Decentralization, Technology, and the Realization of a New World Order? Or not.

Part 1 - What are we protecting anyway?

I think we need to assume that without rules or formalized order that systems tend toward chaos. Without this hypothesis, imposed order is unnecessary, right? If we think that without laws and rules that everyone will just peaceably get along, why do we need rules making murder illegal?

Maybe that's overly simplistic. Murder rarely happens even amongst animal species incapable of rule making because basic survival is a strong motivator for even unorganized groups to self-enforce basic concepts like "don't kill someone physically and/or emotionally near to others in our proximity." Still, we have examples of humanity, even in law-based systems, who through their own strength manage to murder large numbers of people who disagree with their worldview without immediate (or even proximate) consequence. Many (although it would be hubris to say all) have been brought to account before law-based tribunals. So, perhaps this itself is proof of the hypothesis. But, even for the sake of argument, let's assume that something so "fundamentally" (I know that's a loaded word) wrong as murder is self-executing.

But at what point do these self-enforcing mechanisms break down? Other basic needs, such as food and shelter, do not seem to be so "fundamental." Theft is relatively easy to justify based on perceived need (self-interest). Destruction is easy to justify based simply on revenge or relative worth. Even these simple transgressions require enforcement of the underlying concept of "exclusive ownership" (whether by the individual or by the community isn't particularly relevant at this point)^[1]. Let alone more complicated concepts that are fundamental to modern governance such as antitrust, freedom of speech, and environmental protection.

It is easy to simply point at today's somewhat universal system of law and order and say that we've proved the point. The fact that every group of humans have created laws and enforcement mechanisms is proof that such a system is de facto better than a system without laws and enforcement. To my knowledge there is no large group of people that operate under a functional anarchy.

To date, it seems that centralized rule and order (nations) have organized, roughly, along geographical borders. For most of human history this seems pretty obvious. Yet it seems increasingly obvious, that geography may not be the best control mechanism for groups of people to be organized and interact with each other.

So, one of the central questions that this series of posts will ask is this: if we could get rid of the current geography-based systems and, using modern technologies, re-align ourselves, what would that look like? Would we still engage in dispersed centralized behavior (i.e., we would still be centralized, but not around geography)? Or is "true" decentralization (in essence, anarchy; each individual acting, for all intents and purposes in their individual interest) possible in a modern techno-utopia or desirable?



^[1] It might interesting to look at societies that managed to survive for long periods that had "political" systems that did not have an underlying belief in "exclusive ownership." Even a system like communism believes that resources are "owned" by "the people" such that taking a "community" item for "personal use" would be transgressive. Without more research, it seems that a more apt candidate might be some Native American systems that view some types of property (such as land) as "unownable."