Planetary Unification - more than a Sci-fi trope?

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

I will never understand why a unified Earth is such a frowned upon idea. Why not live in a world where people can choose what culture they want to be a part of? The world would be a far better place if we had one language, one set of morals, and no deity-based philosophy, along with a few other things that I won't mention here. In the end we are all the same species, conflict amongst ourselves is what sets us apart from other animals and is what constantly threatens to end our species entirely.

Perhaps as we mature more people will understand that nationalism is outdated and dangerous.

I agree with you.

My theory is that people dislike the idea of a united Earth because it would force them to face up to hard social issues that require solutions. As long as the nations of the world are divided, then people can concentrate on the benefits that exploitative trading and political agreements bring to their nation and forget the downsides. The poorer people of the world can be comfortably dehumanised because they aren't considered part of "us", and so their problems can be ignored as non-pressing issues.

It's a selfish mindset, yes, but sadly humans are very good at being selfish. Hopefully this is something we can work on as we move forwards. It's certainly something that I try to work on on a personal level.

 

[Yenzen]

I will never understand why a unified Earth is such a frowned upon idea. Why not live in a world where people can choose what culture they want to be a part of? The world would be a far better place if we had one language, one set of morals, and no deity-based philosophy, along with a few other things that I won't mention here. In the end we are all the same species, conflict amongst ourselves is what sets us apart from other animals and is what constantly threatens to end our species entirely.

Perhaps as we mature more people will understand that nationalism is outdated and dangerous.

Majority of Earth objects to non-deist based morality. Majority of these disagree with one another on which deity or how to apply that deity.

Majority disagree on what set of morals to use.

Majority of people disagree on global language.

Everyone who imagines world unification always seem to do it in a way that's inoffensive to themselves, first and foremost, and assume everyone will be happy with their utopia. ISIS is creating Utopia, as they know it.

 

[Zyrious]

I will never understand why a unified Earth is such a frowned upon idea. Why not live in a world where people can choose what culture they want to be a part of? The world would be a far better place if we had one language, one set of morals, and no deity-based philosophy, along with a few other things that I won't mention here. In the end we are all the same species, conflict amongst ourselves is what sets us apart from other animals and is what constantly threatens to end our species entirely.

Perhaps as we mature more people will understand that nationalism is outdated and dangerous.

To enforce such would be to deny free will and create an environment of tyranny. Even you would only enjoy such if said world government was enforcing the deity free morals and language that you approve of. The majority of people on Earth will never allow that, we have wildly differing beliefs on how to live, on how to govern, and on how/who to worship. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, and having separate nations is fine. Being a single government is not a pre-requisite to space travel, colonization, or exploitation. Also, there are plenty of animals with tons of conflict amongst themselves, for far less complex reasons.

Majority of earth objects to on-deist based morality. Majority of these disagree with one another on which deity or how to apply that deity.

Majority disagree on what set of morals to use.

Majority of people disagree on global language.

Everyone who imagines world unification always seem to do it in a way that's inoffensive to themselves, first and foremost, and assume everyone will be happy with their utopia. ISIS is creating Utopia, as they know it.

Agreed, usually people pushing the one-world utopia are only imagining it with their particular set of morals and assuming the world would be perfect as a result. In reality, such a world can only exist with massive amounts of draconian laws and oppression, enforced at the end of a gun and economic reliance upon the government. However at the end of the day you can never truly snuff out the drive for freedom, self determination, and independence to govern your own way. Such a one world government is doomed to fail in any period, past, present, or future.

 

[telge2]

I think it's a mistake to zero in on UK/EU. The overall trend in post-Roman Europe has been unification since Charlemagne et al started glomping small kingdoms into bigger kingdoms. You get the occasional reversal and breakaway, but the trend is there.

Heck, even Australia is getting in on it - we're basically part of Eurovision now!

Unification is the trend? Really?

Europe in 1900.

Europe in 2016.

And we might have to put Catalonia on that map soon, also, if the UK leaves the EU Scotland probably leaves the UK.

 

[Arroz]

I will never understand why a unified Earth is such a frowned upon idea. Why not live in a world where people can choose what culture they want to be a part of? The world would be a far better place if we had one language, one set of morals, and no deity-based philosophy, along with a few other things that I won't mention here. In the end we are all the same species, conflict amongst ourselves is what sets us apart from other animals and is what constantly threatens to end our species entirely.

Perhaps as we mature more people will understand that nationalism is outdated and dangerous.

All I wanted to say to this post is that intraspecies conflict in no way sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have well-documented cases of groups of other species, such as chimps and gorillas, fighting against each other.

Unification is the trend? Really?

Europe in 1900.

Europe in 2016.

And we might have to put Catalonia on that map soon, also, if the UK leaves the EU Scotland probably leaves the UK.

I think they were talking more about economic union and less union as in being ruled by a single national entity. In many ways economic union is actually more powerful. It's on economies that nations are built, after all.

 

[stumason]

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.

In Babylon 5, while there is the Earth Alliance, they are by no means representative of the whole world and Nation states still exist, so yeah, I agree.

 

[telge2]

I think they were talking more about economic union and less union as in being ruled by a single national entity. In many ways economic union is actually more powerful. It's on economies that nations are built, after all.

The person I quoted was speaking about political unification. And yes, economic unification of the planet has already happened, but political unification is an absolutely different matter.

 

[eon47]

All I wanted to say to this post is that intraspecies conflict in no way sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have well-documented cases of groups of other species, such as chimps and gorillas, fighting against each other.


I think they were talking more about economic union and less union as in being ruled by a single national entity. In many ways economic union is actually more powerful. It's on economies that nations are built, after all.

And chimpanzees have been known to practice cannibalism during their conflicts. It's not all songs and kumbaya in the animal kingdom.

 

[Trithemius]

So Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere, is now managing Europe's seasons and economy...?

On another note: The US provides a significant amount of funding to the UN. That's why African ethnic cleansers are on the Human Rights Commission, to make sure they can use that funding to fund their little wars without getting world attention for it.

By extension, a lot of nations, Japan/Russia/China even, are in the UN merely because the US is. If China wanted to run affairs with a world council, Vietnam, India, Korea, Korea Kim, Japan, Australia, Mongolia, and even Russia would do better to form their own world council.

I think you need to verify your assertions somewhat.

You seem confused about the role of the UNECE and the importance of former colonial exporters on European economies!

You also seem confused about the UN US relationship.

Possibly some of this is due to your previously stated political inclinations?

 

[Trithemius]

I agree with you.

My theory is that people dislike the idea of a united Earth because it would force them to face up to hard social issues that require solutions. As long as the nations of the world are divided, then people can concentrate on the benefits that exploitative trading and political agreements bring to their nation and forget the downsides. The poorer people of the world can be comfortably dehumanised because they aren't considered part of "us", and so their problems can be ignored as non-pressing issues.

It's a selfish mindset, yes, but sadly humans are very good at being selfish. Hopefully this is something we can work on as we move forwards. It's certainly something that I try to work on on a personal level.

Exactly!

 

[Okawoa]

O.K. but I would love a "hostile nation" tile-blocker :-D. It can be limited 1-2 per planet. Would be sooo~~~~~~ cool.

 

[danest]

In Ck2, you could be emperor of the known world and still have a grumpy priest, mayor, or baron, so I'm not really sure why a space empire couldn't have a politically divided planet. Supposedly, the player's planet is assumed to be united with government type for simplicity's sake. I'd believe it coming from Gal Civ or the like, but I find that... unlikely, coming from Paradox.
Blockers aren't a bad idea perhaps, but ground wars for control of an entire planet seem almost trivial and simple so that could be the issue. Apparently completely conquering an entire planet is fairly quick and not that complicated in this future stellaris portrays, so that could explain why there are no other grumpy nations acting as blockers.

 

[urkuru]

take it this way....
1)one nation somehow manages to hide development of orbital bomber fleet, and then deploys it.... who you think will win global domination?
2)species doesn't have such major ethnic, cultural differences as humans do, there of Bismarks Geman unification is quite possible. or United States of Everything
3)chance is that planets environment essential forces to co-operate for survival, thereof distinctly removing need to go down tribalism/nation route
4)If political stand-off between nation powers goes on long enough without open conflict, then over time cooperation and eventual unification in one for or other is possible (might be superstate with multiple parliaments... like Austria-Hungary)

unification is possible, even on earth.. trick is how or who is going to achieve it. After all, with some "hi-cups" on the way, humans are already going towards unification, might it be loose one or tight...

 

[Trithemius]

Contrary thoughts:
Surely interstellar states that value diversity of states would be Individualistic - each pop or pop faction with diverging ethics could be a seperate sub-state/clan/guild/association/etc? This could represent an ME style Systems Alliance (aka the Player Empire) and its constituent countries.

As ethics diverge the constituent parts move past the moment of unity that got then to interstellar space and return to their prior interests?

Plus you never research that World Unification Sociological Tech.

 

[stumason]

unification is possible, even on earth.. trick is how or who is going to achieve it. After all, with some "hi-cups" on the way, humans are already going towards unification, might it be loose one or tight...

It will be me - I can't tell you much, but my army of genetically enhanced super-soldiers that I am putting together under a mountain range somewhere is coming to fruition. It's just a shame that the first stage of the project suffered a mishap (demons don't exist, so it wasn't demons...who said demons? Kill him!) and now I have lost my 20 Super-super soldiers that were going to lead them......

 

[urkuru]

s that I am putting together under a mountain range somewhere is coming to fruition. It's just a shame that the first stage of the project suffered a mishap (demons don't exist, so it wasn't demons...who said demons? Kill him!) and now I have lost my 20 Sup

im sure you are on the right track

 

[Summin Cool]

I agree with you.

My theory is that people dislike the idea of a united Earth because it would force them to face up to hard social issues that require solutions. As long as the nations of the world are divided, then people can concentrate on the benefits that exploitative trading and political agreements bring to their nation and forget the downsides. The poorer people of the world can be comfortably dehumanised because they aren't considered part of "us", and so their problems can be ignored as non-pressing issues.

It's a selfish mindset, yes, but sadly humans are very good at being selfish. Hopefully this is something we can work on as we move forwards. It's certainly something that I try to work on on a personal level.

Well, it sort of works like that and sort of does not. The issue with the poor nations is that they have missed the opportunity of becoming a richer nation because of the people well choosing to be poor, take the differences between Australia and African nations.

Both were subject to colonization from European countries and the result as of today is that Australia is a rich first world country with a advanced infrastructure in the major cities. Political differences within is resolved in the government and law if it comes to that.

Then we take the African nations and what do we get? A complicated mess where there is hardly any infrastructure, technology is set back to a third world standard and most of the political spectrum grows out of the barrel of a gun although a few countries are embracing democracy such as Nigeria.

but why is this a thing? The Africans have plenty of resources to gather and trade with, they had roughly the same level of infrastructure as Australia. I reckon it's not because they are being dehumanised or exploited, would it not be all over the news? they simply just made a poor life choice as a whole nation. They rejected the infrastructure the colonization period brought them. They made a mistake, the reason for it doesn't really matter, and this has set them back in the race to civilization and quality of life for their people.

 

[Grivies97]

There is only one way how a planetary Unification could work:

 

[stumason]

im sure you are on the right track

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

 

[urkuru]

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

running out of manpower?