Your Views on a world Government

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Re: Monopoly. Re: Corruption. Re: Bad.

[Aiken]

As many of you, I'm an opponent of world government idea.
But on a second thought I came to idea that our judgements are way too banal: global state = very big USA/China/EU/whatever -> despotic methods = bad.
I thought about different things, though.

For example, my science work is dedicated to "automatization" of urban economics. Together with vast of other projects it might lead to humanless expert system of local administration guided via declaration of will of citizens (electronically). Such autonomous cells could be united into state-scale grid, and then (theoretically) into world-wide grid. So finally we will have global "government" which rule world economy in a most effective and rational way. All this is possible from scientifical point of view.
You'll ask, "What about politicians and such?" Well, they'll be obsolete. Several millions of controllers over the world will be enough to check and maintain such system.
Want success stories? Internet grew up the very similar way - local nodes united to local networks and then LANs formed global network.
You'll say, "I won't trust computers to manage my life!". Well we do it already. We trust computers to make cars, electronics, and other computers. We trust them to pilot airplanes and cars. We trust them to manage enterprise resources (ERM systems and most of middleware). They're not smart enough to make some complex decisions yet, but I think it's a matter of time. You don't really need true AI, just very good algorithms and very good mathematical models.

I agree that such future looks quite joyless, but I think it's possible. And probably in our lifetime.

About Russia as the leader of world integration:
As Russian I can say for sure, that our society is turning into typical police state (ala Pinochet's Chili), which has nothing common with communism or socialism. Of course our Soviet past has huge influence still, but it's a matter of methods, not ideas. Ex: local elections are limited (you can't elect Governor or city Major anymore); our parliament will be reduced to minimum, freedom of national referendum is limited (in fact, it should be approved (sic!) in Moscow!!). Combined with ruined economy and science, this negates any chances for Russia to be a leader of world integration.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

An AI government would not make human error; however, it would make computer error; that is, misunderstanding of human nature. To solve this, humans would have to correct AI descisions. As one or the other would have to be in overall charge, this once again leads to problems of lack of choices.

[Jack Simth]

One problem with a computer run society is that, eventually, a successful cracker will come along and change things to his/her liking (and/or ruin the lives of others). Or do you truly believe someone will invent the perfect computer program? Especially when SOMEBODY has to have access to the hardware?

In a hogepodge (many different reasonably independant nations, many different reasonably independant systems) if something goes horribly, horribly wrong with one government, or one form of government, people can escape to the others (well, unless one "succeeds" in nuking everything, or similar), which can cause the collapse of the form that went horribly wrong (not necessarily directly - if a refugee starts a war that ends the regime (s)he fled, that indirectly caused the collapse (for loose definitions of collapse)); even if push comes to shove, in a hogepodge, things are recoverable even with extremely high levels of corruption.

A fully encompassing government, however, doesn't have a repair mechanisim that can operate on that level. Of necessity, a fully encompasing government needs to be held to a much, much higher standard - to the point of true perfection; which isn't really possible in something run by humans as they are, or as they will be within the foreseeable future.

[deccan]

Jack Simth said:
... people can escape to the others (well, unless one "succeeds" in nuking everything, or similar), which can cause the collapse of the form that went horribly wrong (not necessarily directly - if a refugee starts a war that ends the regime (s)he fled, that indirectly caused the collapse (for loose definitions of collapse)); even if push comes to shove, in a hogepodge, things are recoverable even with extremely high levels of corruption.

What's wrong with starting a revolt when you're still in the country? After all, there's no reason why revolts must start outside the country in question.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

But, before you start a revolt, you must start a volt!

[Jack Simth]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
But, before you start a revolt, you must start a volt!

Shouldn't molting be in there somewhere? Or is that for the birds?

[Jack Simth]

deccan said:
What's wrong with starting a revolt when you're still in the country? After all, there's no reason why revolts must start outside the country in question.

Actually, there is; a historical one: virtually no attempted revolt in a modernized country has ever succeeded without outside support, save for when the failure of the state took the form of negligence of the people and random bad stuff rather than deliberate oppression.