Computing faces a trade-off between sovereignty and efficiency

Re:Computing faces a trade-off between sovereignty and effic... by netcan on Friday October 24, 2008 @08:59PM (#343192)

To an extent, this is a manifestation of a general trend. "Globalisation" continues. States are not really independent entities any more in the sense that economies are inter tied in more granular ways. Trade is one thing, but small businesses (like 10 people) are located across three countries with occasional outsourcing to a fourth & clients in several too. This is not as clear cut as it wad when companies made clear desicions to market to new markets. Clients are incidentally incidentally acquired across different states.

Then you have things like climate issues: carbon trading carbon capturing etc. that require some sort of joint framework. But there is no mechanism for governing the world. If climate change was confined to a single state (depending on the state), it may have already been solved.

This is just another example. For regulation to be coherent, manageable & not too restrictive it needs to be global really. We aren't operating as independent states anymore

Maybe it's even time for a global safety net welfare system.

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Re:Computing faces a trade-off between sovereignty and effic... by alexandros on Friday October 24, 2008 @09:10PM (#343202)

a single global government is even more dangerous than a divided internet. If a global government gets it wrong (that never happens), there are no other governments to bail it out. It becomes a single global point of failure. Other than that, we will have no other government to compare it against and therefore demand change. Scary scary thought.

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Re:Computing faces a trade-off between sovereignty and effic... by netcan on Friday October 24, 2008 @09:42PM (#343233)

Government is dangerous.

But there are also things that only it can do. Having many seperate governments whose jurisdictions you cross daily can be very inefficient.

On the basic level we can have reduced problems hiring & selling to people across several countries. On higher levels we can actually deal with things like climate change or internet regulations (or avoiding regulations) in a better way.

Climate change is (i think) a strong example of this need. There is general acceptance of a need to do something but a very weak decision making & execution body.

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