A democratic earth would stand a decent chance of marginalizing your social-political-religious group. There's a while lot of demographics on Earth.
Think about a random sampling of all humans. Most are in Asia, esp India and China, and most are traditionally religious.
Would women's rights be a priority? Fair employment? Gay rights?
I do think that an integrated and conscientious Earth is important, especially with reasonable immigration and emigration rights, but I'm not sure I want to vote in a Earth President election.
Gays are a minority in every democracy, and this does not make them marginalized in all those countries.
To the contrary: democracy makes it more likely that they are tolerated and included.
So your argument is not at all compelling.
Also, to help you see it: take European Union as an example.
It is only a loosely integrated democracy, but still, we elect EU MPs etc.
EU does not prevent at all to have traditions and to "respect" the existence of geographically distinct "samples" of humans (its member countries, or its member intrastate regions, etc).
Any minority group that is not acknowledged by the majority as being worthy of basic rights will struggle and probably be marginalized.
Western nations do well with certain minority groups (they have many allies). Other cultures do not. The question is whether the majority of people would fall into a western like mindset or not. I think not.
> To the contrary: democracy makes it more likely that they are tolerated and included.
There is a correlation here, but it isn’t causal. Democracy has been around in countries that support gay rights for much longer than they supported gay rights.
What’s made the difference has been cultural shifts wherein the majority supports gay rights rather than opposing them.
I'm not sure how being a democracy makes it any better, since it might very well be a tyranny of the majority. Democracy hardly guarantees the freedom to leave.
The problem is that without a democratic system, you have no right to be listened to when you ask to be left alone, unless you're part of the dictatorial governing body.
An authoritarian government does what it likes, not what you like.
i’m not sure that’s any better? do i want to grant literally half the world — the majority of whom i will never otherwise interact with — power to determine my legal rights? it’s bad enough when people 1000 mi away demand things of me which i find morally indefensible and then use the power of democratic law to force that on me. amplify that by 10, and suddenly it’s better?
although Balaji tends to play PR to libertarians, i do think there’s a real diffuse desire for increased freedom of association and less large-group adherence. those desires contributed to the creation of US democracy: a desire for the colonies to associate freely with each other, other states, and with GB in a different form than before; and freedom of religion (group adherence) is enshrined.
democracy is a step up from previous forms of governance in that the people enforcing their views on me are necessarily more likely to have common views (lesser separation of ruling class from the majority class: “by the people for the people”). but this aspect degrades as you widen the democracy, either demographically or geographically (by proxy). i accept democracy as the best tool we’ve got today, but i hardly view it as an ideal end-state.
i would prefer to work towards a state where i don’t have to sacrifice my values to conform with the will of people i don’t care for. that’s necessarily a movement away from one global democracy. we’ve effectively achieved that in the digital landscape via the internet, which is fundamentally anarchic but works because people want to cooperate and associate freely and have voluntarily developed tools to do so. Balaji dreams that there’s some way to take this same achievement and apply it to on-the-ground governance. i appreciate that dream. blockchain is an ironic tool to use for that given its requirement for consensus which it achieves via democratic or shareholder governance (e.g. proof of stake). on the other hand, it makes it more difficult in certain ways for the ruling class to break its own rules, and can lessen the need for (and power of) representatives and push us towards a flatter democracy (where the ruling class more mirrors my own class). it’s just another (hopeful) step along that path toward gradually increased freedom of association. i would like to at least be given the choice as to whether i want to participate in my present representative democracy or in a different, experimental state. i would very much dislike for that ability to be strongly denied me by some global government (democratic or otherwise).
When you tell US people that they can just live in their state and not worry about the morals, crime rates, rents, and laws in other states, they look at you like you're crazy.
Everyone loves a good unilateral decree, as long as it reaffirms your beliefs.
"More integrated earth" sounds like there are no options, no alternatives, superficial diversity, no escape if you don't fit. I will resist that to the end.
I am not talking about imperialism, but about an Earth-scale democracy.
I am as opposed as you to imperialism lol, if it was not clear enough from my posts.
By the way, I think that what can be put in the category of "traditions" is not touched by laws, so my proposal does not hurt cultural differences.
However it does ask to some traditions to go, because they are just objectively harmful.
Just to hit the nail a bit further: you see cultural variety INSIDE existing democratic states, for example regional customs and traditions, etc. So there is absolutely no hint of imperialism in building a world-wide democracy.
That would be a good goal, but how can you make it witout imperialism? Not through nation states or representative democracies but through voluntary networks that can compose.
Maybe a way to do it would be through world-wide petitions?
Or more realistically through some world-wide voting system, as participating to such a petition overtly could lead to political persecutions.
Then the problem is the verification that people are not voting several times. And then the problem of allowing people to vote (in some states like in China that problem will be difficult to solve)...
If you had a world wide petition, you'd have 1 of 2 things: 1) everyone participating in one giant binding petition, in which case you're already imposing worldwide democracy on them without asking them (the act of making them vote on it in the first place is an undemocratic act), or 2) individual nations and groups being given the option to have a vote on the matter, in which case you'll certainly be left with nation states that say "no".
People don't want what you're proposing. Is it not then undemocratic to impose it on them in the first place?
So under this proposed "traditions" umbrella, what can fit? Can a group perform FGM? The Maori committed a genocide on the Moriori and justified it with tradition, would that be allowed? Or is the "tradition" reservation something superficial and of no substance, with this global democracy reserving the right to determine what tradition is and therefore touch them with laws?
yes, that's the ultimate fate of our civilization - becoming a gray biological mass of consumers without identity, culture, or allegiance to anything other than global corporations
I'd prefer us to go extinct, and it is thankfully certain that we will
You misunderstood me. I mean partitioning or integration of LAWS.
This is exactly what "creating a state" means: having one's own law, which I think is bad.
Good laws are most effective when they are enforced without borders.
Of course I did not mean to uniformize people!!
As for the link with groupism:
partitioned laws are the starting point, you say "people from this state have those rights, people from other states do not have these rights even when they interact with our state".
With this notion of network state, it is even unclear to me how they can discriminate what law apply to who, because there is no more "person X is geographically present on the land Y so Y law applies" principle.
Good laws are most effective when they take into account the needs of those being governed, including their self actualization as a need.
The way that people in Mongolia, Bahrain, Angola and Norway want to live are very very different. "One set of laws" means authoritarian tyranny to most people of earth. Would you like to live in a world governed by one set of laws, which include theft being punishable by the amputation of a hand? Or in your perfect world with one set of laws, do you see yourself as the entity dictating what the laws are? If I am unhappy with your set of laws, is that just tough shit for me? If you found yourself in such a system and didn't like the laws, would you want a way out?
Some people prefer certain laws, and other people prefer different ones. And there can be a case whether neither set of laws is automatically "better".
For example, private property rights in an interesting topic. Personally, I prefer strong private property rights, but I have no reason to deny another country from choosing something completely different.
If people in another country, instead prefer socialism, or more collective ownership of property, that is fine by me if they do that, as long as they let other people who disagree, choose something else in other countries.
> Like nationalism, bigotry and racism weren't enough.
Please no.
I would like to exit the bureaucracy of mother hens pecking me to death as they enforce ever-narrowing boundaries of permissible thought -- that is, when they are not decking my neighborhood and workplace with messages demanding my homage to the current thing. You, apparently, would like to make that the universal condition.
Some people read "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever" as a compelling vision, and not a warning.
Yes to "consider the well-being of one's own nation before the well-being of all of the other things on Earth" is bad in my opinion.
It is bad because you could end up exterminating everyone (or polluting everything) for the sake of a few lucky ones. Happened a couple of times already.
Anyway it's bound to fail, as on this planet we share the same atmosphere, oceans, and almost all living species have no borders (including viruses).
PS: you should tone down your prejudice that I didn't think a lot about what I'm writing, it's... wrong and hurtful.
The whole point of exit is that there are too many people, such as yourself apparently, who consider their underdeveloped and underinformed notions of society to be universally applicable -- under force of law if necessary.
Put bluntly, I don't want a world where you can tell others whom they should value more than others. That strikes me as an incredibly arrogant proposition and I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings.
What you call "force of law" is just rules decided by everybody for the good of all, in a democracy. You use this expression to make it look like oppression, but it is the complete contrary, it is mutual help by choosing beneficial rules.
Helping to build democracies, you help everybody! Except the few dictators, but why would you care for their feelings more than the feelings of the whole population. Unless they are happy being enslaved, in which case I'd say that it is already a democracy, because things are like they wish they'd be! But this is delusional.
Planet-wide rules are necessary because the world is finite and connected, that's as simple as that.
You impoverish the neighbor countries for the sake or the nation's wealth, and next thing you know there is war at your border. Or your supplier is from a country in crisis and suddenly you can't work anymore. Or your exported all of your CO2 emissions so that you don't produce it directly, but now all your country's forests are on fire because of the warming from emissions you made happen on other places on Earth...
But this idea of world democracy is not at all incompatible with locally applied specific rules too. It even already exists in modern democracies: for specific issues you decide local solutions, with the benefit of the larger scale government being that it is guaranteed to not jeopardize the greater good of the whole (in the case at hand, the planet! it is always a good thing not to jeopardize the planet!).
Without the existence of such planet-scale government, you end up with local agents (countries) who take decisions seemingly in their benefit but actually with consequences putting the planet and everybody in danger (harmful instantly for some people outside their country, and harmful for themselves too on a time scale greater than their next election -- this problem is solved by considering the impact of all decisions on all points of the planet, thus my idea).
TLDR: democracy is rule by the people, unless the people choose poorly or refuse to accept what is Obviously Good and Right.
Your ideas are bad and naive, and because you seem to be disavowing my natural right to refuse to participate in this poorly thought out ideological regime which you would have rule the world, you are also proposing tyranny.
I don't accept that your idea of what "bad" is, is anything other than "stuff I personally don't like," only you have not examined your beliefs enough to realize that. In my view, you are unreasonably optimistic about the prospects for success for any of what you described, and I assume it's because you are unaware of, or view unrealistically, the history of these and related ideas.
If you don't like democracy, why would you get upset that the government of a country/region is not listening to your opinion?
By dichotomy:
- either the government listens to your preferences, so it is not a tyranny, but as you are not alone to be listened to, a democratic system becomes required (unless you want to be the dictator?)
- either your preference is to not live in a democracy, and in this case the gvt does not listen to you, because you have no such right .
There is absolutely no evidence that this is an intrinsic characteristic of a democracy. This is the fundamental problem with your naive proposal. There's no such thing as "for the good of all."
I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more partitioning.