One World Government

[brucegdc]

If this thread got any more derailed, the NTSB would need to be called in.... (for those not in the US, the National Transportation Safety Board is the agency that investigates major transportation problems like train derailments and plane crashes).

[Marsh]

Originally Posted by Vajradhara

Marsh, [font=Arial]the internet was not a weapon when it was developed by DARPA.

Check your facts, Vajradhara. The internet's first application was to coordinate NORAD defences, which makes it a weapon in its beginning just as I said.


Now to reply to Art, who said:

"We probably we'll have some feature or program that will scan the spam and the race will go on.

What these inventions have done though is shrink our world and make us more interdependent than ever."

Yes, some Bill Gates-type person will probably make a kajillion dollars when they invent and market a spam-scanning program. However, by that time we will have invented, what, maybe a hundred new pieces of technology that can be abused and/or used against us? Or maybe a thousand? It seems to me that the relationship between technology and progress is similar to Malthus' observation that population grows exponentially while food supplies increase arithmetically: by the time we solve one problem, we've already created fifty more-- sometimes, ironically, in the process of solving the first one.

This brings me back to the idea of having one world government. There isn't a government on earth that is not in need of an over-haul, and yet if there was a world government it would be based on one or more of the existing, flawed systems of government, with the idea that the bugs could be worked out in the future. I'm obviously not convinced that they ever would be worked out, at least in time to prevent other bugs from arising.

[QueryGuy]

Originally Posted by Marsh

Check your facts, Vajradhara. The internet's first application was to coordinate NORAD defences, which makes it a weapon in its beginning just as I said.

So even if that's true, I don't fully understand the point you are trying to make. Are you saying that makes the whole internet morally objectionable? Do you have any proposed solutions to the problems you mention? (That's probably material for a whole new thread, but I'm curious.)

However, by that time we will have invented, what, maybe a hundred new pieces of technology that can be abused and/or used against us? Or maybe a thousand?

Ingenuity is a double-edged sword. What do you suggest we do? Nothing at all, a cessation of all progress?

This brings me back to the idea of having one world government. There isn't a government on earth that is not in need of an over-haul, and yet if there was a world government it would be based on one or more of the existing, flawed systems of government, with the idea that the bugs could be worked out in the future. I'm obviously not convinced that they ever would be worked out, at least in time to prevent other bugs from arising.

Nor am I. I can acknowledge that most, if not all of what you are saying is true. However, our attitudes concerning it are profoundly different. I simply see it as the way of things, challenges to be met and obstacles to overcome. I get the feeling that if we were to follow your line of thinking they would not even be obstacles, for if something is to be an obstacle you must first set out on a path.

QG

[arthra]

Originally Posted by Marsh

Check your facts, Vajradhara. The internet's first application was to coordinate NORAD defences, which makes it a weapon in its beginning just as I said.


Now to reply to Art, who said:

"We probably we'll have some feature or program that will scan the spam and the race will go on.

What these inventions have done though is shrink our world and make us more interdependent than ever."

Yes, some Bill Gates-type person will probably make a kajillion dollars when they invent and market a spam-scanning program. However, by that time we will have invented, what, maybe a hundred new pieces of technology that can be abused and/or used against us? Or maybe a thousand? It seems to me that the relationship between technology and progress is similar to Malthus' observation that population grows exponentially while food supplies increase arithmetically: by the time we solve one problem, we've already created fifty more-- sometimes, ironically, in the process of solving the first one.

This brings me back to the idea of having one world government. There isn't a government on earth that is not in need of an over-haul, and yet if there was a world government it would be based on one or more of the existing, flawed systems of government, with the idea that the bugs could be worked out in the future. I'm obviously not convinced that they ever would be worked out, at least in time to prevent other bugs from arising.

Well conside how the United States developed...there was first a loose Articles of Confederation with very limited taxation powers and later came the Constitution we have today with more of a federalist design...

My idea is that yu will have a gradual transition from the current UN model to something closer to a federal model but it may take some time of course...

Consider how the EU has developed over time ... this is i think a very likely scenario.

THe World Government will be borne out of necessity and will first be politically created.... A world civilization has alread started but will definitely be accelerated with a World Governing body.

- Art

[Vajradhara]

Originally Posted by Marsh

Check your facts, Vajradhara. The internet's first application was to coordinate NORAD defences, which makes it a weapon in its beginning just as I said.

Namaste Marsh,

you mean other than the facts that i've posted already?

don't believe me though, check it for yourself: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2235.html

[Marsh]

Vajradhara,

By "check your facts" I mean know the whole story. I find it hard to believe that you couldn't (or didn't want to) make the connection between the US department of defence' sponsorship of the research that would eventually create the internet, and the internet's origins as a weapon. This is from http://www.cyberpub.co.uk/cyberpub/howto/history.html

"We've all heard of the educational and intellectual sides of the Internet and of its advances in high speed world-wide communication. In its early days it was used mainly by academics and students for serious purposes and was in fact originally designed for NORAD. As a method of controlling defence systems in the United States. They were worried that if the USSR could pinpoint their main computer system, one well-placed atom bomb could make them helpless."

That pretty much sums up what happened. Your timeline is good, but it was from an IT history point of view; not a political history point of view, and I was discussing political history.




Art,

Are you forgetting that little (and by little I mean enormous) Civil War that you had down there after your country became fragmented by slavery, competing cultures, tariffs, etc? Apply that era of US history to the possibility of a world government and you get a Third World War. And before we begin arguing whether or not the world, united under one world government, would become fragmented let me say this: The US, to the best of my knowledge, was torn-apart by political and economic reasons. Our current world still has those divisions, plus added divisions the least of which not being language and religion. Take a good look up north to Canada to see what kinds of problems competing languages and cultures can have on a country, and to Nigeria, India, and the Middle East for religious fragmentation.



Query Guy,
1. Do I have any solutions to the problem I pointed out? Of course not. If I had solutions to problems like this I would be speaking at the UN instead of on a web forum. What I do have is an opinion, and that opinion is simply that whoever remains ignorant of the past shall repeat it, and as the steps we take get bigger, so to do the mistakes and subsequently the consequences of those mistakes. Oppenheimer wanted to un-invent the atomic bomb, but it was too late. Similarly, we will never be able to 'un-invent' a world government once its been established, and since we have not yet invented a system of government able to effectively govern a diverse nation, the idea of world government at this point is ludicrous and smacks of pride.

2. If you'll take a look at my initial posts in this thread, you'll see that I'm of the opinion that technology isn't necessarily progress. Should we stop inventing things? No. But we should stop inventing bad things. The idea of technology as a double-edged sword is a pretty lame way to validate all of the problems technology has made for us.

3. You're right: I would rather have not set out on any path than to follow one that includes hydrogen bombs and long-range stealth bombers, the child labour epidemic of the 19th and 20th centuries, holes in the ozone layer, the fall-out from Chernobyl, toxic waste dumped into the water table, the Exxon Valdez and the multitude of other oil spills, the unibomber, the mechanized and chemical warfare of the First World War, the assembly-line genocide of the Holocaust, free internet porn accessible by six-year-olds and sometimes even sent to them by email, a mass media that can create Nazi Germany if it falls into the right hands, mercantile trade and the subsequent use of slaves to drive it, heartless multinational corporations that pay ludicrous salaries to what is surely the equivolent of slave labour in the third world, the Cold War arms race and the resulting collapse, poverty, and crime now plaguing the former Soviet Union, and every armed robbery, rape, assault and murder that has involved the use of a fire-arm.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that path...

[arthra]

Marsh wrote:

Are you forgetting that little (and by little I mean enormous) Civil War that you had down there after your country became fragmented by slavery, competing cultures, tariffs, etc? Apply that era of US history to the possibility of a world government and you get a Third World War. And before we begin arguing whether or not the world, united under one world government, would become fragmented let me say this: The US, to the best of my knowledge, was torn-apart by political and economic reasons. Our current world still has those divisions, plus added divisions the least of which not being language and religion. Take a good look up north to Canada to see what kinds of problems competing languages and cultures can have on a country, and to Nigeria, India, and the Middle East for religious fragmentation.

Reply:

Thanks Marsh... No I haven't forgotten the Civil War in the US...but remember, that crisis resolved a few issues of states rights in a federated system. No one should ignore the possibility of testing a world federal system. It's occuring now when some countries defy the Inetrnational Court rulings. We can think of a few recent examples.

But our vision is over the long course of events. Just as stock investors will point to the overall growth of funds over say thirty years... We need to have a similar view of the developemnts in international law and government.

March wrote:

Do I have any solutions to the problem I pointed out? Of course not. If I had solutions to problems like this I would be speaking at the UN instead of on a web forum. What I do have is an opinion, and that opinion is simply that whoever remains ignorant of the past shall repeat it, and as the steps we take get bigger, so to do the mistakes and subsequently the consequences of those mistakes. Oppenheimer wanted to un-invent the atomic bomb, but it was too late. Similarly, we will never be able to 'un-invent' a world government once its been established, and since we have not yet invented a system of government able to effectively govern a diverse nation, the idea of world government at this point is ludicrous and smacks of pride.

Reply:

Actually I think Oppenheimer was trying to control the misuse of the developement of the hydrogen bomb. His nemisis was Edward Teller was i recall and the establishment ended up supporting Teller. Sakharov was like Oppenheimer in that respect. A sad story.

But the processes to establish world government are already in motion i think and when it does become a reality, it will be similar to the EU in being established in our own time except on a wider scale.

One thing that will become more likely would seem to me to be that scientists with conscience like Oppie and Sakharov will find greater support in the future world community than they did in their own more short more sighted nationalistic communities.

All the best!

- Art

[Vajradhara]

namaste marsh,

thank you for the post.

Originally Posted by Marsh

Vajradhara,

By "check your facts" I mean know the whole story. I find it hard to believe that you couldn't (or didn't want to) make the connection between the US department of defence' sponsorship of the research that would eventually create the internet, and the internet's origins as a weapon. This is from http://www.cyberpub.co.uk/cyberpub/howto/history.html

"We've all heard of the educational and intellectual sides of the Internet and of its advances in high speed world-wide communication. In its early days it was used mainly by academics and students for serious purposes and was in fact originally designed for NORAD. As a method of controlling defence systems in the United States. They were worried that if the USSR could pinpoint their main computer system, one well-placed atom bomb could make them helpless."

That pretty much sums up what happened. Your timeline is good, but it was from an IT history point of view; not a political history point of view, and I was discussing political history.

what?! why on earth would you be evaulating the timeline of a techonolgical development through a political lens?

i'm not sure what to tell you at this point... your site doesn't have a single source to verify the information that it's purporting to be correct, yet, the majority of the internet world has a completely different view.

it's up to you, of course, which view that you'd like to have. if you'd rather believe that the internet was/is a weapon and that was it's original intent, so be it. you won't find too many serious technologists that agree with that view, in my opinion.

by the reasoning that you are suggesting that i use here, anything that has ever been developed by DARPA or any other militarily related group, is preforce a weapon. which i wholeheartedly disagree with.

i would suggest that you research this information with an open mind. other than the links that i've previous posted, please feel free to review these:

http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/

http://www.w3.org/History.html

http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html

http://webreference.com/internet/history.html

[Marsh]

I won't find many technologists who agree with me that the internet was a weapon in its origins? I probably also won't find many neo-Nazis who believe Hitler was a war criminal, or Britney Spears fan club members who believe that her act is a bad influence on children.

Originally Posted by Vajradhara

what?! why on earth would you be evaulating the timeline of a techonolgical development through a political lens?

Uhhh, 'cause that's what historians do, guy. Look, I'm really tired of trying to explain this to you, because you aren't listening. This is from ARPA's official website (www.arpa.mil):

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was established in 1958 as the first U.S. response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik. Since that time DARPA's mission has been to assure that the U.S. maintains a lead in applying state-of-the-art technology for military capabilities and to prevent technological surprise from her adversaries."

If you would actually have done some reading, you may have come across something called SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) which was developed by ARPA in order to "receive data from various detection and tracking radar systems, interpret data from unidentified aircraft and direct defensive weapons at incoming hostile aircraft. The SAGE machine could receive information continuously through the computer’s memory from telephone lines." This, my friend, was the internet in its origins.

All the web references in the world won't change the facts, guy. I consider the matter to be concluded.

[QueryGuy]

Originally Posted by Marsh

I won't find many technologists who agree with me that the internet was a weapon in its origins? I probably also won't find many neo-Nazis who believe Hitler was a war criminal, or Britney Spears fan club members who believe that her act is a bad influence on children.

Huh? Comparing internet users to Nazis and...and...Britney Spears fans! Thou dost go too far...

I've heard several accounts of the creation of the internet as we know it today. They tend to agree, the "internet" was invented a few decades back when a few universities (and maybe research companies) got together to create a common front-end system so their individual computers (big, clunky, widely incompatible things back then) could communicate with each other.

SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) which was developed by ARPA in order to "receive data from various detection and tracking radar systems, interpret data from unidentified aircraft and direct defensive weapons at incoming hostile aircraft. The SAGE machine could receive information continuously through the computer’s memory from telephone lines." This, my friend, was the internet in its origins.

Fine, that was a computer network. But multiple, otherwise incompatible computers using the same languages didn't happen till a few years later--and that's what the internet really is. Of course we could argue this all the way back to the telegraph or smoke signals if we needed to...

[QueryGuy]

Originally Posted by Marsh

Similarly, we will never be able to 'un-invent' a world government once its been established, and since we have not yet invented a system of government able to effectively govern a diverse nation, the idea of world government at this point is ludicrous and smacks of pride.

Right now we are debating theory, and if optimism is pride then so be it. I can't change the past. Humanity as a whole has done a lot of stupid and evil things. But it has also done great and wonderful things, and individuals have repeatedly risen to the challenge of improving life for as many people as possible, whether in the scientific or social arenas.

As for "effectively" governing a nation...You're going to have to clarify what you mean by that. Does that mean governing in such a way that makes everyone happy? Given your previous cynicism, I'm going to assume that you are not naive enough to think that possible. However, in terms of establishing equality among people in as many ways as possible...it takes time. Personally, I think it is a huge mistake to cease development on a macrocosmic scale simply because things can't be worked out in every microcosm. They are far, far too interconnected, as you yourself have pointed out. Things will probably never be "perfect" on any level. The most one can do is work to improve things, steadily and consistently.

And let's not forget, "world government" has already been invented. In fact is has already been implemented. It's called the United Nations. It may have once been considered pride and arrogance to suggest such a concept, but obviously enough people rose above such criticisms to make it happen. True, the U.N. doesn't begin to cover things to the extent we are talking about here, but it is, for better or worse, a form of world government in existance today.

You're right: I would rather have not set out on any path than to follow one that includes.....<insert long list of technological tragedies here>

Everything has its good and evil aspects, there's no denying that. Again, it's a matter of attitude. Do we sink into the depths of despair because of all that has happened--a past we cannot change--or do we move on and try to improve the world in what little ways we can despite the risk (or perhaps guarantee) of further tragedy? No one can avoid making that decision on some level. Perhaps you would encourage surrender, but it is totally against humanity's collective nature to do so.

QG

[I, Brian]

I have to admit, I was under the impression that the internet originally branched out from the network technology developed by the US military.

It is a somewhat unfortunate fact that a lot of innovation comes directly from military research due to military needs being addressed in a specific manner.

Does that make everything the military develops a weapon? Not unless we're going to slate antibiotics and GPS.

But it is an unfortunate fact that war has been such a powerful force in terms of human, social, and technological development.


But let's not get too heated about the discussion, please.

[QueryGuy]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

I have to admit, I was under the impression that the internet originally branched out from the network technology developed by the US military.

You seem to be correct:

http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/cerf.shtml

I remembered the basics of the internet started in the seventies, and I think I had some details correct about the overall research program. But yes, it was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). I knew the NORAD network was too early to truly resemble the internet, though it certainly was a monumental undertaking in its day.

QG

[Vajradhara]

Namaste Marsh,

thank you for the post.

as i say.. you are free to believe what you'd like.

though it's rather disengenious to claim that i've not read "any information" on the subject.. .which is demonstrably false.

here's the thing... you haven't tried to explain it to me at all... what you've done is argue that your interpetation of this phenomena is correct and that all other views are wrong... even when i have provided copious amounts of evidence to the contrary.

nobody is being foolish enough to say that DARPA is not a military organization.. what myself and the others that are referenced in the links, are saying is that it's development was for research projects, specifically for 4 universities to connect to each other. crikey... the internet, per se, didn't come into existence until the development of the TCP/IP stack.

as i say... don't believe me... don't trust a thing that i say... completely question it... however, do the research for yourself and if you find that your views are still the same, so be it.
however, we do agree on this aspect... i think this part of the conversation is concluded.

[Marsh]

Vajradhara: Truly amazing


QueryGuy: I disagree that we have only two choices in this matter (i.e. To sit on our hands completely, or to put our heads down and run full-charge into a direction that we assume is progressive).

No, optimism is not pride. Pride is looking at the past and saying, "Wow, we made a lot of mistakes in the past. Oh well, this time it will be different-- because of us. We are smart enough to do it right this time."

The UN is not a world government; if it was, it would be able to govern. As it is, the countries who are generally peaceful listen to it, while the countries who by nature are not peaceful (and are therefore in need of governance) disregard them. I was asked what effective government is. Simply put, it is leading people in the right directions (plural, not singular). The UN is barely able to lead anyone anywhere. They were hi-jacked by the Americans in Korea, and they were bypassed by them again in Iraq. More of the same happened in between. If anything, the UN is evidence that we are certainly not ready for total world government.

Right directions, by the way, are not defined with words; they are proven by results.

Speaking on the topic of world government I was asked "do we move on and try to improve the world in what little ways we can despite the risk." Here is the precise problem: what we're speaking of is perhaps the most revolutionary idea proposed so far in human history; it is far from little. But from what I've heard so far a lot of people in this forum truly think of it as little, or else put little thought into it.

I see two glaring examples of the effects of attempted world government in recent history: the colonial age of the 1800s, and the Cold War crusade to spread/stop communism, depending on whose side you were on. My wife is Vietnamese. I have visited her home several times, where I get to see the legacy of French colonialism and America's crusade against Communism. The result: poverty, plain and simple!

My wife's family represents the equivolent of what we know in the west as the upper-middle class: they have more than most, but not quite as much as some. They live in a house made out of sheet-metal and poles. You can get to their house either by boat or by a trail the width of a sidewalk; there is no road. They do not have clean water. My father-in-law works in a bank, but to get ahead he farms cattle and, this past year, prawns. Her younger brother sleeps in the barn-- with the cattle-- because A) there is no room in the house, and B) to warn the family in case of thieves or bandits. In jealousy, somebody poisoned his prawn fields (yes, prawn fields), and he lost everything. They eat leaves from trees and grass instead of vegetables to save money.

You don't need to travel more than five minutes from his home to find the real heart-breakers: The children who don't have shoes, or who haven't eaten today, or who are dying because the family cannot afford to take them to a hospital, and so are relying on witchdoctor-style remedies. Huts made out of grass, about five feet by five feet in size, housing an entire family. No water, no safety, and in the middle of the rainy season no shelter. These, my friend, are basic necessities of life, and a bunch of the world still doesn't have them. And they were caused, not fixed, by foreign government!

The more I look at this country, the more I think that they would have been far better off if they'd never have met westerners, or at least if the westerners had thought about the full consequences of their actions before coming to "visit." Vietnam, like many other countries, is all messed up today because somebody in another country far away, who had probably never even traveled to it, shaded it on a map and declared that it would fall under the control of their superior government. This is in essence what we are discussing now, the only difference being that we're talking about shading in the entire globe instead of just one piece.

"Personally, I think it is a huge mistake to cease development on a macrocosmic scale simply because things can't be worked out in every microcosm." Newton would roll around in his grave if he heard that. So would every African who died in the slave trade, and every Vietnamese farmer whose family was napalmed.