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It is time to build the United States of Europe (elpais.com)
submitted 2 days ago* by to c/europe@feddit.org
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[โ€“] 52 points 2 days ago (10 children)

Shouldn't it be about time to form the united earth government and start reaching for the stars?

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  • [โ€“] 19 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Yes, you are right. The EU has proven so far to be a good start, as it's been a decent compromise between the great powers and the smaller countries. Getting that balance right is really hard, as the clusterfuck that is the UN proves.

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 2 days ago* (2 children)

    Sure. And I mean country size wouldn't even be an issue since we're getting rid of the concept of countries. It'd be one earth. At the size of the earth. (And maybe a few separatist regions. ๐Ÿ˜…)

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Why would a united Earth government get rid of countries? At the very least the borders make for convenient administrative zones to manage, but more than that I think it would be a monumental task to convince someone to consider themself an Earthican before being a member of their home country right off the bat. My understanding is that in past unification periods such as the early US or Italy it took a couple generations before someone would stop introducing themself as a Pennsylvanian and start introducing themself as an American.

    I think world tensions/hostilities are too high for this to happen soon, but the way I foresee things is over the next many decades countries will form greater regional collections like the EU and then those regional groups will eventually form a council of 6-7 world powers that govern the planet as a whole. By that point maybe a person will refer to themself as a North American/Oceanian/etc. before calling themself Canadian or Indonesian, but it will be a slow process.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    It sure will be.

    I mean I'm from Central Europe. From ethnicity you probably can't tell if someone is from my country or one of the neighbouring ones. And culture here in Germany also varies a lot. Do I feel more connected to someone in the south of my own country, than to someone a few kilometers away in a seperate country? I'm not sure. I don't think so.

    I mean saying things like "I'm from the USA" is nice and all. But I bet I'm going to ask a follow-up question immediately, because it's such a vast and diverse country. So I think we might as well skip that step and directly go for the region?!

    Dunno. The borders as we have them feel pretty arbitrary to me. And I really like the perks we got here with Europe and the Schengen Area. I can just go whereever I like, go shopping, a weekend trip and don't need to care at all. No border controls, no worrying about how much alcohol and cigarettes I bring. I can pay in the same currency. Don't need to worry about roaming cost on my smartphone... I think it's awesome to not have borders.

    We see similar stuff with the internet, which just isn't bound to physical location as much. I really enjoy how it spans the entire globe and I get all kinds of freedoms.

    Now we could as well get rid of the remaining stuff I do need to worry about when crossing borders. And I guess we could save a lot of money by getting rid of redundancy in administration. We could also pool money for military stuff and whatever. Which is probably going to be way more effective than everyone doing their own thing.

    Also makes it easier for business. I mean as of now you need to abide by all kinds of different standards in different countries, get your product re-certified in imperial units to make some lunatics happy... That's just wasted effort IMO.

    I mean we could keep them as administrative zones. But we'd keep all the craziness baked in like towns with the border randomly traversing them. Someone's living room being in a different administrative zone than the kitchen, enclaves, borders separating a cultural identity and mushing them together with other people based on politics and religion...

    So.... Why wouldn't we get rid of them? I think they're detrimental to the cause. The more you like differences by physical location, the more you should consider just keeping the old concept.

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  • [โ€“] 9 points 2 days ago* (3 children)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Earth

    What's your favourite?

    I'm partial to the first one, just maybe mute the colours a bit:

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 1 day ago

    Wow, great stuff. I think more than I do like any specific one of them, I like the fact how many different ones we got. And their stories.

    I mean the important part in the symbolry isn't how the solar system is made up, but in this instance connected to us humans. I guess I'm leaning more towards the proposals representing peace, unity... as well. Though this one is very appealing on the visual level.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    I'm rather amused that there's no land there. I'm sure there's lots of reasons, like not being able to accurately put all landmass on there, there being arguments about why certain landmass is the focal point etc. but without any land it feels like the flag belongs to the oceans.

    "Screw the landlubbers, they only cause problems anyway."

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