This article goes beyond getting rid of the electoral system. It explores getting rid of states altogether. Interesting idea.
"Why does any of this matter? Quite a bit, as the problem with states goes far beyond their illogic and irrelevance. State governments are expensive to run and taxpayers are forced to foot most of the bill. We can’t afford them anymore — and we don’t need them.
“A federation of states was a wonderful idea in the late 18th century, but represents an unnecessary and costly burden in the early 21st. Two layers of government — federal and local — offers a cleaner, more sensible and much more affordable system than our current one, a notion not unlike cutting out the middle layer of an overly bureaucratic, inefficient company. Eliminating this middle layer would save the American people billions of dollars a year, the kind of money that could go a long way toward paying down our national debt or preparing for our looming crises in Social Security and health care.”
The author of that article is talking about an impossible concept, (and his reasoning is flat out wrong). Humans always develop hierarchical polities, because that’s how our brains evolved to handle our social environment. The # of levels within are not fixed, but a constant feature is the larger the society, the more levels it will have. Midlevel administrative units such as states make administration more manageable in a large polity while still allowing governance from the top down. States are here to stay, and we really don’t have a choice anyway.
The author of that article is talking about an impossible concept, (and his reasoning is flat out wrong). Humans always develop hierarchical polities, because that's how our brains evolved to handle our social environment. The # of levels within are not fixed, but a constant feature is the larger the society, the more levels it will have. Midlevel administrative units such as states make administration more manageable in a large polity while still allowing governance from the top down. States are here to stay, and we really don't have a choice anyway.Hierarchy doesn't equate to states though. It's very reasonable to run an entire country by districts say, without the overhead of having separate district/state laws, similar to any large organization. I would argue that nations are unnecessary and outdated. Technology, especially the internet, is slowly making this pretty apparent. I know it's trite, but some big event like we see in disaster or alien-visitation movies would make people realize how silly the idea of nations is. Of course the flipside that we all worry about is a one world government that rules with an iron fist. But it doesn't have to be that way. It could very well be a one world government that's seen the light and is completely beneficent.
This article goes beyond getting rid of the electoral system. It explores getting rid of states altogether. Interesting idea. "Why does any of this matter? Quite a bit, as the problem with states goes far beyond their illogic and irrelevance. State governments are expensive to run and taxpayers are forced to foot most of the bill. We can’t afford them anymore — and we don’t need them.Fat chance. Too little too late. If our Great White Forefathers had any of the insight, history books told us they did, than state's borders would have looked way different from the gitgo.
What if these Drainage Districts had become the essential units of government? by FRANK JACOBS http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/489-how-the-west-wasnt-won-powells-water-based-states The prototypical American border is the straight line. Not a single US state lacks one (1). Wyoming and Colorado are perfect rectangles, and a dozen other states are bounded by enough straight borders to resemble boxes. These near-rectangles are prevalent west of the Mississippi where, in the worlds of the folk song, 'the states are square' (2). That might not have been so if the US government had heeded the suggestions of John Wesley Powell, who in 1890 produced this Map of the Arid Region of the United States, showing Drainage Districts. Powell argued for those districts to become the essential units of government, either as states or as watershed commonwealths.
http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/aug/water/part1.html Aug. 26, 2003 -- If Congress had listened to explorer and scientist John Wesley Powell 125 years ago, the American West today might be an entirely different place. "We would not have, if Powell's ideas had carried through, any of our huge federal water projects," says Powell biographer Donald Worster. "And we certainly would not have had anything like the massive urban growth that's taken place in the West."
The author of that article is talking about an impossible concept, (and his reasoning is flat out wrong). Humans always develop hierarchical polities, because that's how our brains evolved to handle our social environment. The # of levels within are not fixed, but a constant feature is the larger the society, the more levels it will have. Midlevel administrative units such as states make administration more manageable in a large polity while still allowing governance from the top down. States are here to stay, and we really don't have a choice anyway.Hierarchy doesn't equate to states though. It's very reasonable to run an entire country by districts say, without the overhead of having separate district/state laws, similar to any large organization. It might be reasonable but it isn't possible; that's not how our brains work.
I would argue that nations are unnecessary and outdated. Technology, especially the internet, is slowly making this pretty apparent. I know it's trite, but some big event like we see in disaster or alien-visitation movies would make people realize how silly the idea of nations is. Of course the flipside that we all worry about is a one world government that rules with an iron fist. But it doesn't have to be that way. It could very well be a one world government that's seen the light and is completely beneficent.A world government is impossible at this time - for evolutionary reasons. That would require a humanity much different from what we are. Like it or not, we are a necessarily tribal animal and we can only behave in that way.
The author of that article is talking about an impossible concept, (and his reasoning is flat out wrong). Humans always develop hierarchical polities, because that's how our brains evolved to handle our social environment. The # of levels within are not fixed, but a constant feature is the larger the society, the more levels it will have. Midlevel administrative units such as states make administration more manageable in a large polity while still allowing governance from the top down. States are here to stay, and we really don't have a choice anyway.Hierarchy doesn't equate to states though. It's very reasonable to run an entire country by districts say, without the overhead of having separate district/state laws, similar to any large organization. It might be reasonable but it isn't possible; that's not how our brains work.
I would argue that nations are unnecessary and outdated. Technology, especially the internet, is slowly making this pretty apparent. I know it's trite, but some big event like we see in disaster or alien-visitation movies would make people realize how silly the idea of nations is. Of course the flipside that we all worry about is a one world government that rules with an iron fist. But it doesn't have to be that way. It could very well be a one world government that's seen the light and is completely beneficent.A world government is impossible at this time - for evolutionary reasons. That would require a humanity much different from what we are. Like it or not, we are a necessarily tribal animal and we can only behave in that way.How our brains work? So you're saying large organizations can't be run with different segmentations for example because that's not the way our brain works? Well most large organizations are run that way. So you're wrong. And one government impossible because we're tribal? How is one global "tribe" different, other than in scale, than a small tribe? Being tribal just means we don't tend to want to live as one-off individuals. We want to rely on others. Nothing about that rules out having one big tribe.
The author of that article is talking about an impossible concept, (and his reasoning is flat out wrong). Humans always develop hierarchical polities, because that's how our brains evolved to handle our social environment. The # of levels within are not fixed, but a constant feature is the larger the society, the more levels it will have. Midlevel administrative units such as states make administration more manageable in a large polity while still allowing governance from the top down. States are here to stay, and we really don't have a choice anyway.Hierarchy doesn't equate to states though. It's very reasonable to run an entire country by districts say, without the overhead of having separate district/state laws, similar to any large organization. It might be reasonable but it isn't possible; that's not how our brains work.
I would argue that nations are unnecessary and outdated. Technology, especially the internet, is slowly making this pretty apparent. I know it's trite, but some big event like we see in disaster or alien-visitation movies would make people realize how silly the idea of nations is. Of course the flipside that we all worry about is a one world government that rules with an iron fist. But it doesn't have to be that way. It could very well be a one world government that's seen the light and is completely beneficent.A world government is impossible at this time - for evolutionary reasons. That would require a humanity much different from what we are. Like it or not, we are a necessarily tribal animal and we can only behave in that way.How our brains work? So you're saying large organizations can't be run with different segmentations for example because that's not the way our brain works? Well most large organizations are run that way. So you're wrong. Most "large organizations" aren't countries.
And one government impossible because we're tribal? How is one global "tribe" different, other than in scale, than a small tribe? Being tribal just means we don't tend to want to live as one-off individuals. We want to rely on others. Nothing about that rules out having one big tribe.You must not be familiar with the anthropological concept of tribalism; I don't have time to explain it all here, but here's something] that might be helpful.
How our brains work? So you're saying large organizations can't be run with different segmentations for example because that's not the way our brain works? Well most large organizations are run that way. So you're wrong.Most "large organizations" aren't countries.
And one government impossible because we're tribal? How is one global "tribe" different, other than in scale, than a small tribe? Being tribal just means we don't tend to want to live as one-off individuals. We want to rely on others. Nothing about that rules out having one big tribe.You must not be familiar with the anthropological concept of tribalism; I don't have time to explain it all here, but here's something] that might be helpful. That link didn't work for me, though I was able to find it and you know me why be coy, when they have cut and paste. Besides it's a point worth spelling out.
Dunbar's number From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.[1][2][3][4][5][6] This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size.[7] By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain only 150 stable relationships.[8] Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.[9][10] Dunbar's number states the number of people one knows and keeps social contact with, and it does not include the number of people known personally with a ceased social relationship, nor people just generally known with a lack of persistent social relationship, a number which might be much higher and likely depends on long-term memory size. Dunbar theorized that "this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size ... the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained." On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues, such as high school friends, with whom a person would want to reacquaint himself if they met again.[11] Research Background gets really fascinating.
I find this to be an interesting topic. I would not summarily dismiss it because my brain doesn’t work that way or because of the complications of a global government (the latter of which is not really relevant to this conversation).
I cannot help but agree wholeheartedly that the regional aspect of states between the founding of the country and today has changed to the point of making states anachronistic. Capitals in the geographic “center" of states was meaningful when the most rapid form of transportation (or any communication for that matter) was on horseback but compared to today’s air travel and the Internet, they might as well be from two different worlds.
I think the real question comes down to more of whether or not we could do without the current middle level of government. I would greatly favor the elimination of all states if for no other reason than it would shut-up, once and for all, all of those “States Rights" advocates out there. The issue was settled when they lost the Civil War. Get over it and move on.
From the practical standpoint, it’s not very workable. If you eliminated state lines and lived in “Springfield, USA", the UPS driver may never find you. Republicans would be against it because they would never again have a member of their party become the POTUS (all votes would be equal instead of a vote from a Red state counting for more than from a Blue state). Let’s not forget we would have to deal with 100 unemployed Senators of both parties and no longer have a bicameral legislature.
While it would prevent things like Pence and his KKK Allies from taking over an area the size of Indiana (as they currently have), it could create a lot of local KKK cells all over the country.
It makes for an interesting intellectual discussion.