Skeptic Project

History isn't just WWII. Cover lessons on the Nazi's in later years and occasionally discuss their current actions.

There's always something.

(facepalm)

Yes even CJ would agree with us:
http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=76328

I could very well be wrong, but I think the only large resistor would be the USA.

We love independence, perhaps too much. :P

After I read two books for stupid Honors English. :/

Now that I think about it, Russians are really touchy about losing the Caucasus Mountains to ethnic people.
You'd think the largest country in the world wouldn't mind losing a puny mountain range.

A natural disaster, such as a biological plague, would at this age push us BACK, not forward.
Hopefully it never happens.

"I think global unification is inevitable. Okay, maybe not inevitable, but at least tends towards that direction."

Does it?

How so?

Seeing as we started as tribes, then became city-states, then nations, and now we're attempting to create international unions - I'd call that a tendency towards unification. Especially now that we are so connected, virtually via communication networks and physically via transportation, I see barriers to unification lessening and lessening. We're seeing a lot of mixed-race kids too, and if that trend continues we may lose the ability to discriminate based on race what with all these beige-colored people everywhere.

Do you see any indicators of decreasing unification? I think religion may be a big barrier to unification, but atheism is on the rise. Wealth gap may be a problem too, but that is also decreasing.

The failures of things like the United Nations seems to show otherwise.

I wasn't aware it was a failure, but if it is, it may be because it's too ahead of its time.

Banning of the Burqa in France and the discussion of it in other European nations. The Swiss wanting to ban minarets. The illegal immigration hot button here in the US. The controversy around the AZ law regarding illegal immigrants shows that many Americans are outright hostile to the notion.

I consider these things to be indicators of decreasing unification.

Is this kind of behavior better or worse than it was before (Ex: imperialism, genocides)? Tolerance of other cultures seems to be getting better on the whole, even though of course it may get worse in some instances.

The US and Mexico don't seem to be ready to unify yet because of the large socio-politico-economic differences between the two nations. If they unify, the US would be losing out.

Aside from trade, maybe an overall shift towards socialism would make unification easier, due to more egalitarianism. The world seems to be headed in that direction slowly, with the US just now catching up.

@duncanlecombre,

I'm glad you said "Book of Revelation," even as an atheist it annoys me when I see Christians say "Book of Revelations." Sort of like how as a programmer I hate it when people say "Visual Basics" but I don't use that programming language.

I've often thought it makes more sense to want the anti-Christ to come, because then Jesus will return. If you're a dispensationalist, as most American Christians tend to be, then before that you'll be whisked away to heaven.

C+, I forgot about that one. Did I mention I do a lot of PEARL?

"C+, I forgot about that one. Did I mention I do a lot of PEARL?"

PERL

NUKE-U-LAR

@ domokato

"Seeing as we started as tribes, then became city-states, then nations, and now we're attempting to create international unions - I'd call that a tendency towards unification. Especially now that we are so connected, virtually via communication networks and physically via transportation, I see barriers to unification lessening and lessening. We're seeing a lot of mixed-race kids too, and if that trend continues we may lose the ability to discriminate based on race what with all these beige-colored people everywhere.
Do you see any indicators of decreasing unification? I think religion may be a big barrier to unification, but atheism is on the rise. Wealth gap may be a problem too, but that is also decreasing."

This demands a thorough address, as this is an idea that seems to be prevalent in understandings of human development on the socio-political level, but which completely ignores a great deal of historical precedent. I will say now that a theoretical unification does have some great problems involved, but that is now what I am addressing in this post.

“Seeing as we started as tribes, then became city-states, then nations, and now we're attempting to create international unions - I'd call that a tendency towards unification”

This is a wonderfully simplified view of Western progression, but incomplete from a global standpoint. Consider first that the rise of “city states” was actually limited in its mature from to the Mediterranean cultures- notably Greece and Italy. City states were actually not a dominant political form throughout Europe, much less the globe. This is not to say that cities did not have a great importance, only that they were not the pinnacle of political development. Indeed, by the rise of the Roman Empire, most of Europe was firmly under imperial rule without having had the rule of city states in their society. This flies in the face of your generalization that progress follows a linear path from lower to larger along the order you described. The Parassii tribe in modern Paris never formed a city state, but were instead conquered by the Roman Empire and subjugated to Roman rule immediately. In fact, most of Europe was divided into empires, kingdoms, and religious domains. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire and Christendom as a whole emerged. This indeed represents a shrinking, not expansion of political units. And even these kingdoms were fraught with problems as Germany essentially disintegrated into a series of independent kingdoms and states. And by the time of the Treaty of Westphalia, Christendom itself was further split into states and kingdoms. This period of history shows how political structures reduced from the size of the Roman Empire (at its height dominating much of Europe and North Africa) down to states and empires that included Island nations and small principalities. The argument then has a huge historical problem even without looking to the development of other regions, including the Americas and East Asia.
But what about European Integration? As we have seen since the Greece financial crisis, integration has its limits. The German population have soured in their opinion of the EU, and despite all the progress of integration, unified political bodies have not emerged. Indeed, the European Union’s parliament is remarkably weak politically, and each member state must essentially make decisions amongst themselves because there is no functional, central EU government. Again, look at the Greece debt crises and how worried many members of the EU were that Germany wasn’t going to front the bailout. There is no effective political apparatus, and now it’s less likely than ever to emerge.
More recent geopolitical break-ups further damn the pattern you claim exists. Consider that since 1991, the number of autonomous states has actually increased (http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/newcountries.htm) as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union. And we cannot set aside the ethnic tension that further keeps the states apart, and even threatens further break ups (as happened between Kosovo and Serbia). Despite the integration of Europe (which has to date not limited those states sovereignty or existence) there has been a trend of fracturing historically rather than unification into larger units.

"We're seeing a lot of mixed-race kids too, and if that trend continues we may lose the ability to discriminate based on race what with all these beige-colored people everywhere".

As a “mixed-race kid” I’m going to have to doubt this statement pretty seriously. But personal anecdotes aside, you are only able to speak for American-perceptions of race and identity. There is no indication that such trends exist in countries like China, Sweden, Mongolia, Kenya, etc etc. There is still a great deal of more racially-homogenous nations that avoid this pattern almost entirely. Your claim also rests on the notion that racist behaviors are dependent upon skin color. There are racial tensions throughout the Balkans and central Europe not cued by skin color, but by language and facial features. I don’t think this is an ignorable aspect. Xenophobia is not decreasing everywhere, and it’s not contingent upon some “mixing of the races” but on a complex set of perceived differences. And, though I'm not denying the plausability of this statement, I'd like to know where you found that there is a rise in "mixed-race" kids.

I think religion may be a big barrier to unification, but atheism is on the rise. Wealth gap may be a problem too, but that is also decreasing.
I checked your claim that atheism is on the rise with the General Social Survey data (Available at www.norc.org/+gss) and found this pretty interesting. In 1972-1982 the number of respondents claiming they have no religion was 933. In 2006) that number fell to 739. (there were 13626 respondents in 1972-1982 and 1518 in 2006. When asked specifically about belief in God, 53 respondents in 1988-91 reported no belief in God (out of 3067) and in 2006 66 reported no belief in God (out of 1518). If atheism is on the rise, it sure has been doing so rather slowly, even in the United States. I’d like to see you quantitative data on the wealth gap too.

EDIT: .68% reported no religion in 1972-1982 and 4.8% in 2006. The number fell, but the precentage rose. However, this rise is still remarkably small when we compare the percentages of people who report a religion and a belief in god.

"Just because some populations "skipped a step" doesn't mean there isn't a long term trend towards unification. I can see how you thought I meant that there were certain steps in socio-political evolution, but I wasn't implying that."

Actually, I was pointing out that since the Roman Empire, the trend has been towards more fracturing, not more unification. Rome split in two, then those two empire split further apart, and by the modern era we arrived at smaller nation states with no political unification in the way the unified Roman Empire presented. The historical trend is not actually smaller to bigger over the full course of human history, but rather and series of expansions and contractions.

"Maybe in the near term."

Unfortunately you have no evidence that this will reverse. EU monetary policy is already on the rocks, and there has been no further integration politically among the states of Europe.

"This looks like a short-term effect caused by the wake of the Cold War, not a long term trend."

Also look to the end of World War II where states emerged as colonial powers retreated from the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Its not just the end of the Cold War- I used that as a recent example, but rather a trend that has followed global geopolitical unraveling. As European powers abandoned their colonies, these colonies cease to be directly controled by their metropoles and instead became independent nations. This trend of adding more autonomous nations rather than joining them together is much larger than just 1991- the present. And it still doesn't address why things like Kosovo or South Ossetia continue to happen.

"I am mixed, too. Would you look at that. How often do you think you would've met another mixed race person like myself even 100 years ago?"

Depends on where you are. Latin America was booming with "mixed race kids" 100 years ago. In fact, mixed race kids were the norm in Mexico after the Spanish conquest.

"And I don't think that that model for a nation is beneficial and makes them slightly more vulnerable to being out-competed by mixing-pot nations, in a similar way I think Apple will be out-competed in the smartphone markets unless it opens up its policies a bit."

I dont see a substantive argument here. Consider that Chinese growth has continued since the 1980s. What are you basing this on?

"Yes, but ALSO on racial mixing. Are you denying that race is an component of inter-population conflict?"

I'm denying that race the way in which we conceptualize race here is not the only way it is conceptualized. Like I said, ethnic tensions in Central Europe are not linked to skin color. Inter-population conflict can mean anything. German and French populations have fought eachother without an basis on race but rather on cultural-national identity. I'm saying that racial mixtures do not direct lead to a decrease in international conflict.

You must also consider that many cultures identify not racially, but cultural-linguistically. I don't think your claim of increases in sharing is founded. Yes globalization has lead to freedom of travel and communication, but we also have not seen a decrease in the number of international conflicts. Some political scientists have actually pointed out that there have been MORE, not fewer, military conflicts since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If globalization was really pulling us towards unification, why have we seen more nations emerge since WWII, a halt to European Integration and a failure to form a central political unit, and a persistence of racism even in our own society? Unified world government is not remotely plausible.

As for the global poverty decrease. Well:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4185458.stm

"Looking at long-term trends is my evidence. I reject that your example is evidence against unification - rather I consider it just another bubble popping. Some bubbles stick around, others don't. It's how evolution works. It's how business works. It's what happens when new things are tried out. If global unification doesn't happen within the next millenia, maybe then I'll start to despair."

But the trends dont show unification. There have been far fewer cases of integration and unification than of fracturing and division. Again, what you call a bubble, I call a trend. Since the Roman Empire, there has not been a geopolitical massing on the European continent. In fact, more and more states have emerged right up until the end of the Second World War. After World War I there was a rise of more independent nations in eastern and central europe. These were then taken up by the Soviet Union, and after the Union collapsed, these nations divided out and declared independence again. The same holds true globally. Yes, empires do reach a high point and then collapse- but thats the problem with all large administrative bodies. You say that we have overcome this, but we have not had the large, geopolitical conglomeration that would support your argument. Again, these are not bubbles but the trends themselves. What you seem to be observing is globalization- but thats not the same as unification. We have not seen nations surrender political sovereignty, but rather we have seen more countries claim it. Actually, aside from West and East Germany, I can't really think of a modern nation that has politically integrated itself with another. The EU has only been a monetary/trade federation with no collective decision making on political issues or security. The book "Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe" is a great book if you want to see how this political debate has panned out.
However, your "wait and see" argument is really just a cop out. The question is whether there are indicators that we are moving towards increased unfication, and my position is no. Historically we have seen more of a trend towards nations declaring independence and political autonomy. However, I readily note there is a trend towards economic globalization and international trade. I don't think that's up for debate. However, there has not been political integration. Look at Latin America where many indigenous groups in Boliva have wanted to break away from the nation that claims to represent them, or the Basque in Southern France and Northern Spain, or the Tamil in Sri Lanka, or the Papua New Guineans, and the list goes on. In todays world there are countless groups hoping for independence and not integration. Don't think that globalization is universally seen as a good thing.

" I said "slightly more vulnerable to being out-competed". Massive growth can dwarf the advantage of being more open. Similar to how having a superior product (iPhone) can dwarf the competition (which is more open), although recently we are seeing signs of faltering from Apple with the iPhone's antenna issues, OS issues, and the ever-growing number of Android phone users."

I dont know why we're talking about smartphones. My point is that there is not evidence to suggest that homogenous nations are less competitive than heterogeneous ones. Consider that Scandanavian nations are actually very homogenous racially, but that they are still very highly ranked in standards of living and economic output. This idea that meltingpot countries are inherently more successful is not quantitatively verified and thus highly contentious grounds for an argument.

"I see individual rights getting stronger. As this happens, I see people demanding more openness and transparency, so I see these as trends too. Countries that do not cater to people's demands will be at a disadvantage. They will lose business opportunities and goodwill."

You absolutely need to provide evidence for this. Human rights are constantly and repeatedly violated, and still countries continue to trade with human rights violators. And, in fact, many have argued that certain human rights have actually retreated, especially privacy. If you can somehow point me to a set of evidence that highlights this argument, I'd like to read it. yes, we as Americans fight for a vision of human rights, but our vision is not universally accepted.

"I didn't say they did. I said they are a source for conflict, and a reduction in racial differences can only reduce conflict."

So is racism ending abroad as well as in the United States? And dont forget that racism is not dead in the United States. We still have hate crimes, racial-poverty divides, and racial profiling. Arizona, anybody? Again, I dont see evidence that conflicts globally are decreasing- hell they may even be increasing.

As for the poverty article, that was my bad. But I really don't see things getting substantially better for the world's poor:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats</p>

Just to clarify my own position- I favor political regionalism, but the idea that political self-determination or identification will recede. Especially seeing how the trend (not the bubble) is towards fracturing of political power.