> And if anything had to change in this scenario, I would personally rather see the nation states disappear.
I'd agree with you here, but what I'm afraid is that with the absence of modern nation-states, we'd get a fewer number of more centralized political institutions, rather than moving towards the ideal of more numerous decentralized and autonomous polities.
When you say:
> And I think this is a good thing. We all individually exist on a web in which we are all compatible.
I get what you're going for here, but there's a great danger that this could be misinterpreted as a call for universalism, as some sort of idea that everyone's the same and distinctions should all be flattened or ignored. If we treat the world as an open space within which we can coordinate our own ad-hoc communities and polities based on mutual compatibility, where it exists, without being constrained by artificial boundaries, we'll all be better off.
But if we don't have the facility for mapping out and adhering to natural social boundaries that emerge from manifest differences in worldviews, values, intentions, and ambitions, then we'll end up with lots of incompatible ambitions attempting to realize themselves in the same space, and that can only lead to stasis and conflict.
> whose ideals and morality should win out?
Everyone's. If the interconnected world isn't a platform in which everyone can construct their lives on the basis of their own values, and evolve new communities whose boundaries are defined by something more substantive than mere geographical proximity, then it just becomes an impetus to all-or-nothing conflict, which will surely ruin the world for everyone.
> we'd get a fewer number of more centralized political institutions, rather than moving towards the ideal of more numerous decentralized and autonomous polities.
I don't agree with you on that point I'm afraid. There is nothing more corrupt than local politics. Backhanders, bribes, virtually no transparency. I personally prefer to have my politicians in one place where a lot of people can keep an eye on them. Here in the UK, when I see people campaigning for devolution, or independence, I can't help but wonder who is going to keep an eye on these smaller, more secretive and ultimately more powerful political terror cells. I wouldn't look after a hundred kittens by having them scattered all over the place in pods of five. It would be an unmanageable task and they'd run riot.
If you start start with the assumption that every politician will abuse their power, you will a) probably be right and b) have to think differently about how best you can efficiently keep track of thousands of them.
When you describe "a platform in which everyone can construct their lives on the basis of their own values, and evolve new communities whose boundaries are defined by something more substantive than mere geographical proximity" I can't help but think think of African Warlords who have done exactly that, and it's horrific.
There must be free and fair debate, there must be the opportunity for everyone to participate equally in that debate and most importantly everyone should have a say in the administering the decisions that impact on their life. Take for example the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran etc. Their lives literally hang in the balance based on US elections, and yet they have no say in those elections. That is not fair. It is not right. I could argue that people in the middle east have a bigger right to vote in US elections because they are at greater risk form those election results, but i'd settle for them at least having an equal say as everyone else.
Your idea is essentially just a lot of smaller nation states acting in their own blinkered interests, which is the worse than what we already have. People will behave badly. People will give way to hatred. People will cheat and lie and steal and murder. And while I don't endorse a world governed by paranoia about these things, I do endorse a world where we all get an equal say in how we react to these things.
I'm not trying to aggressively shoot your comment down, so please don't imagine me sat at the other side of the internet hammering out an angry rebuttal, I thank you for taking the time to put your view out there, but we do have a clear difference of opinion and we shouldn't shy away from that. I hope I've raised my counter view with respect to you, even if I don't see the logic in your worldview.
> I don't agree with you on that point I'm afraid. There is nothing more corrupt than local politics.
There's nothing more corrupt than politics. The great thing about local politics is that localities are small; excessively corrupt politics in one locality can be avoided by dealing with another locality instead, or by playing multiple polities off against each other. Centralization means less variation: no other centers of authority to turn to when the one you're dealing with goes bad, and no gaps between poles of authority to retreat to when nothing is working right.
> Backhanders, bribes, virtually no transparency.
Except for the level of transparency that clues you in to the fact that corruption is happening in the first place. The difference between local and global is in scale and distance: corruption in larger-scale and more distant institutions is harder to discover, but it's silly to suggest that the complex of motivations and incentives that generate corruption close by aren't likewise present further away.
> I can't help but wonder who is going to keep an eye on these smaller, more secretive and ultimately more powerful political terror cells.
That's the beauty of having multiple centers of power in a society - they all keep each other in check far more effectively than the public at large can keep a single, centralized institution in check.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" is a question applicable to all political systems, but it becomes more difficult to answer, not less so, as political systems become more centralized and authoritative.
> If you start start with the assumption that every politician will abuse their power
Well, if you don't start with the more basic assumption that, given the opportunity, some people will abuse others, then what's the justification for empowering any political state in the first place? If it's actually possible to construct our relationships so as to minimize or eliminate the possibility of abuse, then we don't need politics; if it isn't possible to do that, then politics itself will be susceptible to the same flaws as any other human institution.
The solution to this dilemma is to realize that (a) it is possible to formulate our interactions so as to minimize the likelihood and mitigate the impact of abuse, and that (b) the way to accomplish that is with more opportunities for exit, so we can disassociate from and insulate ourselves against abusers. Centralization of power reduces opportunities for exit, and mere voice isn't a sufficient substitute.
> I can't help but think think of African Warlords who have done exactly that, and it's horrific.
I've no idea what you're referring to. Warlordism is, by definition, a repudiation of the principles I'm articulating here. Warlords aren't typically interested in protecting a varied and dynamic civil society against abuses of concentrated power; they're typically interested in concentrating power for themselves, and subordinating others to themselves.
> everyone should have a say in the administering the decisions that impact on their life.
No; again, mere voice isn't enough. People must have the right to opt out and to reclaim responsibility for making those decisions, limited only by the boundaries between their lives and others'.
> Your idea is essentially just a lot of smaller nation states acting in their own blinkered interests
My "idea" consists of the empirical recognition that every particular grouping of human beings, no matter how ad-hoc or ephemeral, is effectively a society unto itself, and that the members of each group have the natural right to define the nature of their mutual interactions within that context without being subjected to manipulation by others outside of it.
The use of law - not policy - can function as a failsafe mechanism to prevent disputes from spilling out of their native contexts and harming third parties, or escalating into life-or-death conflicts, but that depends on law not being perverted into a system of active preemptive control over society. The century-long experiment in gradually replacing common law and equity with statutory policy and regulatory bureaucracy has been a clear failure, and one that demonstrably undermined the ability of law to function for its intended purpose.
> world where we all get an equal say in how we react to these things.
You envision a world of continuous, irresolvable conflict, then, as people with drastically different values attempt to realize them by having an "equal say" in a singular undifferentiated conceptual "space".
The real way to enable stability and prosperity in a highly diverse and complex world is precisely to protect people's ability to differentiate their own conceptual "space", as distinct from others, and to allow them maximum control over their own lives within that space, and minimum control over others'.
> but we do have a clear difference of opinion and we shouldn't shy away from that.
Well, that's the crux of it, isn't it? The existence of this very disagreement demonstrates that universal solutions to problems aren't attainable, and attempting them causes the exact sort of escalation of conflict that we've thankfully avoided thus far precisely because - this being a merely academic discussion on the internet - neither of us is in a position to impose our own preferences on the other.
I've not ignored your comment, I've actually been thinking about it quite a lot for the past few days. Can you give me a concrete example of the kind of thing you're thinking about?
I'd agree with you here, but what I'm afraid is that with the absence of modern nation-states, we'd get a fewer number of more centralized political institutions, rather than moving towards the ideal of more numerous decentralized and autonomous polities.
When you say:
> And I think this is a good thing. We all individually exist on a web in which we are all compatible.
I get what you're going for here, but there's a great danger that this could be misinterpreted as a call for universalism, as some sort of idea that everyone's the same and distinctions should all be flattened or ignored. If we treat the world as an open space within which we can coordinate our own ad-hoc communities and polities based on mutual compatibility, where it exists, without being constrained by artificial boundaries, we'll all be better off.
But if we don't have the facility for mapping out and adhering to natural social boundaries that emerge from manifest differences in worldviews, values, intentions, and ambitions, then we'll end up with lots of incompatible ambitions attempting to realize themselves in the same space, and that can only lead to stasis and conflict.
> whose ideals and morality should win out?
Everyone's. If the interconnected world isn't a platform in which everyone can construct their lives on the basis of their own values, and evolve new communities whose boundaries are defined by something more substantive than mere geographical proximity, then it just becomes an impetus to all-or-nothing conflict, which will surely ruin the world for everyone.