Lindy, he was the one giving the false alternative and you are putting up a class straw man argument. One false alternative and a straw man leads to a wonky conclusion.
And who is "we" anyway? <We don't even want it to be a world government > In fact, we do. Which immediately raises the question of who has the better data on "we". Not to mention just who your we represents. And, of course, just what "world government" means.
Most people imagine Big Brother with Saddam Hussein, Stalin and Hitler running a central planning and social control system rather than a Libertarian constitution. I wonder if you can imagine a Libertarian World Government constitution.
National territorial dominance hierarchy kleptocratic alpha male mob rule political systems are even more last century than the UN, devolving from the Malthusian machinations of 19th century and earlier empire-building kingdoms. At least the UN was a reasonable attempt at a suprantional approach to borders and commons property [air, oceans, rivers, spectrum, space] and border traffic. And, there were various successes, such as King George I's effort in Iraq and Kuwait, King George II's effort in Afghanistan [with a bit of help from his friends]. Plus WARC and other commons activities.
Even the NUN has the end looming over the horizon as We the Sheeple adopt cyberspace as our "national interest". Increasing, human value is transacted in the information realm rather than the sweat of slaves and other labourers in agriculture. Count the farm workers in 1906 and 2006 as a proportion of population.
We are cyberspace denizens now. I earn all my money from cyberspace [give or take a bit]. It seems odd to me that I pay Helengrad to run a Stalinist empire in Wellington. There is almost nothing they do that I want done and certainly nothing at their price. I think policing could even be done better on a privatized basis - they are largely harassing regular citizens for revenue gathering on roads or general bureaucratic matters and victimless "crimes" such as not bothering with a crash helmet on a bicycle to go to the dairy for a newspaper on a sunny day, rather than keeping criminals in a cage.
Just dropping by briefly. I'm playing tourist in California enroute to Britain/France for the northern summer.
I'm out on the street, with notebook on roof of rental car, scavenging for wifi signal. Nice sunny day, sun to my right, coffee to my left. Cyberspace needs improvement. We need troops, investment, defences. Olde-style Maoist governments will suffocate us and rob us if they can get away with it. The NUN will do it too if the bastards can get away with it.
On the UN, the best example of its absurdity was Nazi Waldheim being Secretary General. I doubt a public scrutiny and vote would have put him there.
Mqurice
PS: You and world government is like most people and cellphones then cyberphones. They think they don't need it, but when they finally get it they become obsessive and I have to tell them they don't need it to rule their lives. I think you do want world government, you just don't know it yet. Civilized people all want world government, kleptocrats want it writ large and to be a suffocatocracy with them in charge.
Most people think they don't want or need something until they become acclimatized to it being available, seeing it or trying it then becoming dependent. The Amish like to pretend that they like it as in the "good olde days", but they don't walk. They have horse and gig. |
