Let's destroy the borders - All of them

[Midnight-Blue766]

People shouldn't hate, multicultralism is hate.

Is that why Canada is a violent neo-Yugoslavia?

 

[JerichoHill]

If the EU can't form a currency union that works among disparate members with different needs, how would total integration work?

 

[Tahuti]

If the EU can't form a currency union that works among disparate members with different needs, how would total integration work?

Actually, near total integration of the monetary system was done before in the form of the gold standard. You could view that as a failure, though it certainly wasn't the integration part that made it a failure.

 

[innonimatu]

I am personally disgusted by much of the conflict we see in the world, and one thing which gets to me is the way people, organisations, and yes, even governments play up the nationalist card, highlighting the differences. Borders are a social construct, and the enforcement of their existence is an exercise I find distasteful.

Borders are a political construct.

Unless you mean social "borders" between different groups of people, but those are really very diverse. In any case, social borders between groups are a requirement for having social groups at all. No borders = no society. Social relations are preempt much based on reputation and reciprocity: not necessarily 1:1, but there must be some relation of trust and belief in mutual benefit between people for groups to form, for society - what the hell, for Civilization - to blossom. And those relations must have borders, because there are only so many people we can reasonably know personally, the other we must generalize about. If we didn't set borders trust and social relations would collapse.
A society without borders would be a society of psychopaths. You are a starry-eyed idealist.

Now, about those political borders and governments.. Well, it is true that even the modern notion of political border is recent: they came with the modern state. But they didn't came about accidentally: modern states require such a level of control over their citizens, their resources, that they need those borders in order to exist. Look at what is happening: finance and large corporations tried to pretend there were no borders, but when the shtf they all came crying to their home governments... some of which now find themselves rather powerless to act because they shed too much of their control over those borders. Which they will eventually have to reclaim.

Getting a single world government in place as a fix for the abuses of multiple small governments... it's taking a big evil in exchange for many small ones. Bad deal. Terrible deal. You don't want to go there.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

Is that why Canada is a violent neo-Yugoslavia?

1) The groups are generally far apart. Quebec is mainly french, onatrio is mainly english. They have their own federal system.

2) Canadian politics is all about provinces fighting eachother and there have been strong independence movements. Northern Ireland is still a part of the UK, but it is hardly a victory for multiculturalism.

 

[Dachs]

This thread reminds me of a fantastic video game.

 

[Yeekim]

I prefer wars to civil wars, kthxbye.

 

[Tahuti]

We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves with talk about world government. A more realistic proposal would be to begin uniting the developed world under a customs union and common exchange rate mechanism guided by the OECD.

 

[Artifis]

A common argument against socialist positions, but one that never contains any substance behind it. What makes you think it would be against human nature?

Baloney. What if the society has been set up by an educated populace explicitly trying to keep the society a libertarian one? Leaders come to power when the populace is ignorant, have been exposed to enormous amounts of propaganda, or have no real choice in the matter(or are unprepared to revolt).

Okays, so I doubt it would be against human nature because I simply don't trust humanity enough. I think that we all have inside us the greedy bastards who will, if the chance arises, take all we want and to heck with the rest. I mean, is there really a polity today that is truly socialist in nature? I know it seems I'm going against my thread here, but really, what I'm posting can be construed as a sort of despair.

I want humanity to progress, but on the other hand I find it very hard to trust humanity to band together.

I'm trying to think of the closest we have to the society you imagine, and the situation of academic circles come up. Yes, there doesn't seem to be a leader in them. Yes, they're all highly educated folk. But change, whenever it does happen, happens at a very slow pace. Paradigms don't change overnight. Should this be the case?

Having local independent communities.

Soviet union failed, Rome failed, the big empires failed, the ottoman Empire failed. Eventually either all groups are destroyed or the state falls apart.

While I have much to say about your previous points, I'm much more interested in this last one.

What exactly do you mean by local independent communities? I would like to know how they would work in today's globalised context. Are you proposing that humanity breaks up into groups which essentially don't mix around with each other? You seem to be celebrating diversity for its own sake, but why must diversity take precedence over peace? It's not like I'm asking for the total destruction of differences, but if these differences are something we'd kill over, are they really all that good?

Interesting that you raise the case of the Ottoman Empire, because it was known as one of the most pluralist societies in its heyday.

Thanks, I wasn't sure what the OP meant by border.

Well, my $0.02 is that differences between people are a good thing. As John Locke pointed out, knowledge varies from one person to another - therefore, it's necessary to recognise that differences are inevitable and to tolerate those differences.

The OP's idea would not only fail to solve the problem but would actively make it worse. We have evolved these differences to serve more needs than just conflict.

I have never denied that differences are a good thing, but shouldn't everything be in moderation? Again, if these are differences we'd kill over, what is the problem? Us? Or the differences?

 

[Tahuti]

What exactly do you mean by local independent communities?

Maybe City-states or states with a similar size in terms of land in square miles.

 

[Artifis]

Borders are a political construct.

Unless you mean social "borders" between different groups of people, but those are really very diverse. In any case, social borders between groups are a requirement for having social groups at all. No borders = no society. Social relations are preempt much based on reputation and reciprocity: not necessarily 1:1, but there must be some relation of trust and belief in mutual benefit between people for groups to form, for society - what the hell, for Civilization - to blossom. And those relations must have borders, because there are only so many people we can reasonably know personally, the other we must generalize about. If we didn't set borders trust and social relations would collapse.

A society without borders would be a society of psychopaths. You are a starry-eyed idealist.

Now, about those political borders and governments.. Well, it is true that even the modern notion of political border is recent: they came with the modern state. But they didn't came about accidentally: modern states require such a level of control over their citizens, their resources, that they need those borders in order to exist. Look at what is happening: finance and large corporations tried to pretend there were no borders, but when the shtf they all came crying to their home governments... some of which now find themselves rather powerless to act because they shed too much of their control over those borders. Which they will eventually have to reclaim.

Getting a single world government in place as a fix for the abuses of multiple small governments... it's taking a big evil in exchange for many small ones. Bad deal. Terrible deal. You don't want to go there.

Well you've basically summed up my criticism of my own idealism, in that humanity is inherently incapable of the peace I sometimes dream about.

But this:

A society without borders would be a society of psychopaths.

Really? You're using this as a justification for not aiming for a world government. That somehow this society of psychopaths is the big evil. I do wonder how you came to that conclusion.

You've criticised my idealism on the grounds that it isn't pragmatic. But why should the attempt to implement it necessarily lead to a psychopathic society? There's a link missing in here.

This thread reminds me of a fantastic video game.

Spoiler :

So now I'm a member of a terrorist organisation eh?

We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves with talk about world government. A more realistic proposal would be to begin uniting the developed world under a customs union and common exchange rate mechanism guided by the OECD.

I doubt anybody would buy that, especially not while the EU is burning down right now...

Maybe City-states or states with a similar size in terms of land in square miles.

But that's not gonna work today, and I'm sure he knows that.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well it does seem that it is counter-intuitive. It does not have to do with race, mind you, i think we could live very well together if we were 10 million and consisted of all current races. But 7 billion cannot really feel any part of a group, it just does not seem right, to me, and i suspect to others as well.

Remember Ancient Greece, it was the relatively small size of the city states that enabled them to have a special sense of belonging to an atomic (not divisible) group, and flourish in it. Now take massive states such as the mongol empire; as soon as their thirst for keeping expanding was ended, they collapsed or became very backward entities, which is true for the ottoman empire as well.

 

[Tee Kay]

I feel like I "belonged" to a global community than I feel like I've belonged to any one nation.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

Maybe City-states or states with a similar size in terms of land in square miles.

I like the idea of city states. The system should vary depending on where on the planet it is. Not all cultures and places are the same. Personally I like the ancient system we had in Scandinavia. People where grouped into communities where all citizens to gather every year for an equivalent of a county fair. Important issues where solved their and leaders appointed. Trails where held in public in front of the citizens.

My system for keeping an economy local is to have a kilometer tax. Get rid of the sales tax and put a 0,05% tax on every kilometer a product is transported. When economies are local, the consumers are the workers and the bosses live in the same town and the workers and bosses children go to the same schools people won't cheat, people will take more responsibility. This means less regulation.

 

[warpus]

Why? Why should governments want to maintain their own right to rule their countries?

Because Koreans have different needs, wants, and considerations than the Dutch. Thus they have two different governments.

It's the same reason why the city you live in has different management than the city 2 hours away, or wherever. People like being ruled by people who understand local needs.

 

[galdre]

Humans are pack animals - we define ourselves of members of a group in opposition to another group. Because of this I don't ever see us joining together as one large human community (unless of course the aliens invade... )

 

[de Maistre]

If everyone were to be long to the "us" category and no one to the "them" category then both would cease to exist (they only exist in relation to each other) and all that would remain is "me", egoistic man.

 

[Tahuti]

I doubt anybody would buy that, especially not while the EU is burning down right now...

The EU is burning down because of debt combined with a common currency. I did not call for a common currency among the OECD countries, but for a fixed exchange rate regime among the OECD countries. That is a considerable difference, since you can easily leave a fixed exchange rate, but you can't easily leave a currency.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

If everyone were to be long to the "us" category and no one to the "them" category then both would cease to exist (they only exist in relation to each other) and all that would remain is "me", egoistic man.

Why can't there just be "us" and "it"?

 

[Communisto]

1) The groups are generally far apart. Quebec is mainly french, onatrio is mainly english. They have their own federal system.

The Franco-English dichotomy does not = multiculturalism in Canada. The city I live in (the largest in Canada) is majority non-white and guess what, it works fine.

2) Canadian politics is all about provinces fighting eachother and there have been strong independence movements.

Ah, yes, the fierce racial powder keg that is British Columbia.