> From: His Brinness <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > John, you are too close to the problem. Step back. > > Again I ask, do you envision Planet Earth still being divided into > completely separate sovereign nations with capricious right-of-war > and subject to no overall legal authority, say, 1,000 years from now? > When you squint at our future, sending starships across the cosmos > and dealing with aliens, do you honestly envision that? > > Given the frequency of irrational tyrants andzealots and the > proliferation of WMD, do you envision such a situation holding even > 50 years?
It's worse than that. Right now well funded corporations, governments, and some universities can make bio-engineered weapons without much difficulty. As technology progresses individual people will gradually be able to things that are being done now. They just synthesized polio virus from scratch, a few months ago. As technology advances any nut, fanatic, zealot, and villain will be able to do increasingly dastardly things. If some religious fanatic thinks it is 'god`s will' to create some kind of doomsday pathogen, what is to stop them? It's only a matter of time. The Anthrax attacks plainly show this. Aside from that issue, in thirty to forty years the geometric growth of technology will lead to a 'singularity'. As technology gets more and more advanced, more jobs will be replaced with technological solutions, especially white collar office jobs. More and more people will be unemployed. The gap between the haves and the have-nots will widen similarly. > If so, HOW can you manage such a mental feat? A primary factor in most people is religion. How many religious sects support the UN? Not many. Most religions distrust the UN for a variety of reasons. Some see it as one of the beasts of revelation. Some see it as moving toward a one world government, with a one world religion, with it's false prophet of revelation to mislead the world. Most of these religions and sects have this special esoteric 'Trvth', special understandings of scriptures, etc. Mr. JDG is perfectly happy to have his special brand of trvth forced on people by the government, irrespective of whether abortion etc. is right or wrong, he would have the government force his particular views on everyone. He, being a good catholic, would probably prefer a return to the absolute power of the popes. Religion and freedom are enemies. Religionists want their thought-control, freedom control spread to everyone. Like any parasite religion wants to spread, is based around spreading itself. Some religious fundamentalists home school their children so they are not taught about religion destroying concepts like evolution, the big bang, etc. To religionists the UN is an authoritarian control (because that is their worldview, the primary meme behind religion is slavery), but is the wrong kind of authority, not from their perception of god, but some false religious system or some satanic system, or some secular system, all of them equally bad. Here is an example of how a lot of bible belt protestants view the UN: http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/MentalHealth2-99.html http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/starwar6-99.html > If not, then how do you envision a world of law coming about? If not > via the UN, then in what way? You are forgetting a major actor: multi-national corporations. The new feudal lords. Microsoft alone has more money in the bank than many countries GDP. The majority of the wealth and power is increasingly being concentrated into fewer and few corporate hands. Money buys the politicians, and the politicians act on behalf of the corporations. > Yes, Americans feel a reflexive fear of such a coalescence... and for > dozens of very good reasons! I share those reservations. Indeed, > out of all the types of WorldGov we might get, only a very narrow set > would seem acceptable to me. And none of those few that are particularly acceptable, or good, would be acceptable to the major religions or the big corporations. > Which is the point! Right now, Pax Americana has tremendous > influence and good will. We behaved far better, following George > Marshall (my "Man of the Century") and his gentle -but-firm > prescription, than any other 'pax'. We used it top make the EU - our > handiwork! - and (under Clinton) put Europe at peace for the first > time since Neanderthals saw guys with chins coming over the hill. We > have an opportunity to mold WorldGov in an image WE can accept. This page has some interesting things to say about chins (among other things): http://employees.csbsju.edu/lmealey/hotspots/Chapter13.htm > But only if we see the goal and grasp it. Something this > administration is incapable of doing. > > Again, many parts of WorldGov are forming before our eyes., The EU's > march eastward is setting a model for the process of accession. (I > hope not for bureaucracy, though!) Global institutions are forming > at the periphery. The World Court needs authority... while we are > right to insist that the de facto police force have some of the > immunities normally granted to police. > > I've taken more time than I should. Reductio: If you don't like the > UN, what would you suggest instead? _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
