Thursday, August 4, 2011

Day 14 - Globalism

It has been a few days (to say the least) since my previous post.  Sometimes the realities of life can take longer than expected.  In any case, I am writing about something that has been deep in my mind for a long time: Globalism.

Anyone that has been following along may remember a previous post regarding the idea of H.O.P.E. (from my Day - 10) blog.  You should check it out now, if you haven't read it.  Anyway, the idea was that in order for Humans to explore space "Star Trek style", we would need to make leaps of faith and people would have to work together.  This concept actually originated in a previously less mature idea, that has since been "fully" developed in my mind: Globalism.

Before I begin, I did a little search to see if the idea of Globalism has been constructed and discussed in full.  There is a wiki page for it and several items of note discussing the idea of Globalism and globalization.  At the end of the blog, I will post some reference links so you can check them out.


My definition, for purposes of this blog, of Globalism is this:  The unification of world powers and nations to create a global entity capable of enforcing basic human rights, settling conflict, making scientific progressions for Humanity, and, in the long term, being established as the representative of Earth.

We have several groups and alliances and such that were formed due to pressing issues at the time, but most of it is not focused on Humanity as a whole, instead it is for the benefit of the participating countries.  We have severe financial issues looming around the world, military conflicts, natural disasters, basic human rights violations, poverty and famine.  These issues are generally handled by a few countries that attempt to solve them, the US being a major contender in leading these efforts.  The problem is that the US is now taking on too much responsibility and our interior structure is beginning to collapse because we are stretched to thin, financially (which trickles problems down).  This effect can also be seen in equally helpful, yet smaller, Euro nations.

One major issue is resources.  We can't supply resources for every third world country in addition to our own population.  When I refer to "We" now, it is all countries that embrace these burdens, not just the US.  However, we can't simply sit back and watch fellow human beings die of starvation because of where they were born.  In order for a species to survive it must do what it can to make sure those that want to survive have a chance.  With diversity among our species our chances for long term survival increase.  The varied ways of help can be debated about, but in the end, it comes down to helping and working together.

So how is this problem solved?  Globalism. 
The problems will only get worse, the resource deficit will get larger, the poverty base will increase, and more nations will fall victim to losing their 1st world country status.  Only small nations like Switzerland will have a fighting chance, but they certainly will not be in a position to pick up the responsibilities that the US will be unable to maintain.  The only way, I can see, to solve this is to have a country only worry about itself.  However, this will completely negate our requirements as Humans to help out eachother and the less fortunate of our species.  Many of our resources are spent protecting our intellectual properties in science and defense against other nations, while they are using resources to achieve the same things we have already discovered.  This is a giant waste of time and resources.

What is the first step in the solution of Globalism?
  We need to create a body, a governmental type body that is neutral to Earth and it's citizens.  In my opinion, this should be setup in Africa.  My thought would either be central Africa at the edge of the desert line, or in the Horn of Africa.  This will be a massive city, so it will need space.  However, there are some serious benefits to this.  Many people in the area are poor and famished, and many areas are just wide open land.  The need to build this city will require hundreds of thousands of jobs which can immediately boost local economies and help immediately offset some of the local poverty issues in the areas surrounding.  The city should be as green as technologically possible and leave little, to no, carbon footprint.  This will be a feat, but it is manageable if tackled from the beginning.  The city should have science labs, administration buildings, conference centers, airport, military base, and a small local economy for the residents of the city.  It is possible that this will help push growth to outside of the city itself for citizens looking to get away for awhile and help spur the local economies even more.  In any event, this is how it should be done.  My suggestion for Africa is simply because it is the most central and underdeveloped area on the planet to most of the world's major powers and nations.   Of course, this will all need to be funded...

How is this whole thing going to get funded and managed?
  Well, it needs to be created and setup under the same idea of our current Alliances.  Countries wishing to partake will band together and use their funding and resources to create this central location.  Citizens from their nations will have the option of being citizens of this new city and, for all purposes, a sovereign nation, although unable to declare freedom from its governing nations.  For now, I will continue to refer to this new area as EA (Earth Alliance).  Of course, the original expenditures will be grand and any future nation wishing to join will need to contribute resources, in relation to it's population size, in ratio to the original founding nations resource contributions.  There will be a military and scientists and governing personnel from all allied nations.  Any nation wishing to partake must strictly follow the guidelines required by EA.  Most of these will be the removal of nuclear warheads from joining countries, the open border policy of allowing any nation part of EA access to their country, as long as that country follows strict citizen identification requirements, and such.  Each participating country would need to pay a "membership fee", more like resources and such that need to continue the operations of the EA.  The ratio percentage will be flat, for example all participating countries will contribute 10% of their resources annually, just as an example. 

So why go through all of this effort?
It needs to be done because it is a necessity.  Either now or in the future this will have to happen.  Wasting resources might be a luxury we have now (although not really), but it soon will become a forceful situation where we need to preserve everything we have.  Bickering over which country is more superior for some imaginary title of supreme ruler of Earth will need to come to an end.  With the EA, nations will be able to focus less resources into the things that are equal to Humanity: civil rights, defense, aid, scientific breakthroughs, etc.  All nations will benefit from the EA that adhere to the guidelines set by the EA, which is determined by authoritive figures designated by each nation.  In the end, each nation is trying to be first, so that they have the coveted technology and they will be the leading nation, for, in the end, more money, bigger armies and a greater sphere of influence.

The problem is that more competition is requiring more money, so the return on these investments is becoming more of a deficit than a surplus, to the point where all of our nations will put themselves in debt, by trying to outdo eachother to make more money....  Bigger armies.. another debt.  It just isn't necessary anymore.  We are not in the Imperliastic Roman times or Victorian-era.  Times are different, at the very worst, we would only need one large army of Earth to defend against some invading alien species.  Again, that is just at speculation on the only reason we'd need a large standing army.  In that case, our countries would work together anyway to defend Earth and it's citizens.  Our armies work in small units now, to take our localized extremist groups.  Nobody is worried about a red scare or the rise of the Kremlin anymore, those days are over.  Even the sphere of influence is useless.  Technology is reigning supreme.  Microsoft and Apple have a larger effect on the global population than the US or China.  This is true with hardware manufacturers for cell phones and networking equipment, car manufacturers, etc.  The business world is already embracing globalism because it makes fiscal sense.  It will do the same for our governments.

In the end, we can take the things that are important to all of Humanity and put them on the responsibility of all nations, not just a few.  This will leave the nations with time and finances to spend on local and culturally significant things individual to each nation.  Citizens in the US, China, Iraq, South Africe, the EU, etc can live in peace knowing that a global power is at work protecting the freedoms that all creatures deserve to have without having messy political battles and a country completely defunded.  Even jobs, in my opinion would sore, the EA could dish out manufacturing responsiblities to many nations for military production, food production, scientific equipment, contractors, etc.  Space exploration, at least deep space exploration, is hindered by nations competing against eachother to do the same thing.  Imagine if Russia, China, and the US worked together on a space project?  I guarantee we would be landing on Mars in less than 10 years.  It would take a great deal of work and effort, but the end result, I think, would solve a lot of our on going issues in the world today.