Is it time to end the League of Nations?

[DoomYoshi]

https://www.france24.com/en/20191008-un ... h-guterres
Step one: end nation states
Step four: profit

[mrswdk]

Other than its peacekeeping and disaster relief operations, does the UN actually do anything of any consequence?

[DoomYoshi]

Other than its peacekeeping and disaster relief operations, does the UN actually do anything of any consequence?

Yes, it convinces people that nations are legitimate institutions.

[nietzsche]

Yeah, im tired of the cynism. "You can't invade other countries, the lines qre drawn and they'll stay.. .... well, maybe we'll throw our arms in the air this time but won't do qnything.. becquse i mean, you tried hard enough.. but jo more.. "

f*ck it, let's have some wars now. Invade away.

Might look like i'm joking, and might look that i'm knowledgeable about it.. but no, both.

[tzor]

The United Nations will be replaced by the World Assembly ... oh wait ... wrong game forum ... never mind ... it's an inside joke.

show

[HitRed]

I got the joke DoomYoshi!

[DoomYoshi]

Other than its peacekeeping and disaster relief operations, does the UN actually do anything of any consequence?

Also, saxi used to have a sleeping bag set-up in their square in NYC.

[jimboston]

Other than its peacekeeping and disaster relief operations, does the UN actually do anything of any consequence?

Yes, it convinces people that nations are legitimate institutions.

Interesting point.

I would like to hear why you think they are not.

In an ideal world, I would like to see a planetary government myself.
That said, we don’t live in an ideal world.

Given that FACT, how would you determine the right form of government that would replace nation-states?

You cannot reasonably expect people to give up power, protections, advantages they possess without a fight.

Given the level of education disparity between first and third world citizens, do you think educated people will give equal voting rights to non educated people without a fight? Would you want non educated people to have an equal voice per capita?

[mrswdk]

Don’t forget to take the vote away from poor people and women as well.

[jimboston]

Don’t forget to take the vote away from poor people and women as well.

Why do you bring up women or wealth when. I talk about education?
Are you saying that women can’t be educated?
Are you saying the poor can’t be educated?
I didn’t say either of those things, so I’m. unclear why you’d make that association.

Also, did anyone mention taking votes away?
No I didn’t think so.

What I talked about was my unease (and the unease of every intelligent person living in a First World Country) at the idea that I would voluntarily water down my political power and basically abdicate my current power... and hand it over to a large mass of people who are uneducated... including a large portion of whom are biased against the people and place whereI live.

Show me a path.... baby steps to World Gov’t, which include solving some major global issues like climate change, over population, religious fanaticism, health, and education. You cannot immediately hand equal voting power to people around the world... and expect people to be able contribute equally when they have no experience or education upon which to make reasonable decisions.

Until someone shows a nice clean path to World Gov’t I will stick with Nation States. Thanks!

[mrswdk]

Who counts as 'educated', and why do you think 'uneducated' people don't deserve even a nominal say in how their society is run (because universal suffrage as practised in countries like the US and UK is still a very nominal say)?

[tzor]

I would like to hear why you think they are not.

I'll give it a shot. In general, the United Nations leans more towards globalists than towards nationalists. It maintains a bureaucracy of international agencies with broad international powers. The only real "nationalist" elements come from the permanent members in the Security Council with veto powers and even then they just tend to prevent progress.

In an ideal world, I would like to see a planetary government myself.

I'll lean with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity myself ... the lowest level of government as opposed to the highest level.

Given that FACT, how would you determine the right form of government that would replace nation-states?

First of all, no person should ever have to give up "rights" and technically they can't because they are "inalienable." Assuming that you had a proper hierarchical structure under subsidiarity where each function of government is carried out at the lowest level necessary to effectively perform that function then each level above becomes a constrained set of limited functions and the top most level would have the least amount of power whatsoever (only that power would be global in scope). Representational government would be more than able to support such a structure provided the limitations on the upper levels were strictly enforced.

In this model, nation-states effectively wind up in the middle of the governmental food chain. This is, actually, a natural evolution of nation-states. The first trans-nation-state (although it later became a consolidated nation-state in its own right) was the "United States" of America, originally consisting of 13 independent "nation-states" (although it's hard to be a nation when someone else calls you a colony). The European Union is another example.

[DoomYoshi]

I think tzor mostly understands what I mean.

My general point is that for thousands of years there were no nation-states with GPS-tracked borders; yet humanity still flourished. Imperialism, localism, either way it's better than arbitrary borders being treated as sacrosanct pillars.

What makes Turkey more legitimate than Kurdistan?

[jimboston]

Who counts as 'educated', and why do you think 'uneducated' people don't deserve even a nominal say in how their society is run (because universal suffrage as practised in countries like the US and UK is still a very nominal say)?

We can debate what counts as educated, and come to an understanding before moving forward with DoomYoshi’s new Global World Order.

I didn’t say they don’t deserve a nominal say... I said they don’t deserve an equivalent say.

Local people. educated or not, generally make the best decisions bout local issues.

That said, it is unreasonable, and bad policy, to put decisions in the hands of people who are not educated / informed about the issues they will be deciding.

A person on a farm or in a fishing village in a 3rd world country might be very intelligent... and likely knows way more about farming or fishing than I do.
They don’t however have any ability to understand how complex global economies work, and they probably can’t separate fact from fiction when it comes to issues where science and technology are involved. Can you explain to someone like that why he has to change some practice because the combined effect of him and millions of other farmers/fishers doing the same thing impacts the environment on some other continent?

It’s a tough sell, and even educated people resist change...

Of course, if the global requirement impacts this farmer/fisher... then we’d need to find a way to compensate for that change too.

I’d be happy greeting to a system where you had to pass some IQ/SAT/Knowledge test before you could vote.
Unfortunately in the past tests were used as a means to oppress certain races and so now they are considered racist by default, but I don’t believe that’s true.

I’m not sure I agree that UK/US Universal Suffrage is nominal. Do you mean that voters don;t have much ability to affect change because the corruption of the 2 party system...or something along those lines? I might agree that’s an issue... but it’s a separate issue from the “Are Nation States valid or not”question.

[jimboston]

Tzor / Yoshi

I don’t disagree with everything you say... but I think that you are simplifying the problem and maybe assuming things were better during the thousands of years when there were no ‘nation states’.

First... it’s really unrealistic to think we can ‘go back’ to simpler times when we ‘flourished’ for thousands of years.
The fact of the matter is that technology has changed the game.

It started with basic technologies like writing, road building... and then over time complexity was added to our lives and technology grew.

Now with the number of people residing on the face of the planet, and the pending environment crisis (plural?).. we can not go back to place where most of the power is held at the lowest level. We could find a ton of reasons why... but let’s just look at the rainforest. Brazil is burning it down... that’s local control for you. Obviously if there was a World Gov’t that would be like Job 1... protect and preserve the Amazon! So who decides?

Granted, we do need to find ways to transfer power back down when we can... unfortunately the nature of organizations are such that they by default try to acquire and then retain power. Look at the US government... a Federal Department of Education? Why? Well... because the Feds hold the pocketbook and therefore the power... and you can argue that in some ways it’s maybe necessary.


... and BTW, I don’t think Turkey is by nature more legitimate than a Kurdistan. Unfortunately Turkey has more military power.... and that has always been the underlying basis for who controls what. We’ve moderated that impulse... but it obviously still exists.