Welcome to Europe. 500 years ago it was mostly principalities and city states, tried empires for a while, then we had countries for a few 100 years - now we are trying to abolish them again. It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate.

IIRC Singapore and a bunch of other high tech SE Asian countries essentially did the same thing. Anybody with a high tech qualification, eg a CS degree, could live and work in any of the club no questions asked.

> It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate.

France is pretty nationalistic too, no? They're one of the harshest countries in Europe in terms of minority languages, if I recall correctly.

But only since about 1880. Before that 'France' was only about 20% of the country and only about 20% spoke French.

There was a huge effort to create a single nation, similar to the unification of Germany and Italy around the same time.

Their attitude to the language rather shows that - nobody in England thinks English needs 'protecting'.

English is 'open source', French is 'the cathedral'.

It shows in their proliferation patterns too.

Whats the quote?

Other languages borrow foreign words - English lures them into dark alleys and goes through their pockets for any grammer they might have.

The original quote is:

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle [sic] their pockets for new vocabulary.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

Government should be as local as possible because it gives the most power to individuals to govern themselves. In the US, theoretically, the feds are not really supposed to be able to do much, though obviously that's not how things have worked out.

I don’t think local government contradicts freedom of movement. It seems to me that both is possible, with little federal oversight. The biggest problem is inequality – the EU is perfectly happy to open the borders between its very similar member states but will vigorously protect its outer border.

It's not really about freedom of movement and I guess it's only applicable in representative government. But if you have a federal representative thousands of miles away in DC that has 5 million constituents and a state representative dozens of miles away at the state capitol with 50,000 constituents, you're going to have a lot more impact with the state representative.

The USA is basically the same idea as the EU, it is just supposed to be the international face of our amalgamation of nearby states that have formed an alliance for their mutual protection and simplification. The real laws (i.e. not treaties or other international matters) are supposed to be implemented at the state level or lower.

There is more to a country than being a place of work.

Sure, but this is also true for the city you are in, the neighborhood and the street.

I'm not historian but I suppose throughout history the space that we call home became bigger and bigger as time went by. Perhaps first it was a cave, at some point it was a village, then it was a city and eventually it was a country.

I guess what I mean is that eventually countries will go away. And calling them "old-school" was assuming we were there yet. But maybe we are not yet. But surely you would agree one day this day will come?

I don't see that happening ever. Not unless the human condition changes significantly. I currently see it more likely that we will end up with more countries, not less countries.

If countries "go away", what do you suggest they would be replaced by?

Ideally the EU will allow more micro-countries.

50 years ago it was difficult to be a city-state, Monaco couldn't have it's own currency, army , foreign embassies.

Now it would be much easier for eg. Scotland/ Bavaria/ Flemish-Belgium to become a country again - they would have a euroepean central bank/currency/etc but could handle everything else locally instead of in a capital city 100mi away that is only the same 'country' because of a battle 500years ago.

Things like the European Union. It's not always pretty but it works.

Perhaps after that it will be planets (if you like Futurama), or religions, philosophies or even brands. :) Who knows.

The EU isn't a country though, and it will never be one; different cultures have different values and often don't want to live under the same set of laws. Personally, I think this is a good thing. If you're oppressed under one countries set of laws at least you always have the option of leaving.

But he was arguing against countries not against cultures. Borders of countries don't always overlap with linguistic, cultural, other borders.

the eu is very much like a single country in some respects.

> different cultures have different values and often don't want to live under the same set of laws.

different regions of america have different cultures and values, and yet you wouldn't question the status of the us.

> If you're oppressed under one countries set of laws at least you always have the option of leaving.

actually, no. it is precisely because of this offensive notion of citizenship that people are NOT free to leave the country they find themselves in.

what needs to go away is this notion of nationality, bestowed by the coincidence of birth.

yes. symptom of a dark age.