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Comment by reb | Hacker News Reader

It’s eerie how similar the issues facing western nations are and how intractable the disagreements over solutions have become.

Desperate balkanization coming for many, I think.

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What’s remarkable is that everyone recognizes that “the disagreements over solutions have become” “intractable” but thinks the solution is to handle more things at the federal/EU/UN level.

Close cooperation has many benefits and the further dissection of nations has significant costs. I don’t think it’s surprising people aren’t rushing toward what comes next.

Except for the accelerationists, of course.

There is nothing remarkable about that. Large problems require large entities to solve them, the kind of hole a country or state can dig itself into requires the next level up to dig it out again.

This is precisely why problems that affect the whole world are so hard to solve: we are not that well organized at that level, there are no sanctions for bad actors that are effective and with veto power and various power blocks not in alignment with each other the stage is set for a lot of misery.

It's not like we can appeal to the union of planets to bail us out.

Pff, the GOP centralizes power like nobody's business at the state level, it's just a collection of fiefdoms.

I always wonder why balkanization is described as "desperate" or some other extremely bad thing.

What percentage of these country breakups end up in some sort of destabilizing violence and lowered standards of living for a generation?

Because breaking up countries, let alone over fuzzy ethnic lines, is seldom a peaceful process that leads to prosperous smaller countries (over one's lifetime anyway). A most common outcome seems to be violence and war short-mid term followed by poverty and corruption long term.

The war in former Yugoslavia was pretty horrible and they're by no means over it.

But how much of that was caused by the invention of "Yugoslavia" in the first place?

Can't usher in a new order if the old order is still functioning.

Or an opportunity for a powerful figure to take power by force and rule over all.

I'm not for dictatorships, but we already have too many countries in the world. And provinces and states within these countries. Too many little fiefdoms. Too many wannabe lords. Too many presidents, premiers, prime ministers, governors, chancellors, kings, emperors. Too many parliaments, congresses, too many senators, deputies, representatives. Too much division. Hell, we're going to have American, Chinese, and European bases on the Moon and Mars. No wonder we can't tackle collective challenges. We'll be traveling through other galaxies and still call ourselves based on the particular piece of land we were born in on this particular planet called the Earth.

I fully acknowledge that this is a privileged point of view on my part. I am lucky enough to live in an industrialized and peaceful enough country to be able to hold this opinion without having to worry about my basic survival.

> We'll be traveling through other galaxies

Counterpoint: no we won't lol.

There’s nothing wrong with local autonomy, why should I be ruled by people who don’t share my values thousands of miles away.

If people share your values and are ruling in your interest then it doesn't matter if they are far away. If someone is ruling against your interest and doesn't share your values, it's no benefit if they're local.

And what does "local" mean? London to Brussels is only 200 miles direct, that's closer than Belfast, Edinburgh, or St Davids which are all places more or less ruled by London as "local" to the UK.

There we go again. The local fiefdom. More division.

Distance does not matter. It should not matter.

Was this translated from original Russian? Honestly, it really does sound like you're for dictatorships.

I think all that diversity - sure, even competing bases on the Moon - is the sign of a healthy society. Monoculture is much more perilous. Centralization gives you NASA, market chaos gives you SpaceX.

Without NASA there would not be a SpaceX.

You cannot know that. NASA flew shuttle payloads for decades at a substantial loss. Who knows what aerospace companies might have filled that void.

I don't recall the NRO or the military using the shuttle much. The shuttle flew for NASA projects. No NASA, no projects.

I would exercise restraint with extrapolations here.

Countries with lowest homicide rates: Least diverse.

US States with lowest homicide rates: Least diverse.

There are some exceptions, however in general this statement is true when we look at the entire data set.

Market chaos also gives you walled gardens like Google/Apple App stores with outlandish fees and company policies like this one: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/06/eff-urges-apple-abandon...

This reads a lot like calls for fascism in the interwar years.

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