Now this is a genuinely interesting discussion on politics.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2018011 ... o-fix-them

Most governments are woefully outdated. They reflect concerns of the late 19th Century, when many of them came into being: communication was expensive and data difficult to come by, so they were organised into tightly structured, hierarchal silos linked to specific functions, such as security or justice.

Today, the world is radically more interlinked, fast-moving and information-rich. But our governments aren’t.

Yeah, largely disagree.

Communication is not the primary reason for government.
Data being difficult to come by is not the primary reason for government.

The primary reasons were actually "security and justice" and these are not 19th century concerns, but timeless concerns, at least to non-masochists and a private police or army just wouldn't work, so we have government instead. The author pretty much undermines her own point in the first sentence.


No, I don't want governments interlinked more either because they often don't share core values. The author even acknowledges that countries like Turkey or Russia are moving more towards autocracy. Exactly what common ground can you find if you're NOT an autocracy and you won't want to be one?

If a country like the US becomes more "interlinked" with Russia or Turkey the only two outcomes can happen: Either Russia/Turkey will become more like the US (very unlikely) or (the more likely scenario) the US will compromise and become more like Russia and Turkey. It's much easier to be a corrupt autocracy than a free country. Corruption is the norm around the world, not the exception.

Countries should try to have friendly relationships, let's keep our distance, preserve our autonomy. There are already plenty of negative outcomes of globalism such as manufacturing jobs being shipped to China because Chinese workers don't have human rights and can basically be treated like crap and the government will shoot them if they complain. We don't need more globalism and that's not healthy labor competition at all. A free man will never be able to compete with the near slave labor in China.

She states:

This is already happening in even seemingly stable democracies. In the US, for example, 43 million people live in poverty – or about 14% of the population, compared to just 11% in 1973.

“That’s neither morally nor socially acceptable,” Al-Rodhan says. It may also be dangerous: “In time, those people will rebel and cause problems, because they have nothing to lose.”

Translation: "WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE REEEEEEEEEEE"

The unsupported assumptions here:

1. the government bears sole responsibility for poverty, it does not and in fact in many cases it shares none, if someone decides to get addicted to narcotics or drop out of school and screw up their life, that's not the government's fault, stop being a bum and maybe you won't be poor

2. that poverty = nothing to lose, this is false, the federal poverty line is around 11k dollars for a single household person, which may not seem like much, but it's NOT "nothing to lose" level and it's more than teachers in Ukraine make, so as you lefties say "check your privilege"

Poor people also get a bunch of welfare programs so their real income is higher as they get thousands of dollars worth of shit for free every year. Food stamps, Medicare etc - if they start a revolution, they lose that and they lose their families too since nobody wants to be married to a terrorist pretend-revolutionary and they're going to take away your children too if you have any, so another thing you can lose.

A better standard would be to answer the following questions: Can you feed yourself? Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have access to healthcare? (just to point out, poor people in the US have significantly better healthcare than rich Americans did a century ago) Can you entertain yourself? Plenty of poor people can answer yes to all.

3. that people who truly have nothing to lose can even start a revolution, this is pretty laughable considering that if you're in EXTREME poverty you can't even afford to buy a gun, let alone organize a coordinated network necessary for a successful revolution, the author keeps forgetting what country this is, Americans have guns, a bunch of beggars who want free shit acquired by force have no chance to even breach a home and live let alone take over the White House and govern successfully

In such case, your entire "revolution" will consist of you making a fool of yourself in public followed by being arrested for disorderly conduct, not even worth a sedition charge. There's your "revolution". Ended before it even got off the ground with the help of 2 cops who will laugh at you all the way to the station.

I have no idea how she can also favor the following idea:

One way to improve governance, Wilkinson says, may be shifting from state-centric government to polycentrism – a lack of central control.

And at the same time support the EU or governments being more interlinked in general.

These positions are contradictory. You either centralize power (with organizations like the EU) or you don't (you leave power locally as much as possible and even make state governments smaller so local governments can have more decision making). Can't have it both ways.

Guns Germs and Steel has interesting points about this matter. Agriculture allows for the possibility of government. This is because prior to farming the energy of all individuals (expect children and those looking after them) would mostly be focused on inefficient means of getting food. Once the more efficient practise of agriculture came along you could feed everyone with a lot less labour, thus you could have social roles that have nothing to do with gathering or hunting food. Soldiers and kings for example. Groups could build specialized armies and rulers could conquer larger areas.

It has always involved a class of people living off of everyone elses crop (or cash in today's world) over time there has been a corrective struggle whereby the tax payers (tax would have been your crops back then) have sought to correct this injustice by making leaders representatives of them, rather than unelected dictators. There is a long way to go in that journey and there will probably always be a sense of injustice about it, but society is a hell of a lot better now than it was even 100 years ago.

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Laurens wrote:Guns Germs and Steel has interesting points about this matter. Agriculture allows for the possibility of government. This is because prior to farming the energy of all individuals (expect children and those looking after them) would mostly be focused on inefficient means of getting food. Once the more efficient practise of agriculture came along you could feed everyone with a lot less labour, thus you could have social roles that have nothing to do with gathering or hunting food. Soldiers and kings for example. Groups could build specialized armies and rulers could conquer larger areas.

It has always involved a class of people living off of everyone elses crop (or cash in today's world) over time there has been a corrective struggle whereby the tax payers (tax would have been your crops back then) have sought to correct this injustice by making leaders representatives of them, rather than unelected dictators. There is a long way to go in that journey and there will probably always be a sense of injustice about it, but society is a hell of a lot better now than it was even 100 years ago.

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Excellent post, Laurens.