[extropy-chat] The existential threat of international law

[Hughes, James J.]

> Oppose international law, the United Nations 
> and anything that reduces world political disunity.

A succinct statement of a view I fundamentally disagree with.

All of the existential threats we face - from proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction to eco-catastrophe to asteroid impacts - will be
more effectively countered by the strengthening of transnational
governance. 

Transnational governance has been the dominant utopian aspiration of
transhumanist-inclined thinkers since at least the 19th century, and
only fell out of favor in 1990s, just when the collapse of the Soviet
Union made a democratic transnationalism a realistic project. I
recommend you take a look at the Citizens for Global Solutions to touch
base with an optimistic vision of ways that stronger transnational
governance could address global problems:

http://www.globalsolutions.org

I think your concerns for diversity are better addressed by focusing on
the inevitable and important spheres of autonomy and federalism within
any political union. We have been fighting those battles within the
United States for two hundred years and sometimes progressives are on
the side of the federal state (enforcing civil rights) and sometimes on
the side of states' rights (protecting state prerogatives to legalize
marijuana for instance). A similar dynamic is occurring in Europe. The
same will occur in the global state, as it already does around debates
on the universality of human rights. I assume you agree that it would be
progress if we could effectively stop torture and genocide, whether the
dictators of those countries signed the treaty banning them or not?

I think one clear project of our age is to create the transnational
structures to effectively enforce the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and hopefully leave everything outside their scope to the
national states. 

Of course, I'm sure that will be one of the first things the FAI takes
care of once it takes over SkyNet....

------------------------
James J. Hughes Ph.D.
Public Policy Studies 
Trinity College
300 Summit St., Hartford CT 06106 USA
james.hughes at trincoll.edu
(office) 860-297-2376

Executive Director
World Transhumanist Association   Inst. for Ethics & Emerging Tech.
http://transhumanism.org          http://ieet.org
director at transhumanism.org        director at ieet.org
Editor, Journal of Evolution and Technology
http://jetpress.org
Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA (office) 860-297-2376