If the "fast-paced, innovative future" includes petulant children stomping around mad because the big, bad government won't let them do whatever they want no matter the consequences to those around them, I'd say governments are more relevant than ever.

We've already asked you to comment civilly and substantively, so we're banning this account. We're glad to unban accounts if you email [email protected] and we believe that you won't do this any more.

Okay, but let's see if the governments or the petulant children win. You know which thread you're in, right?

Historically, either the government wins or the petulant children win and then become the power center that directs government that the next set of petulant children complain about.

Either way, governments are part of the future. There no real reason to expect this iteration to work any differently than all the others since humans gathered in structured societies.

Its not the government imposing these restrictions, its your neighbors. If there were no government for them to impose them through, they'd use other institutions, or else just the threat of violence. You can imagine a government-free future all you want, but you're talking about a non-collectivist future, which is absurd.

What exactly would that future look like? Where there is no government, one will appear. People seem to have this incurable efficiency whereby we create rules, regulations, and eventually bureaucracies. Rules, implicit and explicit, manifest whether you like it or not. Authority manifests.

No government != No rules.

I doubt the poster above is against rules, but like me wants to decentralize that authority and enforcement. My answer: you want to have a market for law and enforcement. Read "the machinery of freedom" by David Friedman if interested.

The sad thing is that the US government had much less influence on its citizens 120 years ago than it has today.

It is possible (I believe it's even likely) that humanity will never see such freedom again.