11–20 of 275 posts
I'd guess it's not stable unless you assume all the other trappings of state (like the monopoly on violence) and then you're just some uppity proto-nation practically begging to get subsumed into a more powerful entity.
Tried web in normal and private mode, can not read.
Maybe "government" as we know it today is a just a "fashionable solution" - to riff on pg's earlier essay.
I don't know if they will ever succeed or not, but it sure is heart-warming to see people still pushing these ideas and trying to get something going. Competition is Good Thing and if we can come up with something better than nation-states, then we should. Personally I encourage these guys to keep experimenting, keep iterating, and keep pushing to break the mold. Maybe "government" as we know it today is a just a "fa…
We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy.
Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest.
A framework in which we can experiment with other forms of societal organization, especially one in which minimizes or eliminates externalities, has the potential to produce massive benefits if it discovers better forms of political organization.
Experimental governments on Earth are limited by the fact that [large state power] can invade you in a matter of hours for arbitrary reasons, no matter where you on are the planet. Fly off into the deep cosmos, though, and your chances of survival dramatically increase.
I don't know if they will ever succeed or not, but it sure is heart-warming to see people still pushing these ideas and trying to get something going. Competition is Good Thing and if we can come up with something better than nation-states, then we should. Personally I encourage these guys to keep experimenting, keep iterating, and keep pushing to break the mold. Maybe "government" as we know it today is a just a "fa…
It really does sound like a bunch of wealthy folks (and I don't mean your-town's-surgeon wealthy, I mean billionaire-class-wealthy) want to further remove themselves from laws that govern everybody else. Imagine this - a group of super wealthy bound by no laws of any nation but benefiting from them all. Terrifying.
Obviously it's sci-fi scenario, but the real solution (assuming that you see it as a problem) to overbearing and entrenched government power will probably be self-sustaining space colonies. Experimental governments on Earth are limited by the fact that [large state power] can invade you in a matter of hours for arbitrary reasons, no matter where you on are the planet. Fly off into the deep cosmos, though, and your ch…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have corporations as big or bigger as countries. The class war has ended. What are we going to do?
I certainly hope it’s not cede all control in one swoop to a couple of rich guys who think they know what’s best for everyone. Im all for experimenting. I’m not for handing over local legal power to a corporation in one fell swoop because they promise to pay for my taxi as long as I’m in their good books. No—the immediacy and totality they’re pursuing is the thing that bothers me. Little compromise seems to be offere…
Are you referring to buying land from a country? That's a form of cession, and it's certainly not unprecedented (see: Louisiana Purchase). In my eyes, it's the moral way to go about acquiring land, with the alternatives being annexation and conquest.
Under what conditions are you okay with territorial control changing hands? Can land only be sold to other existing governments?