Planetary Unification - more than a Sci-fi trope?

[Amor_Fati]

Quite a bit offtopic here, but a nice theory that I would like to share. I've been reading the Sapiens book (and recommend it - it is a nice book), and a point the author (Yuval Noah Harari) makes is that humanity, through the course of history, moves itself towards unification. Since ancient times, we moved on (with ebbs and flows, gains and losses) towards unification.

When Cortez and his Spanish troops invaded the Aztec empire, the mesoamerican natives could not understand why they loved gold so much. In their eyes, it was a nice and shiny metal, which they could make good art, but it was inherently less valuable than other things like cocoa. Nowadays, there is nowhere - or almost nowhere - in the globe that cannot appreciate the value of money and gold.

While we have several nations, almost all the globe thinks and believes in roughly the same ideas - there should be law systems, democracy (even in autocracies there is some semblance of democracy), market economies, human rights, etc... Even as each nation and culture twists that ideas with some particular notions, they are still close enough to see the resemblance. Nowhere in the world today you would arrive with ocidental concepts like that and see the face that Montezuma did when Cortez waged wars to strip him off his gold.

And we see megaprojects today that transcend national borders - things like Antartic research (heck, most research done nowadays is made with multi-national teams), economic corporations, UN, and even space exploration - the International Space Station don't have its name for nothing. In other words, the "planetary unification" trope in sci0fi and in Stellaris does not means that there are not several nations in each world, but that if you zoom out and see that an space empire would be created by the effort of these nations helping each other, you can simply assume that the planet is a single entity (or a single goverment) and roll with it.

 

[Brownbeard]

If aliens appeared tommorrow in Earths orbit, there is no chance in hell that humanity would in any way meet them as a single entity. If they decided to manipulate or conquer Earth via proxies, they would not have to wait too long for interested clients to appear.

And vice-versa if humanity somehow got contact to a similar world, it would be a new Middle East.

Human poltics suck, and alien politics are just as bad.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

While Brownbeard is right, there is a change in the amount of suck. In the past humans sucked more, nowadays they suck less. Suck is not a static quantity.

In two hundred years, we may well have reduced the suck to the level at which humans loathe each other only at the level that, say, the rest of the UK loathes London: that is, they're under the same rule and can't make war on one another.

 

[barny]

While Brownbeard is right, there is a change in the amount of suck. In the past humans sucked more, nowadays they suck less. Suck is not a static quantity.

In two hundred years, we may well have reduced the suck to the level at which humans loathe each other only at the level that, say, the rest of the UK loathes London: that is, they're under the same rule and can't make war on one another.

Yeah well...that is somewhat true but the sucking is only reduced by a very thin layer of civilization and that can come off and unleash the full amount of sucking pretty quickly.

 

[Alucardex]

While Brownbeard is right, there is a change in the amount of suck. In the past humans sucked more, nowadays they suck less. Suck is not a static quantity.

In two hundred years, we may well have reduced the suck to the level at which humans loathe each other only at the level that, say, the rest of the UK loathes London: that is, they're under the same rule and can't make war on one another.

You don't have to wage war to screw things up for others.
Just look at the constant bullshit between the UK and the EU.

 

[Exemplar Voss]

You don't have to wage war to screw things up for others.
Just look at the constant bullshit between the UK and the EU.

I rather think that is the point. The modern bullshit between the uk and the EU is of an entirely different character. Last centuries bullshit involved bombs and bullets on a massive scale, and even the trade conflicts in previous centuries involved lots of death, starvation and religious persecution. There is quantifiably less 'suck' in the uk vs. eu debate than, say, the treaty of tordesillas

 

[The_Meme_Man]

I think its less of a matter of morals and more of a matter of economics. Meeting an alien civilization who is willing to recognize you as space-faring changes the game of economics entirely, as you are FORCED to participate in the intergalactic market. You can be isolationist, but you still need to make that known to other aliens, which is in itself a form of economic interaction.

Space economics will be on the scale of planets and star systems rather than cities and countries, and it would be economically optimal to have a single administration run the planet (though the amount of autonomy various states have would need careful work). HOWEVER, what is overlooked, and this would certainly be applicable to Humans, is that everybody is going to insist they are the best administration for the world government, which would most certainly result in a world war. This would be a world war to see who represents the human race. For example, if we were doing this today, with modern geopolitics, the EU MIGHT vote the US to be in charge, but at the same time why would Europe let up an opportunity to be the spokesperson of Earth? Russia would not agree with it as they would see Russia being the most representative of Europe's power and prestige. China would oppose the US, EU, and Russia because why would China want Europeans to be the spokespersons of the human race when they had dominated humanity for the previous two hundred years (and also add a pretentious fact that China was the centre of the world before that). Countries like India or Iran would oppose all the latter parties and each other because they want the prestige to put them on the world's stage, and would view themselves as representatives of the "small person". African countries would certainly seize their opportunity to pay off thousands of years of struggle and lagging behind the rest of the world to make their mark. Not only would you have geopolitical tensions (since everyone wants the prestige of being the representative), you also have ideologies, as people who believe in American freedoms would be more inclined to support the USA as the representative (or at least the form of government for the world government), while people who oppose capitalism or are more collectivist (ethos?) would support a more socialist representative.

Speaking of socialists (or national socialists specifically), this would also be an alarm bell to bring the racists into the field, as not only do people want the ideal government and culture representing all of humanity, some sickoes want the ideal skin colour representing humanity (and racial supremists would certainly not pass of an opportunity to try and dominate the Earth if economic and diplomatic relations with alien species were on the line). Regardless, the unification of Earth would make the most sense, but it certainly wouldn't be without great bloodshed, and it would take years to settle everyone down to it.

 

[Yenzen]

I think you greatly overestimate the global opinion on if all laws should be drawn from holy books, the rights of women and such.

Give it another 300 years, at the very least.

 

[Amor_Fati]

Big point of the OP is that we don't actually NEED to have a "unified government" to be PERCEIVED AS a planetary unity - yeah, there will be fights and wars and squabbles amongst us, but in the big scheme of things - the "galatic empire" scheme of things... they just don't matter. They're too small for this scope.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

Big point of the OP is that we don't actually NEED to have a "unified government" to be PERCEIVED AS a planetary unity - yeah, there will be fights and wars and squabbles amongst us, but in the big scheme of things - the "galatic empire" scheme of things... they just don't matter. They're too small for this scope.

With a unified government you are bound to have civil wars anyway.

 

[Yenzen]

Big point of the OP is that we don't actually NEED to have a "unified government" to be PERCEIVED AS a planetary unity - yeah, there will be fights and wars and squabbles amongst us, but in the big scheme of things - the "galatic empire" scheme of things... they just don't matter. They're too small for this scope.

Until nations leave the union every election because "The ruler is heretic!" or "The ruler is female!" or "The ruler is too religious!".

Edit: Unless there is an external threat, Humanity won't even come close to unification. We can't even keep smaller unions together, and have independence movements all over the place (1/4 of Spain, UK out of EU... probably plenty non eurocentric examples) and the few supranational entities we have are powerless jokes (UN).

 

[Maarten99]

Until nations leave the union every election because "The ruler is heretic!" or "The ruler is female!" or "The ruler is too religious!".

Edit: Unless there is an external threat, Humanity won't even come close to unification. We can't even keep smaller unions together, and have independence movements all over the place (1/4 of Spain, UK out of EU... probably plenty non eurocentric examples) and the few supranational entities we have are powerless jokes (UN).

While there is a lot of minority talking about independence - Scots, Catalonia, Flanders... - most of these would actually like to stay in the EU, and reinforce the Union. A lot of flemish who want to get out of Belgium actually use the logic that what the federal government does could easily be either given to the flemish government (education) or Europe (defense, justice). As for the UK, they're basically not integrated in the EU already, by not having the Euro or Schengen. The referendum is less about leaving the EU - I'm 99% sure they'll sign market/visa/Erasmus agreements the day they leave to keep those, getting them in the same situation as Switzerland - than about 'will we ever want to be fully integrated in the EU and abandon our sovereignty ?'

 

[Dakka]

Obviously any planetary civil war is an affront to the God-Emperor. Dispatch the Holy Inquisition! =][=

 

[drakeheath]

I could see the world uniting.

Humanity seems to tend towards large, expansionist empires ruling great portions of the globe, no reason it won't happen again and on a planetary scale.

 

[Yenzen]

While there is a lot of minority talking about independence - Scots, Catalonia, Flanders... - most of these would actually like to stay in the EU, and reinforce the Union. A lot of flemish who want to get out of Belgium actually use the logic that what the federal government does could easily be either given to the flemish government (education) or Europe (defense, justice). As for the UK, they're basically not integrated in the EU already, by not having the Euro or Schengen. The referendum is less about leaving the EU - I'm 99% sure they'll sign market/visa/Erasmus agreements the day they leave to keep those, getting them in the same situation as Switzerland - than about 'will we ever want to be fully integrated in the EU and abandon our sovereignty ?'

There is rising Euroscepticism too.

Frankly my main problem is that any true diplomatic world unification requires meeting in the middle, and I don't really want to meet in the middle in terms of human rights, democracy and secularism - and I find it pointless to assume that certain parts of the globe want to leave their ways behind just because others find them backwards.

 

[ParagonExile]

Personally I wouldn't want the human race to unite as a unitary state, but form a confederacy or federation of people who self-determinate. Pls no authoritarianism.

 

[Daetrin]

Eh. My opinion is that the concept of "march toward unification" is terribly misinformed (witness Rome vs. the same area after Rome fell), and that it's an intrinsically bad idea to unify under a single government.

 

[Druesling]

I think if there is no others outside it, a global community would only be sustainable through supression. Otherwise every one faction that has no outside or opposition will immediately fall apart in two pieces or more. So I believe that we will only gain a global state when we meet aliens, not before. And that's probably not that bad, because even a shitty alternative is still an alternative.
I used to be in favor of more smaller government units than larger fewer ones, but you kinda have to see the advantages of the EU for example. Just compare the last 70 years of Europe with the 70 before that, and you see that it was the cooperation that avoided full scale wars in the last decades. But I'm still undecided about a global state, I think that would be bad, if only because it had no alternatives. A single state could be as shitty to it's people as it wants because there wouldnt be an alternative or anything to compare it to.

 

[13Foxtrot]

The UN even now uses its might to screw over other countries for its own benefit.....look at the oil for food scandal. As long as you have humans and human nature running things there will be serious opposition to each other. Our brains will have to be wired differently. It may or may not happen and it will take a long time for it to occur.

 

[HotIceHilda]

We won't be able to tell if it is more than a Sci-fi trope until we meet some aliens of our own.