if we all banded together nothing would be done. Ironically anyhow.
Yeah, this is the basic outcome of most government meetings, not just the UN, even within departments within a nation, so changes happen very slowly, and often they aren't improvements. Most companies suffer the same problems, such as a heap of managers always fighting to run things their own way, unless there's one crazy dictator running the place. You know guys, most of us can choose what sort of government we can live under... but imagine a NWO... there's no way of simply packing up and moving to a different life, it's the same rules everywhere! You better hope the people running the NWO are not only intelligent, but also really, really nice
Malvolio I would be interested to know what you would do with a country like Greece? Corruption and tax dodging are endemic and has led to a vast bureaucracy and welfare state which is completely unsustainable. No wonder the rest of the eurozone is rather annoyed that they are subsidising the lifestyle of a country that hasn't been able to pay its bills since the 1800's.
I think that like communism (hear me out) it works in theory but not in practice. Sure, theoretically, it would have its benefits, it would work to solve independent third world poverty, racism, religious strife and even war (maybe, maybe not, i dont think so). The reason I'm opposed to a world government is simple, I don't ever want to see someone with that much power. Sure there would be a proficient checks and balances system in place, but I don't even trust national governments to do what they say they're going to do, let alone an international government. And let's face it, it's hard enough getting our voice heard by our local MP, harder still to have a say in national politics as a political minority, and it would seem nearly impossible for any form of revolutionized or alternative practicing political party to ever have a say in an international form of standardized government. Maybe it's because I love the idea of beneficial revolution, that if we needed to our whole system could change overnight for the benefit of the people (or not - see source ww2) but that would be basically impossible with a world government in place. My second point being Pride, that's really all I have to say. I'm right you're wrong, no i'm not you are, etc ...can't we all just get along? (i'll get my coat)
I still say that a World Giverment would be more like a senate with representative parties rather than what some seem to think on here, that it would be a Big Bad Man sat behind a desk, with a pencil-moustache and a side parting... I dont think it's a prerequisitie that World Government has to mean dictatorship? And I apologise if any offence is caused, because I sincerely do not mean to offend anybody in any way, but the sooner we stop make-believing that there is some all-powerful magical being out there (i.e. ALL religions) and start taking responsibility for ourselves we should be better off. THAT however, is a very different (and vastly divisive) story...
overall it's a good idea...but you just have to look at the current Conservative goverments centralisation of services and the resulting loss of various local and county powers, as well as the devastation of third sector organisations and the complete cock-up that is the newly centralised DWP to see that in some respects we've already gone too far down that path. For larger problems on a macro scale - world level strategic management would work. However most problems and policies need to be tackled at a level that takes account of each local areas own unique qualities and issues - i.e. we need more power at a local level, not centralised. Ideally you'd have a world government with true proportionate representation from a local community level - impossible I'd say!
It does work in practice --as long as the community is not larger than perhaps a few hundred people. Any larger and you start losing overview of who takes more out of the communal pool than they contribute to it. Check out the Amish: it works nicely on that scale. Check out Communist countries: it doesn't anymore. Which brings me to the point that you are really making: different types of government only work up to a certain scale. The larger you go, the harder it is to cater for individuals and their needs. You end up having either an autocratic One Rule Fits All, or you have to fragment the whole lot into semi-independent, flexible units that govern themselves autonomously within an overarching set of policies that is general enough to allow the wiggle-room for accommodating such individuality. Bit like what we have now, come to think of it, with the UN.
NWO plans are to reduce the size of the population in order to control it. I personally think it's possible in the next 100 years. Think of how globalized we are already, there will be a system to control that, and it's more than likely in place already. People in remote places won't count unless they contribute to world economy. Were pretty well brainwashed already. The world is no more dangerous than ever, but it will seem that way, so with security the economy supposedly being unstable (deliberate IMO) it won't be too hard to convince people. These are opinions on what I've seen in my life time.
Nexxo brings up an interesting point about communism that I think applies to capitalism as well: the larger the body of people, the greater the opportunity for disorganization and corruption. What we need is more efficient and cooperative multi-governance, not the vast cultural erasure that is unity. One problem with the States might be that it is too large and disparate for a representative democratic government. Perhaps we made a mistake in not becoming two nations after the Civil War. Perhaps Canada is making that mistake with its language war currently, which could result in conservative backlash. The larger the body of citizens, the greater the obstacles to mobilization, stakes of corporations, and tactical advantages of the controlling parties; and the higher the likelihood that implementations of fairness may be dismantled with less effective opposition. If the North and South in the States had split apart, each part of the country would be free to be itself more efficiently and fairly. I also think this question becomes more fun if you stop making it apply to the real world, since the conversation gets bogged down with literal discussions of likelihoods, lifetimes and agendas. For an idea of world government to become viable, perhaps it ought to be vetted as carefully as possible. I'd love to see the serious equivalent of a political Sim game explored in universities: Models in which various obstacles and difficulties are introduced, tested and anticipated in the context of an evolving world government. It would be fun to begin without suppositions as to which form of government would result in the best conditions for its citizens, and to see where various combinations took us in terms of cascading solutions. The difficulty of getting methodologies to converge might be bypassed by systematically eliminating points of disagreement where common solutions proved to answer the core complaints of different modelers.
Helping to edit our magazine, Sensitive Skin, Issue #7 of which is now available here, and working on a new book. We're currently editing a series of novels and short story collections by various writers we love as well. These will be published as eBooks and perfect-bound paperbacks -- more on that in the spring. By the way: I've missed you, too.
I thoroughly enjoy your posts even though they always make me feel decidedly unintelligent. We just need Eddie dane back now.
Thanks for the props, DRB. You think so? Yeesh -- Dane's continual references to being a financial investor in bit-tech while taking umbrage at my posts were half the reason I left these forums in the first place. Talk about a conflict of interests! Fan of verbal wrestling, are you? What's your equivalent for costumes and tights?
The very best discussions in this forum allow you to see things from a different view point or in a way you never thought of before. My views are often the opposite of Eddies but he always put forward a reasoned argument backed up with links for further reading which I often found interesting and enlightening. He often stood alone against a lot of opposition and seemed to keep his head which we all know is a rare thing on the internet. Posts that inform, educate or entertain are what I like most about in this forum. As for costumes and tights I come from a country where the men traditionally wear skirts and no knickers so you can make of that what you will.
