Well at least I'll be dead before this happens

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"For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government. So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a03e5b6-c541-11dd-b516-000077b07658.html

[Slider]

I'n not clear on why you seem to be surprised.

Go back a few millenium. Small hunter gatherer groups. Some align, soon there are farming communities. Some of those get together, others are conquered by the powerful armies that the larger organizations allow, and next nations start to show up. Those nations enter into pacts for trade and mutual defense, and even more grand organizations start to arise.

So what else could be next, if not world government? Seems to be an inevitable part of cultural evolution to me.

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[hogboy]

everything on Star Trek comes true eventually

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I'n not clear on why you seem to be surprised.

Go back a few millenium. Small hunter gatherer groups. Some align, soon there are farming communities. Some of those get together, others are conquered by the powerful armies that the larger organizations allow, and next nations start to show up. Those nations enter into pacts for trade and mutual defense, and even more grand organizations start to arise.

So what else could be next, if not world government? Seems to be an inevitable part of cultural evolution to me.

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The difference is we have oceans separating the continents unlike those small hunter gatherer groups. This is a much bigger leap to turn over sovereignty of a nation to a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in a plush office on another continent. But who knows. Desperate times calls for desperate measures.

[Slider]

I don't think the ocean is much of a barrier to world government these days. Efficiency is another matter, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

Looking at the planet as a whole, the idea that one or a few countries can hoard a disproportionate share of resources is an anachronism. The developed world can continue to consume resources at a rate far greater than the non-developed world but, at some point, the cost in warfare and other conflicts outweighs the value of the resources themselves.

You can point to resource competition as the root for lots of conflicts, historical and recent. This paper ties Rwandan crop failure to the recent genocide.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/ete/ceswps/ces0207.htmlut

It isn't hard to extrapolate similar conflict even to this country. Look at the fight over water from the Colorado river, or the imminent threat to the survival of Las Vegas over water. Toss in a drought, or poor resource management, and the pressures increase exponentially.

The only way to avoid constant warring over resources is some sort of cooperation among governments. World government is the next step, but you are right, it's probably not in the immediate future.

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