Hacker News Reader

Comment by sergefaguet | Hacker News Reader

A lot of what they are saying is that governments are losing legitimacy and ability to deliver what people want, and this will shift governance and power to other institutions that will take over much of how humanity interacts.

I guess that is bleak for the spy agencies but not for the world overall. People will be happier with a reversal of the tendency of governments to get larger and a return to more fragmented communities that humans have evolved to be happy in.

I’m surprised they have the balls to say this though

View on HN

What you are describing is much closer to Mad Max than a Utopia. The world ended up as countries and governments for a reason.

It did, but perhaps the grounds that made countries and governments make sense no longer apply? After all nation states as we knew them today are a rather new innovation.

You are saying that modern countries are new and out of date?

This is a simple economy of scale. A government can provide stable security - police and military - consistent services, retirement benefits, certification, education, etc.

How a bunch of warring feudal clans are going to be in vogue again is hard to see. I mean, all of this is in medieval history. Technology did not suddenly make people "ready". If anything, it made us worse.

Relatively new, on the scale of human settled history. The Greek had city states and feudal Europe had feudal kingdoms.

I agree that security can probably best be provided at a level of states, but does a kid in the Ghetto really receive a comparative level of protection, service or education as another kid in the US, chosen at random?

And also the flip side of security is that oppression can also best be delivered at the state level. North Koreans would be strictly better of if NK was a bunch of warring states.

Yep. The reason was that geography based communities were relevant. That reason is getting out of date. And it is important to remember that nation states are a step in an evolutionary process, not the end point.

The reason these things are happening is that the world needs different institutions going forward and the failure of the old is part of that evolutionary process. And the old naturally dislikes being replaced and invents myths that claim this replacement is a negative event. It is not.

> The reason was that geography based communities were relevant. That reason is getting out of date.

Only for a very small part of the population though.

I have a physical body. It's going to be somewhere. I therefore care about the physical environment, security, and so on of that place. That isn't going to change until we can upload our consciousnesses. Virtual communities aren't enough to protect my body, and therefore virtual communities aren't enough.

One of the biggest takeaways from a college lit class was utopias and dystopias are the same thing, simply from different perspectives.

> People will be happier with a reversal of the tendency of governments to get larger

I disagree and suggest this is dependent on your political viewpoint.

Whilst some (very frequently in the USA!) recite the mantra of 'small government', most of us don't care how big or small a government is, providing it is effective. I'd argue an effective government is one that protects its subjects & citizens by providing universal healthcare, education, a justice system and defence to all.

Your opinions may differ!

Agreed! The outcomes of government are what matter to me. Many of the outcomes I expect like infrastructure, healthcare and education, take a lot of work to deliver. If the government is large to support these then so be it.

I'd also suggest that as the world gets more complex, governments should be getting larger. There are more facets to society that need understanding and regulating these days. I'd be alarmed if a government was shrinking under the conditions of population growth and high levels of technological advancement as that would suggest to me a dereliction of duty

Reply on news.ycombinator.com