Poll: Countries are just lines drawn in the sand with a stick

[Carpenter]

Yes please, sign me up?

Oh wait, whose government would it be? We'd like to think it would be a democracy with freedom of religion and all that good stuff, but for all we know it could be under sharia law or some other monsterous institution. Even our 'enlightened' first world countries do their best to strip away freedom from the people. Eugenics was a thing. Sterilizing homosexuals was a thing. Slavery was a thing. Hell, government has actively worked to limit freedom on the internet and give more power to certain businesses.

A one world government would devour it's own people until the people rose up and brought it down.

It's cute that you say eugenics, slavery, and forced sterilization "was" a thing, as if those things don't go on today.

Yup, thank god we beat those nasty southerners, destroyed slavery as a whole. Same with those nazis, no more eugenics anywhere.

I think people might be disturbed by the direction of our society if they actually put some thought into what eugenics was. Manipulating human evolution by manipulating genes either by deciding who is allowed to breed with who or directly manipulating the genes through chemical or technological means.

Yeah that's certainly not something that is looked at as an "exciting scientific development" today. Just because they don't call it eugenics anymore doesn't mean it's not the same concept. We didn't destroy the nazis, we destroyed their banner and brought over their scientists and engineers.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I don't like the idea of a single power, or even a single government. So I'd say it'll never be a good idea.

 

[Caiphus]

I'd say no. Besides it being supremely difficult to manage, what laws would you impose on people? Western ones? Because that would piss off a great number of cultures, almost certainly to the point of a, now civil, war.

And Europe has adeptly demonstrated how even a common currency doesn't work when you need to account for the inherent economic differences across countries.

 

[Heronblade]

You realize that makes no sense right? You can't say the leadership will be "rigid at the top" but people below will have freedom to govern themselves. If that was true, we would have no need for leadership at the top.

Interesting, between this and the following comments you seem to think totalitarian governments always intrude into everything below them. Given that historically, dictators have usually been forced to micromanage their populus in order to keep their power, this is an understandable mistake, but it is still a mistake.

It is a little late where I am to correct this myself, go look up the term hegemony, that should get you started. A look into the original distinction between federal and state government in the USA would also help, but that line has been... blurred in recent years.

 

[EvilRoy]

I just don't see how a one world government would even work. In order for there to be any way to effectively govern it, the planet would need to be split into finer and finer regions basically exactly how it is now. We would still need governments at the municipal level to keep roads and utilities working on the town level, then we would need provincial/state/region level government to take care of all the stuff that falls in between municipalities. THEN you need federal level governments because no way is a single world government going to be able to keep track of the strengths, weaknesses, needs and wants of what I would guess adds up to probably around 500 state/province level governments.

So basically the only way I could see it working is if the world was exactly how it is now, except there's a single governing body over top of all the federal governments. Except instead of dealing with pissy Albertans complaining about Quebecers or Texans having a state line pissing match with a neighbor, you have countries like N. Korea and S. Korea with deep cultural hatred to keep in line. You would need to have the biggest guns in the whole damn world to keep that shit in line, or at least some kind of insane cultural blackmail.

It doesn't even matter how the actual leaders of the master government are chosen, because from the perspective of the individual on the street they might as well not exist. Any decision the megagovernment made, even something like making a 'no jaywalking' law, would have to pass through three other consecutive governments at least before a man on the street even heard about it and by that time it might be a 'no jaywalking on Tuesday while chewing gum' law. And how would the supreme governance even find out about that shit? Send out inspectors to each community to ensure laws are enforced as was originally intended? We can't even do that with federal laws now. In many places a municipality, or maybe a particular few American states who like this funky smelling plant, will just pass laws that go against federal laws and it takes months to years for the people at the top to find out and make a decision on what to do about it.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

snip

I love how you're arguing against things I've never said. Where did I say I will never change my beliefs to accomodate others? I'm pretty sure "comprimise" implys actions on both sides to support the betterment of both parties

But go ahead and continue your tirade against "my" viewpoint. Clearly what I actually say doesn't actually matter.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I take the view that countries do exist, because people believe they exist. Arbitrary or not, if it means enough to someone, then I consider it real enough. The concept of superficiality is something I reject entirely. That being said, I also believe that humanity as a whole supersedes any country lines. Just because someone is from somewhere else doesn't mean they are less or more of a person than you.

 

[norashepard]

I am in favor of such a world state only because it would remove idiotic nationalism (not all nationalism is bad though) from the picture. Overall though, it is a shit idea because, inevitably, the world government would decide that they didn't like a certain kind of people, like say, homosexuals, or transgender people, both of which I am. Both of things are outlawed currently in parts of the world, but it is still possible to escape the persecution by going somewhere else. In a world government, that wouldn't be possible. This isn't just a problem for identity issues like that either. Say you're a businessperson and the government decides to overtax your product, or restrict it in some way. In the current world, you'd just jump on a plane and sell in the Czech Republic or something, but in the hypothetical one world gov, that would not be an option.

So yeah, no way unless there are guarantees for personal freedom and SUPER DUPER DELUXE SUPREME checks and balances to keep the power spread way the fuck out.

 

[HoneyVision]

There are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many issues right now to even be thinking about CONSIDERING this.

Sorry but the phrase "Countries are just lines drawn in the sand with a stick" is quite naive, because they're not. Countries are very very very unique and while that uniqueness makes us interesting, it's also the source of many problems like racism, facism, democracy/dictatorship/communism, super-nationalism and the list goes on.

People need to realize right now that the issues nations are going through at the moment are mere reflections of HUNDREDS of years worth of history. People and races have developed all sorts of paranoia and complexes over the millenia and they're simply not going to just drop everything and say "Let's forget about the whole thing and become friends".

One of the most naive things people can think is "Why can't we all just get along?". It irritates me that people are THAT shortsighted/uneducated.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeah, that is never going to happen. Ever.

People will instinctively divide themselves into groups no matter what.

Even if you somehow managed to make all of mankind unite within one global nation, you would in no time at all have people grouping together based on skin colour, religion, or other interests. And excluding those they don't see eye to eye with. It's in our nature to do so.

 

[Blue_vision]

It's funny looking at some of the responses here, as I think that a global government would actually really help local cultures.

When you go back to a time before nations existed, different cultures were thriving. It's only with the industrial revolution that languages in new nation states became standardized, and education meant the forced extinction of hundreds of local languages. Even nowadays, national governments focus more on a constructed national heritage to bring people together, and local heritage and the culture that comes with that gets lost.
Make a world government, and I think it would just be too difficult to homogenize global culture in that way, at least beyond basic notions of human rights that would be institutionalized by a world government. This would give tonnes of space for less artificial cultures to take hold, which I think would be very, very good.

A global government would also be good economically. No trade barriers, standardized laws meaning there's consistent rules of the game, and the ability to easily transfer wealth from richer areas to the poorer areas.

The world as it is is very much drawn across national lines, I think it'd be really cool to see it drawn along more human lines. I think a global government could help accomplish that.

 

[Floppertje]

no. to everything. countries are not just lines drawn in the sand with a stick. even the mere fact that a border exists makes people behave differently, so in no way can you claim that borders don't matter.

looking at it in another way, we already HAVE that. it's called the United Nations. There will always be subdivisions, we now call them regions or provinces (or states, if you're American and wrong). the general stuff is handled at country (or federal) level, while the specifics are handled further down the line (see where I'm going with this yet?)
Just renaming the UN into an Earth Government thing and making it the new 'country' isn't going to change all that much because the general stuff like human rights and trade laws are already in place.

captcha: do you love me? gee captcha... I'm flattered, but I just don't think it would work between us.

 

[Spygon]

One question that ruin the United World Government: one is what type of government should it be...

Until we have a working form of government that the whole world agrees on that can not be abused we will not have a united government.

 

[Foolery]

Never gonna happen. In fact, we're going to become more fractured. And that's a good thing.

Assuming we live long enough to colonize the stars we'll eventually see numerous nations/colonies on numerous planets, all with their own culture and history. It'll be like the colonial period, but a million times larger, and hopefully without the destruction of Native American and Aborigines.

Colonizing the stars isn't gonna happen either. More likely that we'll kill each other and destroy significant amounts of land, resources, technology, etc.
Anyway, back to the original question. Countries are more than just lines in the sand. They are different cultures, prone to clash.

 

[DRTJR]

Humans are very tribal by nature they group together into small blocks and then more often then not clash with other groups, Cities have a different feels to them as compared to each other. Chicago is different from NYC, countries are and even larger grouping of these with an overarching German, American, or Japanese sensibilities to them. As such we as humans will never have a unified world government, ever.

 

[knight steel]

No I feel that undergoing such a task carries to larger risk of corruption plus in practical terms would never work-what would work is perhaps giving the United Nations {UN} more power enough to actually enforce it policies in this way we would still have the individuality/culture/protection that comes with separate countries as well as having an outlet where all the countries can be united and create peace it's the best of both worlds.

 

[Fox12]

Never gonna happen. In fact, we're going to become more fractured. And that's a good thing.

Assuming we live long enough to colonize the stars we'll eventually see numerous nations/colonies on numerous planets, all with their own culture and history. It'll be like the colonial period, but a million times larger, and hopefully without the destruction of Native American and Aborigines.

Colonizing the stars isn't gonna happen either. More likely that we'll kill each other and destroy significant amounts of land, resources, technology, etc.
Anyway, back to the original question. Countries are more than just lines in the sand. They are different cultures, prone to clash.

I disagree with that. It's all about knowing which way the wind is blowing. It certainly won't happen within the next century, but it's on the horizon. It will start with the corporations. In fact, corporations have already started space efforts. So far only the government has been involved in space exploration, but once the private sector gets involved, and it will, things will begin to pick up. We're seeing the beginnings of this right now. I've also spoken to people involved in space exploration and rocketry, and they basically outlined the general path we're probably going to follow. This is similar to what happened with colonization, where a corporation fronted the bill for colonists to explore new lands. Eventually other groups will expand outward. It's a very exciting time. If the earth does begin to fall into ecological ruin, which I don't think it will, atleast not to the degree that some people think it will, then this will only speed up this process. Incidentally we're improving technology to be more ecologically friendly, and overpopulation is mainly a problem in third world countries, and in China and India.

But anyway, world peace can't happen. Sure, John Lennon can blabber on about world peace (while he beats his wife) and we call him a visionary, but it's not feasible. Why? Because everybody has their own vision of what a perfect world is. Obviously John Lennons vision of a perfect world is not going to appeal to a Christian or a Muslim. His idea of a perfect world is one in which everybody follows his philosophies. World peace and unity requires us all to be the same, and destroys individuality. In this sense, it's actually quite bad, and any attempt to create paradise on earth ends in disaster. Just look at Communism. So no, I don't like the idea of one world governments or world peace because it destroys diversity and individuality, two things I prize more than anything else. I'd love an end to war, but it's not feasibly possible, ever.

 

[PatrickXD]

No. I mean, yes, get rid of countries, but don't be a baby. Get rid of the government, too.