Ask Lemmy

You mean like direct democracy where everyone votes on everything? Would there be any guardrails like the bill of rights from the us (currently being trampled on)? I could not see it working. You would at least need a legislature to craft legislation and then have at most one general populace vote a month with at least a month of lead time to read the legislature and the character count would need to be limited.

Everyone would need infrastructure, not only internet access, but also power, a smartphone and/or a PC. Still millions of people live in areas where they don't even have reliable electricity acces, or don't even know how to read and write. How would these people, that live of soley their land, buy a smartphone or PC and internet access and be able or know how to use it?

You first need world education, basic world infrastructure (water, electricity) before you can even dream of internet access.

Well, step 1 would be doing something about the US. The US wields enormous power and influence around the world despite having a relatively small population (compared to how much influence it has). What you're proposing is that every person in Africa, China, Southeast Asia, etc, should have equal say in what happens in the world as an American - I agree with that, as anyone who believes in democratic ideals should. But countries like the US that benefit from the current arrangement would never allow it, and are well armed enough to be a serious impediment to that goal.

Is that even desirable? Sure we really need to get our shit together as a species, but most voted are irrelevant to most people. If I have no stake in an election and no reason to be informed, aside from whatever streamers form my echo chamber, do you really want me voting in something local to you?

Why wouldn’t we still have representatives, organizational structure? If there are some things we all care about like world president, why wouldn’t that organizational structure hold votes like they do now? My state runs an election and gets a result. My country rolls up all the states and gets a result. The world election bureau rolls up all the countries and tabulates the overall. A practical answer doesn’t need the internet and can operate similar to now, except give the UN more power

I think you’re talking about “direct democracy”. Where I live, it’s fairly common to implement that by town hall such that every resident votes for every item. There are good things about that but it’s very unscalable: it only works for small towns. The internet can help with the procedural aspect of scaling, but you’d still be left having to figure out to vote on a massive scale for things you don’t know anything about and have no stake in. Who’s got time for that?

From an objective materialist standpoint, democracies are a tool of the ruling capitalist class to legitimize its own rule and keep their position of class domination while providing an illusion to the working class that they have some sort of power in the matter (they don't, all candidates are pre-selected so all you can choose is essentially the "flavor", who ultimately gets selected usually is determined via campaign money spending and media, once they're in power they gotta preserve the state machinery and capital in place etc).

Nationalism is also a very powerful tool of capital to unite people under single unified volk, deliberately obfuscating the class that might divide said volk and it's constantly used by opportunists and conservative elements.

Given these two statements, I don't think a world government like that can even exist, or if it did it'd implode via separatism from opportunists who want to be the next "great man". US for the longest time was and still is closest to this kind of position though, but they sure as shit are never going to let foreigners vote.

1. Scandinavian-style education everywhere.
2. Virtue > everything else in life > profits.
3. Only people like Marcus Aurelius in charge.

A single government to preside over the whole world? It just can’t work, ever. How is a president in India supposed to govern Iraq?

I found the book another now very insightful and it kind of touches on this

I can't see how a global democracy would be possible without some kind of "Other" as a uniting factor for humanity.

People would always put their interests first at the expense of others.

Now, some kind of proof of Aliens or something? Extra-dimensional psychic squid like at the end of Watchmen? Maybe.

Unironnically: Crypto, bro.

This sounds horrible, sorry.

We need borders because people are different with different and incompatible values. Good fences make good neighbours isn’t just a pithy saying, it’s a strong statement about the need for people to respect each other’s boundaries.

Look at the state of the US right now. It’s a horrific clash of incompatible ideologies. It would be much better for everyone involved if the US split up and people on both sides of that divide went their separate ways.

I’m at a point right now where I’m beginning to think the internet was a mistake that has undone so much progress in peace and civility. The internet accelerates divisions and allows extreme ideologies to grow and fester. It’s awful.