This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and it’s a huge problem, but I don’t really see a lot of discussion about it. We have the technological means now for every single person on the planet to communicate directly with every single other person, in near-real time. The only real barrier to it is logistical (and is mostly impeded by resource hoarding). That’s amazing. And the recent election in Nepal via Discord has me thinking again about how the internet could form the basis for a real, democratic, world government. There are a ton of problems that would need to be addressed, off the top of my head:
- not everyone has internet access
- not everyone that has access has unfettered access
- It’s hard to preserve anonymity and have fair elections
- it’s hard to verify elections haven’t been tampered with
- what happens when violent crimes are committed?
- how do taxes work in this system?
- how do armed forces work in this system?
I don’t think any of these problems are necessarily unsolvable, but I don’t know how. So, how would we get from where we are to where we want to be? How do we even define what the end state should look like?
So we should just let people from harmful cultures abuse children or women?
Because it worked out so fantastically well when the US invaded Afghanistan, right?
So we shouldn’t even try?
To play world police? Hell no.
Afghanistan was a peaceful country until Soviet influence led to a communist coup that overthrew the government in 1978. Ever since then Afghanistan has had near-endless conflict as different factions (internal and external) have wrestled for control. The Taliban itself, first known as the Mujahideen, was armed and supported by Ronald Reagan’s government.
It’s a textbook example of outsiders ruining a country’s natural course of history and development. You can find the same story in Iran, much of Central and South America, and Africa. Foreign influence creates more conflict and suffering than it prevents.