In what fucking world was Napoleon's attempt not a series of conquests?

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.

A few decades ago people used to think it would be hard for the fascists to take over the US, that they were a minority that wouldn't gain popularity or a foothold in the different branches of government.

Obviously, we were wrong. And the rise of the far-right in EU countries shows the same can still happen there.

Having close ties with each other is good, helping each other is awesome, but centralizing power will only make it easier for it to be corrupted by fascism as climate change restricts global resources and the fascists are ready with their tired old scapegoats.

Maybe for AfD, but fascists will always find a way. The RN in France always comes first in the EU parliament elections despite them being nationalistic anti-EU nazis spin-offs. If there's a place of power they'll try to get there. A "United States of Europe" would be a whole lot of uncessary risk.

It might be harder for them to take over, but it would also be harder to remove them.