Originally posted by William Joyce
But ignoring this, or attempting to kill it, results in the same catastrophes that communism brought us.
You say that any attempt to ignore or kill nationalism result in catastrophes and you are absolutely right.
If someday humans finally get rid of this social plague it will be the result of the evolution of human society itself.
No politician can sign a decree today establishing the end of tribalism.
But let’s take a look at a few “catastrophes” brought by nationalism itself.
Why does the world needs at least five major space programs (american, european, russian, japanese and chinese)?
Is the fact that all the experts on this highly specialised field are working separately for their own national programs instead of joining forces on a unified space program good of bad for space exploration?
Wouldn’t the space exploration and colonization be much more advanced with a united space program?
The world does not need such a wasteful duplication of efforts, tribes do because only national space programs can bring them full economic advantages and international prestige.
And this same needless duplication of efforts so harmful for space exploration can be found in practically all areas of knowledge.
Medical research, particle physics research, environmental studies (to detect potential threats to humans) you name it.
I can only wonder how much more advanced space exploration would be if all the experts in this field worked together on a unified space program with a budget twenty times higher than each national program. Or how many more advanced cancer research would be with the same unification.
It is really hard to quantify the tremendous negative impact tribalism and its consequent duplication of efforts has on all branches of science and technology.
But the waste of resources by duplication of efforts created by nationalism is just a drop in the ocean when compared to the amount of resources wasted on arms.
One of the immediate consequences of dividing mankind into different national groups is the creation of a myriad of different, and often conflicting, interests.
In order to protect their own interests tribes spend a significant amount of resources on a completely useless activity: the development, production and aquisition of military hardware and the training of people who operate them.
This is a completely unproductive economic activity in terms of benefits for our species that consumes an incredible amount of the riches produced by mankind.
All this driven by the need of tribes to protect themselves against each other. Tribes inhabited by the same species whose members often just happen to speak different languages. I would call this stupidity but I don’t really want to insult stupid people.
It’s impossible to even imagine the stage of development mankind would find itself in if all the military budget of the entire world were channeled to scientific/technological research.
But nationalism does not limit itself to drain resources that could be used to advance human society, Joyce.
Guided by their paranoid fear of the “other”, nations are constantly wasting resources to develop more efficient ways to destroy their enemies and, somewhere along the technological development of a fragmented civilization, uranium and its devastating destructive power are finally discovered and used to develop arms capable of settling old grudges and nationalist resentments once and for all, destroying the civilization in the process.
This is the ultimate argument against tribalism, Joyce:
The absolute insanity of a “rational” species destroying its own civilization to advance the “interests” of its own faction (a faction that is undistinguishble from all others except for minor cultural differences).
Knowing the human obsession with nationalism first hand, I can “understand” people who choose to ignore the more “harmless” colateral effects of nationalism such as the duplication of efforts, the waste of resources on military budgets, the inability to coordinate an effective strategy to protect the global environment etc, but if the prospect of the nuclear erradication of our species (or at least it’s partial destruction causing a huge setback for humans) is not enough to convince you that tribalism is an evil I give up. You’re a lost case.
It’s quite ironic when you say that any attempt to ignore or kill nationalism result in catastrophe when the very survival of our species is threatened by nationalism through the weaponry tribes have created, developed and disseminated in an effort to further their own national interests.
People who oppose nationalism does not need to ignite any catastrophe even if this were their goal. Nationalism itself does a pretty good job.
But all these arguments mean nothing to you because your only concern is the white race.
I agree with you that nationalism, racial segregation are the best way to preserve ethnic identity and I hope you have the intellectual honesty to admit that the replacement of all forms of tribalism by the political stability only a planetary civilization can provide is clearly in the best interest of our species.
