If there were only two humans left alive, they would probably hate each other. And you think 8+ billion people are going to get along?
Keep dreaming.
Well you can define upwards. The key is not thinking that it happens by some Hegelian mechanism, i.e. that there is not force that means history must always lead to things getting better, and understanding that one's choice of better is subjective.
I think the world of today is better overall, but hardly in every respect, than the world of the period I study, but that involves a lot of very subject value calls. I'm totally aware it's not better in any sort of platonic sense.
Sure, I'm an economic historian that looks at state building and political-economy so I;m not about to disagree with you there.
Kinda sorta. Why does England end at the Tweed? If you want an example involving extant sovereign states, why is Schleswig-Holstein part of Germany not Denmark? This is a bit ironic because you're coming off as a pretty strong Marxist here, and I kinda doubt that's your position based on other things I've read.
Of course, I would never disagree. I wasn't saying that scarcity isn't an issue, I'm just saying there are forces that can drive conflict.
Think of corruption in the state. Think of trying to enforce ideological conformity especially in regards to political-philosophy. Think of if America was able to become the only state and continued to enact racist policies.[/B]
Again not all issues are material and ideology, pace vular Marxism, doesn't always simply derive from material circumstance.
External pressures have often tended to either alleviate a number of these problems, provide alternative models for development, or provide a space for dissidents to work towards reform.
That's pretty much what I meant, that history doesn't move towards an abstract idea of some kind of collective utopia.
These were just my thoughts about how removing scarcity would help bring about a unification. It's just about removing some wedges. Not all. Which it seems like we agree on.
If my Utopian future sounds Marxist, it's probably because society would need to be at a place in which Marxist ideals can function before we could potentially unify!
This is why I brought up a need for a higher state of intelligence. Maybe genetically, as another poster suggested, but also possibly through mechanical means. Think ghost in the shell modifications. If all humans born after 2050 started with 100x the mental capacity of what we currently think of as intelligence, where does that take us?
Do the concepts of racism and political ideology even make sense in that scenario?
This is a weird argument. 500 years ago we didn't have nations, now we do. That's not moving towards a unitary state, it's moving away from one. There's now an ideological pressure pushing for a diversity of states as opposed to only an institutional and logistic one.
Also the bolded is incredibly Whiggish in a particularly unfounded way. What's bringing the world together? Why is that enough to overcome all the hurdles to a single state? Are there not countervailing centrifugal forces?
If there were only two humans left alive, they would probably hate each other. And you think 8+ billion people are going to get along?
Keep dreaming.
Never
There's a reason the song is called "Imagine"
Uhhh, yes it did?
Maybe by the time we have another supercontinent (Pangaea Ultima), which could happen in about 250 million years.
It will happen. The way a single corporation can prosper all over the world today, is just the start.
The world has never been as connected as it is today. And now we have apps and games and international connectivity on the internet. Corporations will bring everyone closer.
Governments will bend to corporate interests.
When the aliens invade.
june 12 2024
This is just a random assumption.
?
Governments already bend to corporate interests all the time.
post singularity
Here's the thing though. Many conflicts are over access to resources, but nothing about the question actually requires a reduction in conflict. I think the end of scarcity would be helpful towards a Utopian ideal, but I don't think its necessarily, let alone sufficient, for a single state.
I wasn't saying your future sounded Marxist, I was saying your reasoning struck me as Marxist. It seemed at least somewhat historical materialist.
I mean I think this is too far in the realm of technological counterfactual for us to actually say anything based on our current social models.
I'm not sure why increased "intelligence" means the end of racism or political-philosophy. I mean it's possible I suppose.
This isn't a very good argument. We have an extant state with 1.4 billion people.
That shares, for the large part, a common language (though with differing dialects), culture and history. And does so with a kind of authority and brutality that gets more difficult to enforce the more people you throw in.
And even then you sort of have fray around the edges with say, Taiwan, Tibet, the Uighurs.
Something about human society would pretty fundamentally need to change.
Sure, but we're in a thread asking for a specific date in which some wild hypothetical unification could happen. At least from the Utopian perspective, conjecture seems like all we can muster.
I suppose it doesn't guarantee things change, but if we're all more logical well reasoned people, one would hope our actions would follow suit. We're operating under the premise that racism is wrong. There isn't wiggle room there. So well reasoned people should come to the correct conclusion easier than someone who's more easily manipulated. Same thing with politics and economics. There may not be a right or wrong, but there is a better and best. Both things that should be easier to discern with a larger mental capacity. We even have evidence which show that a higher education leads to more liberal beliefs via voting patterns.
That will never happen unless religion is somehow removed from people's minds.
The question isn't when are we all the same person though, it's when would there be a single nation, by which he probably meant state.
Nothing about being the same person, but states and nationalism are facilitated by those types of commonalities. Common words, common flags, common legends, common cultures, common politics, between its citizens and territory, and as China shows us notably with Taiwan, you get stress even then.
Now imagine trying to merge the Chinese state with say, the Indian state. How would that even work? It wouldn't without changing something fundamental about how people organise their societies.
So you're saying communication and cultural similarities are extremely important factors. Tell me, over time do you see communication becoming more difficult and less common? And cultures becoming more alien to each other?That shares, for the large part, a common language (though with differing dialects), culture