Should there be a world government?

Should there be a world government?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 23.8%

  • No

    Votes: 15 71.4%

  • Other

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • Total voters
    21
Yes, we make a lot more progress when we are united. This world government would of course have to be some sort of representative/direct democracy. 

 
No government can fairly and equally represent the rights of each individual country. Maybe once we have technology that makes us far more connected, but it still takes someone 10+ hours to get from Chicago to Paris. The world is just to big of a place for a world government to handle. Also, who would decide what kind of ruling system is in place? Plenty of people think a dictatorship is better than a democracy (I'd imagine). There's too many logistical problems

 
As idealistic as it is to hope that humanity is approaching the Federation at some point in the future,  we still have centuries of internecine conflict with ourselves over stupid things like who has the best invisible friend, to reach that goal in any of our lifetimes.

 
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Yes one day, when our systems of governance are no longer completely idiotic and non-representative. But until that day (should it ever come) no.

 
emperorpenguin said:
No government can fairly and equally represent the rights of each individual country. Maybe once we have technology that makes us far more connected, but it still takes someone 10+ hours to get from Chicago to Paris. The world is just to big of a place for a world government to handle. Also, who would decide what kind of ruling system is in place? Plenty of people think a dictatorship is better than a democracy (I'd imagine). There's too many logistical problems
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I don't think the Paris and Chicago example was the best you could have used, have you seen the distance between New York and San Diego? We live in a world where distance doesn't matter, what matters is our silly little differences and labels that we set on ourselves. When these are removed, we will realize we are a lot more alike than we are different. Once we realize we are all equal humans,  perhaps we can unite and face the universe together, pushing beyond our current frontiers. 

 
Some practical things could become more efficient with a one-world government. No trade barriers, less military conflict, no more environmental tragedy of the commons.

There's two reasons not to like it. The first is self interest. For obvious reasons, most people in rich countries don't want to be in one common pot with people in poor countries and have everyone's prosperity and problems even out. The global average would improve but it's not in the interest of the average first world voter.

The second is representation. This is the real problem and the reason why the League of Nations failed and the UN has little power. Say that everyone put aside their differences and joined a magic global democracy with fair elections everywhere, would that be a good thing? Well, I'd love to see a global opinion poll on this question: "Should a wife be obedient to her husband"?. I think 80-90% "Yes" is the likely result of that poll. Is global democracy still a good idea? The world is filled with people with radically different cultures and values and interests, and throwing them all together would not lead to a happy result. Unions only succeed when people have almost identical values and a single identity. To have a global democratic government, you'd need a global monoculture.

 
At the very least, having a higher court system, so the situation is more like a federation of global states could be useful, thus we aren't dealing with sovereigns.

 
No. Not necessary unless we contact life on other planets. We can do everything, like single currency and lower trade barriers without a large central government.

 
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