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Such are the proposed basic tenants of the Novos philosophy. If I mistreat these tenants presently, please be considerate; I had not heard of Novos until a few days ago, when I was invited to join the guild.

While I can certainly agree with tenants 1, 3, and 4, and I can identify with the philosophy of 2, I do not believe unification of governments is the way to go. Aside from the astounding feats that would be required for a world unification, I do not believe it makes sense from a social, economic, or political standpoint.

Social: To combine the world governments would be to decrease competitors. This accomplishes two side effects, both severely detrimental to the stability of the government. The first is that nationalistic pride would be decimated, and while that may seem fortunate, it is not. By taking away such pride, you take away the honor and reverence that goes with it. The people become detached from this new government, because they have no more aims, no competition. No longer will China struggle to beat America's per capita income; no longer will Chad attempt to equal the scientific advancement of Egypt. To remove nationalism, for all its evils, is to remove motivation. Secondly, this unification puts all the power in one government, which would simply have too much power. The reasoning is straightforward from there, but the former consequence is the most disheartening.

Economic: Decreased competition leads to decreased trade and if not monopolies, it leads to apathy. People will not function for the good of other people, and for all its evils, civilian capitalism (not in necessary services) does spark economic stability but more importantly, the same pride as seen beforehand.

Political: Inefficiency, out and out. Such a government would be wildly inefficient, lest it were anarchy. The other option is for it to be wildly opressive and controlling. Besides citing numerous track records of such Totalitarianism - either opressive or unstable - the physical concerns of any other governmental system would render it useless. Even with drastic increases in global communication, decisions made in the government would take hours to be heard, and weeks or months to be enacted.

I propose division into environmental regions, with each region acting as a state. Each region would have to provide the services necessary for its populous - and thus be large enough to encompass various geological borders - and enact its own government. However, the regions would also have to be small enough to ensure efficiency in government and economics. Overall, each region should be environmentally sustainable, politically and economically stable, socially acceptable (ethically, too), and culturally sound.

Well, my plan was to divide the regions based on geographical and environmental borders, not false political ones. For example, Europe - which has far too many individual countries, for my taste - would be subdivided into regions each of which would have various rivers, mountains, and a large enough seasonal variation to striate crops and have a wide range of produce. Sustainable, no?

Moreover, every part of the world - even the 30 degree latitude deserts of Africa and Asia - can be striated in such a way, so long as the populous understands the techniques of mixed and marginalized farming.

This geographical division - as opposed to completely arbitrary political division - could help end resource wars and put humans back on a sustainable, nature-based path.

Pardon me if I'm just a tad wary of creating a political division found in the Bible.

Having only ten countries covering the entire world would also force all of them to extreme inefficiency in matters of governing as well as intra- and inter-national trade. My idea would divide the world into something more like 300 or 400 countries.

Sorry I didn't catch the sarcasm. I really don't know a whole lot about the Christian faith, or Novos' history (aside that they were formally Darkstar, and held a plan of world control more than betterment).

I'm also from the U.S., and that's a lot of my grounds for territorial division. First, however, I'd like to note that (as is a long-held favorite phrase of mine), "the environment doesn't respect political borders". Political borders are arbitrary, and because of the political borders in place now, some countries simply do not have the ecological basis to become sustainable. In fact, a few countries in the middle East are not sustainable at all (Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran) because of their direct placement below the 30-degree latitudinal lines; they have no agricultural basis, not even some of the more advanced forms of subsistence farming, and as such destroy their own natural resources to export for food.

Second, the US is actually a model for what I am proposing. While I would be very happy if each country was the size of a state, with its own special government, I have held another idea in reserve. By splitting various countries into geographically-determined "states", and allowing each state its own government - to within limitations, and reporting to the overarching government of the country - we could achieve a subdivision that allows for small, efficient governments without destroying the arbitrary regions already in place.

This idea does not seem ideal to me, but it is more feasible. The supreme effect I'm trying to attain is a small, efficient government for geographically-determined, sustainable regions. The particulars are up for grabs.

And, as a final note, I read most of that original Darkstar post. Creepy...like, Christian fundamentalist creepy. Honestly? It sounded like a huge pyramid scheme.

Again, I don't know much about the Antichrist. But fundamentalist thought such as that - that pure drive and initiative without considering the complications and ramifications - is a trademark of religious zealots the world over. And I thought the Hezbollah organization was centered on a piece of land in Lebanon...ah well, chalk that one up to ignorance again.

You're right, man does not respect nature (as if I'd ever disagree with that). But it took waaaaay too long for people to even start to understand that pollutants released in Mexico don't just harm Mexico. If there were ever a need for understanding chaos and nonlinear dynamics, it's environmental and atmospheric science. That's part of why I'm so pissed that there aren't more environmental conferences that the States would participate in; it's as if we simply don't accept that, in terms of environment, what hurts one country hurts every country. Regardless of the presence or acceptance of global warming theories, the environment is deteriorating. Why is it so hard to show people that?

Subsistence and marginalized farming practises - such as practised in many parts of Eastern Africa and, as you pointed out, Israel - need to be taught the world over. American agriculture could finally get rid of its subsidies and increase productivity if it would simply follow a few of these practises and become more sustainable. If applied to every nation's farms, food supplies the world over would double in a decade, I'd bet.

While Israel did educate its populous and does support subsistence farming practises (again, as you noted), I retort that Israel is still not sustainable, considering their huge GNI base of exporting natural resources - specifically, jewels. While their populous might not go hungry, if a few of those mines ever run dry, they're screwed. It's not sustainable in its current form. But I thank you for pointing out to me that Israel is one of the few to support these farming practises.

Haha...that reminds me of a wonderful little Asimov quip. "Moses was an idiot. He wandered the desert for 40 years to come upon the only Middle Eastern country with no oil."

Israel's been aided too much by the US. If their exports ever decline too far, we'll end up bailing them out. I have nothing against Israel, per se, but they're their own country now. We should not have provided them with the amount of military power they have now; and that we did, we should've checked them in their attacks on the surrounding nations.

What I don't understand is that global warming doesn't even have to be correct for people to be concerned about the Earth. We have plenty of problems - declining resources, pollution, declining food supplies - to be worried about that STILL aren't being taken care of, to add global warming to that. Even if global warming isn't completely correct (no atmospherical model is) we're screwing with the earth too much. C'est la vie...connection with nature is lost on modern society.

That Chomsky-Trivers article (I know I referenced it to-day, somewhere) also had a short conversation about deception. Humans aren't really any better than animals at deceiving those outside of a group, but we're certainly wonderful at deceiving ourselves. Group dynamics and whatnot.

I never understood the reasoning "it won't happen in our lifetimes." Isn't our most noble goal to make the world better when we leave it then when we come in? To provide for the child, not the peer? If it won't happen in our lifetimes, it'll happen in someone's. We can go overseas and spend billions to fight a war in a different country so that their children's lives will be safer - and so that the world is safer for our children - but they won't send up the DSCOVR satellite which was ALREADY PAID FOR, which other countries will send up FOR FREE, to research the environment.

I hate American society.

This cooperation would promote peace and prosperity by helping solve problems where they arise, but mostly by having the nations work together peacefully toward a common goal.

Such a system could only be set up voluntarily. It would not work otherwise. Obviously, nations would not be confined working with nations in their own region, regional groups would be a stepping stone to world inter cooperation. The regional groups would probably be permanent, because smaller groups would be able to work more efficiently and focus better.

The power for these regional groups would flow from the nations. in this way, the nation is not being controlled by the Regional Union. If a nation feels threatened, it can withdraw, and in doing so, remove the power of the Union.

...I can't remember where I was going with that, Hmm.