Do you think the world will unite?

[Muse]

Only after we make first contact with some hostile aliens bent on destroying us. This would accomplish two things:

--we would essentially have to unite to defeat the common threat.
--the existence of advanced alien species will pretty much eradicate the mythological base for most of the world's religions. We are no longer the unique love children of any type of "God," and so humanity would finally achieve the more enlightened state of non-religious moral and scientific authority.

This type of thinking is like driving with your eyes on your rear view mirror. There are plenty of movies that have capitalized on it, but it's just retarded. My concept of it is more like Contact or The Day the Earth Stood Still. Or 2001. Just movies (and/or books), but optimistic instead of pessimistic. The truth of the matter is quite possibly that we'll never make contact, not that there aren't advanced aliens out there, but that they are just too far away, too far away to make electro-magnetic contact much less enable physical contact. It's a kind of humbling idea - sentient beings out there but the universe is just so big we have to feel their company by virtue of knowledge and faith alone, no concrete evidence whatsoever! I think that human brotherhood (on the broad scale), such as it is, can be (and is) based on a similar principal.

 

[AMCRambler]

We will overpopulate the earth and run out of resources effectively wiping ourselves out long before we can unify.

 

[JimmiG]

Don't see why a united world would be a good thing. The bureaucracy and administrative overhead of running a country the size of a world would be ridiculous.

 

[pontifex]

not unless 1 country takes over the whole planet.

 

[mikeymikec]

not unless 1 country takes over the whole planet.

Which would be even worse than unification in just about every respect.

 

[Rumpltzer]

We're having anough trouble already keeping out all the riff-raff. More likely that the world splits into two zones; those who have and those who don't.




I do look forward to that time.

 

[_Rick_]

Don't see why a united world would be a good thing. The bureaucracy and administrative overhead of running a country the size of a world would be ridiculous.

How would that be worse than the diplomatic overhead we currently have between nations? And the absence of war. Pretty sure you can build quite a government off of a defense budget.

 

[sandorski]

It won't mean the end of Nations or National Borders, it will just be a new level of Government that Regulates, Oversees, and acts on International Issues. Think of it as relegating the Federal Government to a position similar to what a State/Province is. That is, Federal Governments will still exist and have certain powers, just not all the powers they currently have.

 

[destrekor]

Really? And what would that one-world government look like? Would it be a Presidency, with a Congress to check it, or would it be Parliamentary in nature? Or maybe military rule? What rights would it protect? What type of economy would it promote? What religion, if any, would it back? What language would become official?

You don't really have to answer these questions, but I can assure you, if you did, there would be at least one, if not more, answers that we would disagree on. For that matter alone, we will never unite and a one-world government would not work.

Nobody agrees that any government is perfect.
When any government is formed, it is usually in the midst of, or following, great turmoil.
And the calm and serenity the new government brings, regardless of any potential faults, usually makes enough people ecstatic. It's to be ever so slightly different than what was ever before.

The first world government will be like a UN on steroids.
Most political stuff will still happen at the State levels, possibly with the shape of their local governments decided entirely by the State itself and not the World.
That will succeed for awhile, things will get good, humanity will show it's ugly side again and something will fall apart, and the World Government will evolve.

There will probably be a lot more Economic and Government "zones".
Global Government will probably handle things in a high-level fashion, with a focus on the EU. Then the leaders of the EU have to work the solution, with some further hand-holding guidance and possibly funding from the World body.

 

[sao123]

I would consider a one world goverment a failure of the human race not a success.

Poll options are a failure.

 

[destrekor]

I would consider a one world goverment a failure of the human race not a success.

Poll options are a failure.

It depends on your approach to a united government.
If it's a totalitarian regime of some sort, yep... we failed, let's off ourselves already.

If it's democratic and leads to peaceful negotiations, unified labor standards, open borders (but borders nonetheless - like nested territories within territories, as it stands today), peaceful competition and cooperation with global/regional pooled resources to tackle our biggest R&D challenges... that's a win.

I don't see a global government following the socialistic/communistic/utopia approach, especially not the first few iterations... we will get it wrong, it will fuck things up, shit will fall apart and the world will be miserable yet again - we're humans, we never get it right the first time, especially since we fail to learn from the past when it comes to political matters.
But I do see the global government effort following a mostly federal republic approach, and I do honestly believe there will be a net positive benefit for mankind if we can reach that level.
Just think of the benefits of globally pooled resources for research and development. You'll still have teams competing to earn grants and universities vying for funding and status - but if the world was "open", a lot more would be done the same umbrella and that could mean some things get accomplished at a faster pace.

Of course, since we are human and this is government we speak of, there would be corruption and in-fighting and some things would be a mess. At a global federal republic level, however, a lot of worst aspects could be minimized by having multiple political parties. And that is if it's filled with publicly-voted politicians - quite a bit could be accomplished simply by having it sort of like a more powerful UN, with representatives simply coming from established administrations around the world.


I, like others, don't personally see any of this happening until shit really hits the fan. I think a true WWIII-type war, an absolutely devastating event for a large portion of the "developed world", could do the trick.
That, in my mind, is the quickest and most sure way we go the "UN evolved" route. It would be an evolution of the United Nations, complete with more teeth (the "new UN" would likely be militarized, it would need to be, in order to enforce globally agreed-upon standards, policies, treaties, etc).

The only other likely event to get us to actually unite? An alien invasion and/or some other globally catastrophic event, like a comet or massive asteroid on a guaranteed collision course.

 

[CPA]

Nobody agrees that any government is perfect.
When any government is formed, it is usually in the midst of, or following, great turmoil.
And the calm and serenity the new government brings, regardless of any potential faults, usually makes enough people ecstatic. It's to be ever so slightly different than what was ever before.

The first world government will be like a UN on steroids.
Most political stuff will still happen at the State levels, possibly with the shape of their local governments decided entirely by the State itself and not the World.
That will succeed for awhile, things will get good, humanity will show it's ugly side again and something will fall apart, and the World Government will evolve.

There will probably be a lot more Economic and Government "zones".
Global Government will probably handle things in a high-level fashion, with a focus on the EU. Then the leaders of the EU have to work the solution, with some further hand-holding guidance and possibly funding from the World body.

How can you say that there would be "calm and serenity" when you have current small-scale government turnover going on right now and there is no consensus calm and serenity. I give you Egypt.

 

[CPA]

It depends on your approach to a united government.
If it's a totalitarian regime of some sort, yep... we failed, let's off ourselves already.

If it's democratic and leads to peaceful negotiations, unified labor standards, open borders (but borders nonetheless - like nested territories within territories, as it stands today), peaceful competition and cooperation with global/regional pooled resources to tackle our biggest R&D challenges... that's a win.

I don't see a global government following the socialistic/communistic/utopia approach, especially not the first few iterations... we will get it wrong, it will fuck things up, shit will fall apart and the world will be miserable yet again - we're humans, we never get it right the first time, especially since we fail to learn from the past when it comes to political matters.
But I do see the global government effort following a mostly federal republic approach, and I do honestly believe there will be a net positive benefit for mankind if we can reach that level.
Just think of the benefits of globally pooled resources for research and development. You'll still have teams competing to earn grants and universities vying for funding and status - but if the world was "open", a lot more would be done the same umbrella and that could mean some things get accomplished at a faster pace.

Of course, since we are human and this is government we speak of, there would be corruption and in-fighting and some things would be a mess. At a global federal republic level, however, a lot of worst aspects could be minimized by having multiple political parties. And that is if it's filled with publicly-voted politicians - quite a bit could be accomplished simply by having it sort of like a more powerful UN, with representatives simply coming from established administrations around the world.


I, like others, don't personally see any of this happening until shit really hits the fan. I think a true WWIII-type war, an absolutely devastating event for a large portion of the "developed world", could do the trick.
That, in my mind, is the quickest and most sure way we go the "UN evolved" route. It would be an evolution of the United Nations, complete with more teeth (the "new UN" would likely be militarized, it would need to be, in order to enforce globally agreed-upon standards, policies, treaties, etc).

The only other likely event to get us to actually unite? An alien invasion and/or some other globally catastrophic event, like a comet or massive asteroid on a guaranteed collision course.

And if you read Rick's response on the first page, he has the opposite vision. See, we will never unite.

 

[OinkBoink]

How long do you think before the world becomes truly globalised?

 

[destrekor]

How can you say that there would be "calm and serenity" when you have current small-scale government turnover going on right now and there is no consensus calm and serenity. I give you Egypt.

Sometimes the turnover itself IS the great turmoil. And it all depends on what kind of government, what it was before and what it is becoming... and the reasons for any change.

Plus, the calm and serenity is more of a "looking back with rose-colored glasses" situation. The change itself and the time immediately afterward, it is all extremely disruptive, chaotic, sometimes dangerous.

And more than anything, I probably simply misspoke. I have no idea what I was thinking at that time.

 

[cronos]

Imagine there's still John Lennon...

 

[_Rick_]

we will never unite without coercion.

Fixed to make my point

 

[Minerva]

Yes the world is definitely going to ignite.

 

[polarmystery]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

I'm not sure we'll get to a type 1 society given all the crap we have going on in the planet. Everyone is too greedy/corrupt.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Utopia is such a boring place.

 

[irishScott]

Once we get off this rock and colonize extrasolar planets (which is going to happen eventually IMO. Saying "it's impossible" from our perspective is like a 17th century scientist saying the Internet is impossible), it'll likely be a necessity.

I'm sure nations will retain some autonomy and traditional borders, but there would be a need for a legitimate global authority of some kind.

 

[Train]

Once we get off this rock and colonize extrasolar planets (which is going to happen eventually IMO. Saying "it's impossible" from our perspective is like a 17th century scientist saying the Internet is impossible), it'll likely be a necessity.

I'm sure nations will retain some autonomy and traditional borders, but there would be a need for a legitimate global authority of some kind.

If we Terraform Mars and Venus, I can see 3 distinct cultures forming. Similar to how animals evolved separately once separated by continents.

There simply won't be enough travel between the planets to allow for intermingling. Evolution itself could take different paths on each planet.

Then there will inevitably be conflict between the planets. Cultural differences, trade imbalances, etc.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Once we get off this rock and colonize extrasolar planets (which is going to happen eventually IMO. Saying "it's impossible" from our perspective is like a 17th century scientist saying the Internet is impossible), it'll likely be a necessity.

I'm sure nations will retain some autonomy and traditional borders, but there would be a need for a legitimate global authority of some kind.

We will violate physics, lol.

The political ideas are almost as lol.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

If we Terraform Mars and Venus, I can see 3 distinct cultures forming. Similar to how animals evolved separately once separated by continents.

There simply won't be enough travel between the planets to allow for intermingling. Evolution itself could take different paths on each planet.

Then there will inevitably be conflict between the planets. Cultural differences, trade imbalances, etc.

He said extra-solar, which is just stupid.

 

[irishScott]

We will violate physics, lol.

The political ideas are almost as lol.

No, we will discover physics and implementations of said physics that will allow it. Hell we already have concepts on the books that theoretically world, they just require quantities of power we can't generate yet.

It'll probably take centuries. Tell me, since you're so sure, what will the state of physics be in 600 years? Will we have discovered any new branches of physics we don't have the slightest inkling about today?

It's enticing to think we know everything and that things will only develop along the paths we can foresee. Makes us feel powerful, and people like you can "lol" about it on the internet. Fact is we don't know all that much, we're finding out and creating exponentially more every year. We've answered questions that people as little as 70 years ago didn't even know to ask.

In 600 years scientists and engineers of the time will look back on a lot of what we thought and laugh, just as we do to previous generations today. Yes, your knowledge of physics will likely be laughed at too. Sorry if that puts your panties in a twist.