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The need for world government

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Re: The need for world government

#91

Post by freedom2099 »

zthrowaway wrote: post #84
freedom2099 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was bulshit not because it was a different opinion but because it was a very poor argument! An embryo is incapable of surviving outside of the womb! A fetus might if it’s old enough! Nobody anywhere perform abortions at a stage where the fetus could survive without the mother in an nicu!

An embryo I agree cannot survive out of the womb, but what an embryo is, is a stage of human life. It’s still a human. Let’s not start trying to decide who is human enough to live. In Colorado you can get an abortion up to 9 months. There’s legislation trying to pass abortion allowance up to the moment of birth, and some have been recently successful in passing. Many states in the US allow abortions in 2nd trimester…

> Let’s not start trying to decide who is human enough to live.

But you are already doing that stating that abortion should be illegal altogether! You just set the threshold very early on!

Re: The need for world government

#92

Post by thatjoeoverthr »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #74
inglor_cz wrote: post #15

"It seems obvious to me that planetary problems demand planetary government." That does not seem obvious to me at all. And I can't imagine a common set of governing principles acceptable to Iceland, China, Russia and the Taliban. For example, looking at what is currently rocking the U.S., what would be the global policy on abortion?

what would be the global policy on abortion? Probably none. I agree with the author that we need world government, but it would be stupid to have the highest level of government stipulate all laws for every nation, state, province, county, town and village beneath it.

One could say that about the Americans but they do it almost compulsively, and completely ignore levels of government where nearly everything actually happens. Many current American problems are locally managed including housing and real estate but so much energy goes to the President, partly because he -pertains to- so many people. Many people are explicit that whatever is on their minds must be done “nationally”. What’s to stop this pattern from repeating at a greater scale?

Re: The need for world government

#93

Post by freedom2099 »

zthrowaway wrote: post #86
freedom2099 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A spermatozoon is a stage of being human… so is an “egg cell” but nobody is forcing people to allow them all to develop into humans! And no… the nazi example has nothing to do with it (and I say it as a person whom all grandparents got sent to concentration camps by nazis)

This argument at its core is trying to justify at what stage of development this is considered human enough to protect. I think it’s a similar line of thinking as eugenics.

It is not… is actually a completely different thing! Check the dictionary!

Re: The need for world government

#94

Post by sofixa »

sparkie wrote: post #64
sofixa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally they aren't humans, and hence have no rights, until birth.

"Human" isn't a legal term, and it pre-dates modern laws entirely. It simply refers to a member of the homo species. And who determines whether or not the unborn have rights? Rights are given by god, not some legislature.

> Rights are given by god

Whose god? Allah? Buddha?

No, rights are natural, books with legends and stories have nothing to do with it, but their legal framework is provided by legislatures.

Re: The need for world government

#95

Post by hotpotamus »

cryptica wrote: post #19

I used to think that global government would be a good idea but I now realize that this was incredibly naive. Now that I understand human nature better and how the worst aspects of human nature tend to concentrate around the centers of power, I cannot think of anything more dangerous than a world government. I actually advocate for the opposite; break up existing governments and make them smaller; no government shoul…

Exactly, this is why I started my own government, the Republic of Ingleside, where I'm the sovereign. We enforce a strict adherence to the state religion, Ingleside Abbeyism, which is actually how the whole thing started - existing religions provided me with inadequate tax write-offs, and the whole thing sort of snowballed from there, but the end result has proven to be quite satisfying now that I'm responsible for creating the laws that I must abide by; the more local government, the better.

Re: The need for world government

#96

Post by bryanlarsen »

inglor_cz wrote: post #15

"It seems obvious to me that planetary problems demand planetary government." That does not seem obvious to me at all. And I can't imagine a common set of governing principles acceptable to Iceland, China, Russia and the Taliban. For example, looking at what is currently rocking the U.S., what would be the global policy on abortion?

Abortion isn't a global problem, it's a local problem. The citizens of Africa aren't victimized because Texas bans abortion.

The citizens of Africa are victimized when Texas subsidizes oil production.

I'm not a fan of a world government, but a mechanism for dealing with the problems of sharing resources and dealing with free riders and the race to the bottom would be appreciated.

Re: The need for world government

#97

Post by voldacar »

ilammy wrote: post #23
enykeev wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it sounds like we need multiple world governments operating over the same area rather than having a bunch of monopolies around the globe.

Which is exactly what we already have. There is what your local government says you should be doing, and there is what your friendly (or not so much) neighborhood superpowers say your government should be doing.

Those are not multiple governments. There is only one sovereign government in a given location at a given time, assuming the conditions are peaceful.

Re: The need for world government

#98

Post by bryanlarsen »

bilvar wrote: post #39
telmo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Nothing is perfect but the EU has been a net positive for its member states. It is approved of by a majority of its citizens across all countries. The EU created one of the most prosperous (for the common person), free and tolerant societies on earth. You can make all the snarky remarks you want, but if you were reincarnating right now as some random human and you learned that you reincarnated as a…

Have you asked anyone not German or French what do they think about living in the EU? I’m sure it’s turned out great for Germany and their lap dog, but let’s ask the Spanish, the Italians and especially the Greek and have this conversation again.

AFAICT, the Germans and the French are more annoyed at bailing out the south than the south is at being bailed out. AFAICT the Greeks trust the EU government a heck of a lot more than they trust their own.

Ask the Poles and Ukrainians about what they think about EU membership. By some metrics Poland is the fastest growing economy in the world.

Re: The need for world government

#99

Post by gmuslera »

The map is not the territory, you should contrast ideas with realities to see how that is playing out in smaller scales, to have a hint on how it could end in the biggest one.

One of the most urgent planetary problems right now is climate change, and the closest we have to world government are US and EU, the first denying and boicotting global measures against it since the 90s, the second taking back their pledges as they is some struggle in their gas and oil inputs.

Unless you have a god, aliens or a perfect AI (the usual saviors/unifiers in fiction, and we might be as far from the third than from the first one) as government, humans will still go for their own good, in their own scale, with big players pursuing their own benefit influencing whatever is in the global government.

Re: The need for world government

#100

Post by thomassmith65 »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #92
thomassmith65 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what would be the global policy on abortion? Probably none. I agree with the author that we need world government, but it would be stupid to have the highest level of government stipulate all laws for every nation, state, province, county, town and village beneath it.

One could say that about the Americans but they do it almost compulsively, and completely ignore levels of government where nearly everything actually happens. Many current American problems are locally managed including housing and real estate but so much energy goes to the President, partly because he -pertains to- so many people. Many people are explicit that whatever is on their minds must be done “nationally”. W…

  What’s to stop this pattern from repeating at a greater scale?
A well-designed constitution would be a start.

Not that there is an air-tight guarantee that a government won't turn bad. But we currently have over a half dozen governments with nuclear weapons. On the whole, I'd rather just worry about one.

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