Astronauts on the International Space Station look down at night and see cities.
They look down during the day and see continents.
At no time do they see countries.
Countries are a fiction taught to us from a very early age, as part of a religion called 'Statism'.
At school we're taught about interesting people, outfits, cultural dishes and geography, all things which are fascinating and true; then we're taught to assign these cultural practices and languages to a coloured rectangle and the name of an imaginary area called 'Finland' or 'Venezuela' or 'Zaire'.
If it can be brought into existence or destroyed by simple agreement, then it doesn't exist; it's just a mental construct.
Now don't get me wrong, you love your country, and that's okay.
I love my marriage; but neither your country nor my marriage exists in any real sense.
Nobody's job ever caught fire. Nobody's marriage ever fell overboard in a storm. We might talk about them being stolen or lost, but this is just borrowing phrasing from the real world and applying it to our mental constructs.
If it stops existing when you stop believing in it; it's not real.
When I say I love Australia, I'm talking about a continent which was formed a long time ago by powerful geological processes. The thing astronauts see.
I'm not talking about a make-believe entity "formed" by a small group of old men in 1901. Nobody's ever seen that 'Australia', no matter how strongly they believe in it.
I'm open to being proven wrong. If you can demonstrate that there's actually a country on this beautiful continent, please do so.
There are buildings, people, vehicles, signs, uniforms and guns; but they're only evidence that people believe there's a country here.
Children's letters to Santa aren't evidence for Santa; they're evidence for widespread belief in Santa.
So when an Australian like myself notes that some others have hallucinated a country on his continent, and demanded he obey them or leave; it's only right and fitting to point out that there's nothing to leave, since their country doesn't actually exist in any real sense.
It's a religious construct, and I'm an apostate.
If the local Catholic church came looking for your tithe; claiming your house is in their parish/diocese or some other such fanciful geographic designation, you'd recognise their demand as baseless and tell them to pound sand.
Now, if they had the means and willingness to physically attack you, remove you from your house, auction it to the highest bidder and leave you homeless, you might choose to pay the tithe; but you'd recognise it for the robbery it is.
They'd blather on about the services the church offers, ironically including it's care for the homeless, and the 'free' schooling offered/required, and maybe your children would in this way be indoctrinated into sharing a belief in the diocese; they may even grow up to become tithe enforcers, but it would still be imaginary.
Politicians don't believe in countries.
If there's an invading army on the way and your house isn't strategically relevant in defense of the capital, there won't be a single soldier sent to your aid.
You know this to be true as you're reading it. While politicians and military brass present themselves as indispensable organisers of a strong 'National' defense, they're using their carefully cultivated belief in 'countries' to lure your sons away from their actual homes and families, to fight and die in defense of the chambers, robes and fancy chairs in the capital.
You get the downside of your belief in countries, they get the upside.
Even presupposing the existence of countries, the underlying threat has always been that you'd be worse off for actually leaving, as your licences and permits will offer limited to no benefit elsewhere, so you'll need to start over.
"You can always leave, but your earning capacity stays here" is a less than generous offer, and not by accident.
This is why they get so riled up about decentralisation. It makes a mockery of the concept of countries.
Your Uber driver reputation follows you from place to place, with no concern for borders, as does your crypto stash.
Every day they lose a little more ability to credibly claim that we need them to organise and authorise things.
- I'll hire an unlicensed plumber with a five star reputation over a guy with all the tickets and no online presence.
- My postal address is horribly cumbersome compared to my what3words address; because the latter has no interest in breaking the world down into countries.
- 3D printing means even physical goods ignore customs checkpoints.
- Home cooked, home delivered food will be next; and with a worldwide platform comes a worldwide reputation, and worldwide earning capacity.
Decentralisation forces them to either actively compete with each other for a finite number of taxpaying citizens, or to exert more onerous exit requirements, undermining that, 'You can always leave' mantra.
It's time to abandon the concept of countries. It's been hideously expensive, and they never existed anyway.
Well written piece and excellent thought experiment. Ontology always gets me riled up!!!
Thanks mate. It might be the burgeoning stacker in me, but I like to double check my premises.
Are these continents and cities on a round or flat earth? :P
Both round and flat, because it's a disk. Balanced on a turtle's shell; and the turtle's riding your mum :)
Totally agree. Countries are a figment of our imagination. In fact, it could be argued that they exist as a means of control of the people.
Have you considered that a country is made by the people and of the people? Limited government doesn’t control a population but can control who joins the population. With no controls, invasive and violent groups like Islamists are able to easily take control and destroy the society.
This post reminds me of a scene from planetes:
Are you saying countries exist?
Yes, it's like a church and like power. Countries exist when they are recognised. They're not tangible but can still exist.
When has there EVER been a limited government?
Governments are always limited. There are always things they can't do but want to do, and they always increase to do more, but it's never enough. And it's all about control over people.
Do you think that people do not need to be controlled? If someone steals your property would you agree that they should be able to get away with it?
nice idea..should give it a thought..thanks for sharing this with us.. :) leaves something for us to think deeply
I understand, value and share a lot of your sentiment here. I'm immediately reminded of the Enter Shikari song called Meltdown and my favorite quite from there:
(warning to people with gentle ears, the song contains quite a bit of screaming and distorted guitars :P)
But I wouldn't really say that the definition of real that would exclude countries is that useful and I wouldn't go with it. Countries are indeed artificial, but I do think they are as real as steemit, Uber and online plumber reputation. We don't need concepts to be physical for them to be real as I would call anything that profoundly affects the way we live practically real. Countries as artificial as they might be remain an inescapable part of reality of now, despite the fact that it's fair to classify them as a social phenomenon.
Additionally, I wouldn't say countries are all bad even if I get labeled a statist because of that. I just think that from a practical perspective, they are still a better way to cooperate and live together than anarchy. It's easy to see the problems with states and I would probably agree with the majority of criticism you might have for them, but I don't yet see a better alternative ready to replace them. In fact, it's easy to see the problems while taking all the benefits they provide to us for granted. Simple things like rule of law, contract enforcement, infrastructure, GPS or a globe-spanning universal and open network like the internet are all things that would have been very hard to achieve without countries doing their part.
Of course, I'm by no means saying that this is the best or most efficient possible social organization, but some organization is still preferable to me than no organization. And that keeping in mind that I live in a country that's objectively run a much worse way than the country taking up the continent of Australia.
Still, having talked about all those caveats, I think it's important and ultimately beneficial for the fact that countries are an artificial construct to be pointed out regularly as the way we live together on this planet as humans certainly needs an overhaul and realizing that countries do not deserve religious reverence is an important factor in being able to imaging a better system and working towards putting it in place.
I certainly agree society needs to be organised, and that people need to cooperate; I don't believe that this organisation and cooperation should or can be imposed involuntarily.
History and the current state of affairs clearly show that organization can certainly be imposed, should it is a separate matter. To me the question is if it is possible to have working and beneficial organization without making at least some limitations enforceable. I agree that living in a world where everybody agrees 100% with the way the world is organized would be great, but I personally recognize that as a truly utopian idea.
That's generally my problem with anarchy, I don't see any practical way or a practical possibility for anarchy to give me better protection for my rights than the arguably bad state I live in and as a part of. So I think in a state of realistic instead of idealistic anarchy, I would be more likely to be forced into involuntary situations than in the current world.
The game requires some rules and rules need to be somehow enforced to protect the players and current anarchism hasn't convinced me yet that it includes any realistic mechanisms to offer that. I am strongly convinced that the internet as an example would absolutely not exist if we lived under anarchy.
Of course, I also don't view it as a bad thing to be striving towards or to be promoting utopian ideas per se as it can also be a productive driver of change for the better. It's often better to start at a utopia and to look for the practical solution that's closer to the perfect utopia instead of to start with the status quo and to look for the practical solutions closest to it as they would be far from best and much further away from perfection.
What are you thinking of specifically?
What is the most crucial of the state's roles?
The one least likely to be provided well by a free market.
I mentioned many of them already, but I'll point out 3 that are crucial for me:
For the sake of brevity, which is the one you feel most clearly demonstrates the necessity of the state?
Hm, to be honest, that's a bit hard to answer. I'm torn between the internet and contracts. Let's go with the internet.
just found you via a group member and glad to have done so. An amazing mind youve got there. looking forward to your future posts as I delve into ur past ones
Thanks mate; I've been following you for a while now.
Your silver stuff is particularly fascinating.
I started my stack with the 2017 community coins, and I can feel the hooks sinking in.
Tell you one thing. The biggest threat to this planet imo is over-population and I never hear anyone discussing that. Soylent Green anyone?
But I like people. They're my favourite thing on this crazy ride. :)
What3words is wonderful! I love it!
Looks like a imagine..
Because everyone has different beliefs and preferences on how to live their lives I wonder if perhaps a truly free way of living is having community groups (small countries if you like) which you are free to leave if you aren't happy with the way they do things, because there will be lots of other places you can go. Then we can literally live and let live. If you don't like the way another culture does things, then leave them to it while you live the way you want.
"I'll hire an unlicensed plumber with a five star reputation over a guy with all the tickets and no online presence"
My hubby was in electrical and mechanical maintenance back in England, but here he can't apply his trade legally without two more years of training to get a licence. Yet he's the one who the A Class electricians come to when they can't figure out what's wrong. He finds the problem and tells them what needs doing, but they have to do the actual work because he legally can't! I recently found out that a B Class licence is needed just to take a motor out and replace it with a new one.
That's not an accident. It's designed to make it very difficult to relocate, while still maintaining you're 'free to leave.'
I thought it was designed so that they could make more money from you. Or maybe it's that too!
It's when they take away your freedom to do something, then sell it back to you.
Ah yes. Like the driver's licence.
Great post. Moderns ignorant of history can't imagine a world w/o the modern nation state not realizing it is a relatively recent concept that has done nothing but enslave, tax, and kill, millions of people. The ironically named Peace of Westphalia gave us the modern State while the French Revolution added Nationalism to it. Then came the Napoleonic wars. The ideal State is, like you say, cities. Just think of the contributions to philosophy, the arts and sciences, made by the cities of Athens, Rome, Florence and Venice, all of them existing as independent City-States.
It may be worth noting that no where in the Bible did God authorize man to create countries. If anything, it is an act of rebellion.
He tried to dissuade them from appointing a king.
I once asked one of my student what borders were for. After a moment of reflection he said: "so others don't take our resources."
I hadn't thought of that but it's so true, we close our doors (borders) so that neighbours can't raid the fridge...
That's pretty much the consensus. I don't think it quite translates that way though.
A: The stuff in your fridge is stuff that you worked for, not just stuff that happens to be near where you were born.
B: Borders and walls are very different things. Walls/fences keep people out of your property.
It's yours because you worked for it, or you bought it from somebody who worked for it. (homesteading)
It's been brought out of it's original state by human labour and is now property.
It's likely you wouldn't have bought it had you not assumed the right to exclude others.
Fences have gates and walls have doors, and for good reason. You also get to decide who comes into your property.
Borders prevent this. I have friends all over the world, many of whom can't come and visit me.
In that regard, borders actually limit my control over who enters my property.
Completely agree - I once got headbutted by a nationalistic Scot for trying to explain this to him in the pub. I think he thought I was suggesting that Scotland should have been part of England!
interesting post how things go one can never imagine i like this post a lot
Absolutely agree with you @mattclarke!! It's just this system that we are grew up with, make our belief-system like that. Since our childhood we are taught to see things in quite fictitious/seprate way.
But things are moving so rapidly that I believe that we will soon be re-unite again. ☺💚
In the US, at least, here's what I like about states. If you live in the US and are conservative you can move to places like Texas. If you're more liberal you can move to places like California. It's nice to be able to live in the same country, but move to people how more closely follow your beliefs.
While states aren't required for this to happen as it also happens on a more local basis, it would be nice if decentralisation drives governments to become smaller and smaller.
Secession for the win. All the way down to each household.
Texas tried about 8 years ago hahaha.
#califelicia
God does not see borders. He sees all people equally. However He does distinguish between sin and what is not sin. There is a reason why God told his people not to associate with the Canaanites. You do not mix vinegar and oil. There is a reason for countries and boarder. Moral and spiritual values are different. To do this may result in blending two polar opposites. Does not work. That is why Globalism is not a good idea. Of course politicians do not believe in countries. They want globalism. When you blend these it waters down the mixture and the purity from the original is gone. Cultures, religions and people need to be preserved and honored for future generations to enjoy. You do offer a good article I did upvote and enjoyed the read. Thanks @mattclarke.
I'm all about free association; we should all be free to end any relationship to which we don't consent.
Borders don't keep ideologies out, particularly now we're online.
You can end your relationship with the state by leaving. That’s the only way. You don’t get to live in land protected by the state without obeying the rules.
Leaving what?
The territory controlled by that state.
The entire continent I was born on?
Yes. The size of the land of the state is irrelevant.
He does not see all men equally, but all men are created with equal value.
I don't think any of us can know how God can see things.
It's written in the Bible that Got smited the sinners several times. That means he does not see the sinners as equal to the virtuous, but we also know that all men are created equal, meaning that human life has inherent value.
Theycmight defend you but only for the sake of their reputation and in retaliation against a threat to their power.
I don’t disagree with your premise here but i would hope people recognize currency is just as unreal. But just because something is unreal doesn’t mean we can’t play with it. I’m sure countries have served us in some way in the past even if just as an unintentional side effect. But is it serving us now? I don’t think it’s a simple yes or no but this is definetly a question worth asking so I’m very glad you brought this up.
Currency didn't used to be faith-based. The gold standard had real value.
Not everyone needs gold though. Perhaps some currencies are more real Han others though.
It doesn't matter if people need gold or not. It has physical form, it's scarce and the supply is relatively constant. It's a great object to build currency around because it's stable.
So gold is the continent or city and currency is the country. Gold is real, but the idea of currency is in our head, at least going by the logic of this article, which I happen to agree with.
Yes. Gold has real value, but if nobody accepts that as payment it has failed as a currency. Cities, land and physical landmarks have value but laws and the state don't do anything unless they're recognised.
It can happen only if we go back to the age of hunter gatherers.
what can happen?
Something akin to completely free association.
There are no borders from the "moon" :)
It is about knowing people and their side of the story..
It is about learning...,,,.,,.,
that's great....
Ahaan ☺☺
Can’t agree that we shouldn’t recognise countries. They can be used to identify cultural groups. With no countries, society inevitably collapses and every achievement our species has had up until now will be worthless.
There aren't any countries.
There are countries because they are recongised. There is power because we recognise it.
Out of interest do you believe that Google doesn't exist? Because Google is no more real than Australia. Hypothetically speaking you could kill all the shareholders at google, kill all the engineers working at google, kill the CEO of google and blow up all the servers and computers hosting google's data and yet Google would still exist. At the same time you could leave the servers intact, leave the CEO, the engineers and the shareholders alive and yet if an American court decides that Google is a monopoly and needs to be broken down then Google will stop to exist. I think it safe to say that the entity called Google doesn't physically exist it. Google only exists in our minds but that doesn't mean that Google doesn't exist. The same can be said about the nation of Australia. The same can be said about money. If a majority of people stopped believing in money or that Google exists then they would cease to exist. If a few people stopped believing in them they would still exist. I think you have made a categorical mistake with your allegory of Santa Clause because it doesn't matter how many believe or disbelieve in Santa Clause. He just doesn't exist. However it does matter how many people believe that Google, money or Australia exist. Think of Google, money and Australia as management systems. You may argue their advantages and their pitfalls but you can't argue that they are not in place.
Good point. Google's servers exist, but the organisation only exists as a shared mental construct.
Nobody's forcing others to participate in Google, though; so it's like a bridge or badminton club.
Believers in countries tend to impose this belief on others under threat of force, which is where it becomes a problem.
The difference between the two of us, I think, is that you don't believe that there is any function in society that requires the threat of violence and violence itself while I believe that the threat of violence is necessary, for among other things, to defend private property. At least I hope that you would agree that just because someone doesn't believe that Google exists that doesn't mean that Google doesn't exist, in the same way that Santa Clause doesn't exist. And that therefore countries still exist even if you may not believe that they do because just because something is a mental construct that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist.
I don't believe there's a valid role for aggression in society; (the initiation of violence).
Retaliatory or defensive violence certainly has a role, I'm no pacifist.
The state isn't a tool for the defence of private property, it's 'existence' requires the violation of private property through taxation.
Without the government armed gangs will form who will just take everyone's shit and fight each other until one gang will win and then you are just going to end up with a new government which is far worse than the system we have now of private property and democracy (at any rate in the free world).
And if we stopped throwing virgins into the volcano; the rain would never arrive, the crops would fail and many more people would die.
It's not perfect, but it's the best system we have.
That's a strawman. We already know that volcanoes are caused by tectonic shifts. There is no need to be condescending and rude. Just look at what has happened in Syria and Lybia once the governments there collapsed and tell me why it will be different this time. Tell me why once the state is removed other forces will not come in to fill in the vacuum?
Decentralization will not work for things that require violence because you will literally end up with corporations and interest groups with private armies aka gangs.
Human sacrifice was a religious belief which we've mostly outgrown.
At the time, its adherents were convinced of its necessity, as you're convinced of the necessity of the state.
The belief in a power vacuum; the vacant throne, that's the issue.
If we stop believing in countries and governments (because they don't actually exist) then there won't be a populace eager to be ruled by the new guy.
If you remove the state, people will believe in something else. The religious don't bow to the state because they have God. The statists bow to the state because that's all they have left. What do you think would happen if you removed the state? People would go to religion or another state.
A power vacuum will destroy society and destroy a culture. If there is no body that everyone acknowledges as powerful then power is up for grabs. This means gangs aka governments will form and you're back to square one.
I'm not talking about removing the state, or destroying countries.
States and countries are imaginary, as are power vacuums.
It's all in your head.
It's in everyone's heads. If you're the only person to not acknowledge or recognise metaphysical existences you will be left behind.
The religious DO bow to the state, even more than to their god.
at one point all were the same now its only imagination
the perception we keep looking forward
one of the topic which no one touch it was quite interesting to read
i'm looking forward to the day we see all humans along with the flora and fauna as earthlings, one and the same.