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OTOH alot of Pentagon folks will REALLY want to stay important, and the fundies are likely to say and do obnoxious things.
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I think they will want to be less importnat, I don't relish the thought of trying to be peacekeepers of 300 million people"The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously. -
Merging states... more likely than waking up tomorrow and finding the world pop at 300k, but still not terribly likely.
Prop rep doesn't solve the problem of either too many reps or reps representing too many people...
Agreed on federal territories at least to start, but that can't last too long.
Oh, btw, what happens to Puerto Rico, Guam, etc? Did the OP specify?
-Arriangrog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.Comment
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alternatively, we dont have to annex ALL of the ROW. We COULD expand ENOUGH to keep the USA hegemonic, while granting dominion status to the rest, and keeping them small. Lets say a USA consisting of North America, the Pampas of Argentina (for its grain) the Persian Gulf, Southern Africa (for its minerals) UK (for minerals, an airstrip off eurasia, and nostalgia) and maybe Australia. The rest will be English speaking dominions, and none will be permitted to get very big.Originally posted by Arrian
There would have to be fundamental changes in the US government, if it is to govern the world, though, don't you think?
Congress would either get totally unwieldy, with thousands upon thousands of representatives, or each rep would "represent" a ridiculous number of people (eventually). Neither strikes me as good. How does one deal with that?
-Arrian"A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin BuberComment
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I don't think that "keeping them small" is a long-term option, LotM. Where there is some space, people will go. Population isn't really under government control, unless you're envisioning more government "reform" than I'm talking about...
-Arriangrog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.Comment
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Nah, they'd just be waiting in their natural reservoirs for a chance to jump the species barrier once the eager american settlers arrive.Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Also, think of the diseases that would disappear, which have been mostly eradicated in the US (or never really spread here) but are big problems in the developing world.Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
-Richard DawkinsComment
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You are overestimating its culturally unifying powers, if anything the internet allows likeminded people to get together, giving them a tool to organise themselves. Hollywood is a mass culture center, the internet is more the domain of emergent phenomena.Originally posted by lord of the mark
We got the internet and all, they'll never become that distant culturally.
Regarding the stuff I didn’t quote. I doubt a world government would be stable for ever, especially considering the fact that it would start its life with a modern-day existing culture, based on nationalism, which has no meaning in such a world. And American nationalism is funny at that, since it is, at least theoretically, built on an idea. What happens when large segments of society start to diversify ideologically?Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez DávilaComment
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Though theoretically we could be properly prepared for that such that the impact would be minor.Originally posted by Starchild
Nah, they'd just be waiting in their natural reservoirs for a chance to jump the species barrier once the eager american settlers arrive.
Theoretically.
-Arriangrog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.Comment
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That is precisely what I meant with my previous comment. Unless the government gets really oppressive it won't be able to keep the people in.Originally posted by Arrian
I don't think that "keeping them small" is a long-term option, LotM. Where there is some space, people will go. Population isn't really under government control, unless you're envisioning more government "reform" than I'm talking about...
-ArrianModern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez DávilaComment
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I don't see how we diverge that much culturally. After 400 years we're still not all that far from Great Britain, and there wasn't nearly as much contact between the American and GB for most of that as there would be with the American "colonies".Comment
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No thats cool, I dont mean keeping stuff off limits. But the guys who settle Ukraine, will be one dominion. Central Russia, another. Siberia another. Hell west Siberia, and east Siberia. Whoever gets the Yangtze basin, doesnt get the rest of China. The minute any of these dominions makes a move to swallow even an acre of another one, the full force of the USA and the loyal dominions comes down on them. And the dominions are going to be rivals of their near neighbors, they'll never all unite against the mother country, and even if they did, it would be touch and go given the mother countrys dominant resource position and population. Also we're gonna keep close to elements in all the dominions, a la French neocolonialism.Originally posted by Arrian
I don't think that "keeping them small" is a long-term option, LotM. Where there is some space, people will go."A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin BuberComment
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Harder for them to jump into a society with modern sanitation and healthcare.Originally posted by Starchild
Nah, they'd just be waiting in their natural reservoirs for a chance to jump the species barrier once the eager american settlers arrive.Comment
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Right. I see the world repopulating in a mostly organic fashion, with some US-government led colonies. Control of the resources is one thing. Preventing people from going off and founding Bobistan in [whereverthereisn't oil/coal/metals/etc) is entirely another. Seeing as at least some such colonies will be filled with fundies, I'd expect their populations to rise rapidly. What is the US government going to do about that? Shoot them?
-Arriangrog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.Comment
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But the likeminded folks arent geographically concentrated. Any given interest or ideology or fashion, is likely to have most of its members in the USA. much more so than now.Originally posted by Heraclitus
You are overestimating its culturally unifying powers, if anything the internet allows likeminded people to get together, giving them a tool to organise themselves."A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin BuberComment
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Oh, ok, I get it. That makes more sense.Originally posted by lord of the mark
No thats cool, I dont mean keeping stuff off limits. But the guys who settle Ukraine, will be one dominion. Central Russia, another. Siberia another. Hell west Siberia, and east Siberia. Whoever gets the Yangtze basin, doesnt get the rest of China. The minute any of these dominions makes a move to swallow even an acre of another one, the full force of the USA and the loyal dominions comes down on them. And the dominions are going to be rivals of their near neighbors, they'll never all unite against the mother country, and even if they did, it would be touch and go given the mother countrys dominant resource position and population. Also we're gonna keep close to elements in all the dominions, a la French neocolonialism.
I dunno if all those people are really going to like being restricted to "dominion" status indefinitely, though. I rather doubt it...
-Arriangrog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.Comment
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Have you thought about what you're saying? Off course the military will try to stay important! It will be desperately searching for things to do. And pacifying 300 million people isn’t as hard as one might think, especially if you hold all of the sources of energy and the means of production. In fact a military controlled Orwellian government would be hard to get rid off in such a world. Even if a city breaks free they could always nuke it.Originally posted by Patroklos
I think they will want to be less importnat, I don't relish the thought of trying to be peacekeepers of 300 million peopleModern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez DávilaComment
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