Administrative Regions

Current Synthesis on Administrative Regions

Proposed: Earth divided based on Geographical Surface Areas
Regions can be divided based on land delimitations, topologies and the availability, accessibility to local resources and other biogeographical concepts such as tectonic plates and the Wallace line in Indonesia (See Infrastructure for reference).

The agreed upon delimitation of regions should facilitate the global administration of infrastructures, resources and shared services.

This matter requires attention from everyone, everywhere.

The Kickoff

We need to start somewhere when re-inventing our OneHouse, so why not start with how we currently divide it. Why is divided the way it is, what's the use of such divisions or more importantly, how do these divisions improve our lives? Can we do better? If not, why not, and if so, what do we envision? What can we envision, especially if we can somehow allow our mind to roam free of its preconceived notions? If it helps, imagine being a newborn baby with no knowledge of what life is like; only that you will (likely live your entire life on this planet we call Earth. How would you want life to be? What would you create, build, engineer, design, explore, or how would you spend your time? How would you want your mother or father or daughter or son or friend or neighbour or stranger to be spending their time? How would you help them live, if you cared to?

What is a nation? What is a man-made concept? How can we manage collective interests more efficiently and effectively?

From the main page:
What exactly is a nation? Is it a unity formed amongst a people that share a particular set of languages, arts and traditions? When we dig a little deeper, do we not find that such cultural traits differ from one region, or even one community, to the next? Do these localized pockets not find themselves disassociated from each other, often viewing one another as different, unique, better or even worse than their neighbours?

It seems as though community pockets have more than enough reasons to divide themselves from each other already, that one must wonder once again – what is a nation and what does it represent? Perhaps their flag is simply a representation of the central tax bank treasury which provides the shared services for collective needs, such as managing infrastructure or defending the nation?

So then, is a nation or state indifferent from its governing bodies that represent and work for the people, to provide such needs?

The Narrow Corridor (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2019) provides great insights into the various structures we currently have around the world, proposing that only a (difficult to achieve) balance between state and society (the Red Queen effect) can result in a shackled leviathan that can ensure a nation's representatives will serve their people (and not themselves). The studies discussed in this book identify many historical and trending challenges that are often encountered by a nation as it ebbs and flows and perhaps haphazardly, some day, reach such a balance.

Such a representation of our history indicates that our current approach to peace is beyond unrealistic. Perhaps this is why so many are reluctant to believe that we can ever achieve world peace. It feels cliche and naiive for me to simply write these words in public, world peace. Why is that?

It's blatantly obvious that we need a new solution to this old problem. Like the old expression goes, we can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

Some (Limited) History

Some historians and psychologists argue that the benefits of collaboration and transfer of knowledge can be traced back to over three million years ago, when the Australopithecus afarensis evolved and learned to throw stones in groups in order to survive. Fifty thousand years ago, as dramatically referenced in the recent 2023 movie release The Creator, Homo sapiens appear to have outcompeted the Neanderthal way of life through division of labour, travel and trade – the earliest signs of societies. Not in the so distant past, cities were spawned and innovation thrived in Mesopotamia; productivity (if we care to use such a word) seemed to improve (increase?) in correlation with the size of the city. Tolerance and an openness to work with others was then exemplified by Phoenician merchants who created a 22-letter language to enable the first forms of globalisation, through which they prospered for approximately two millennia.

Though such concepts of an open society led humans to acquiring a wealth of knowledge, riches and benefits, such advancements also invited attackers and the unavoidable fear that justifies building more walls to safeguard wealth. Fast forward to today and we have an astounding number of diplomats whose primary objective is to work out trade agreements amongst the various nation states that have been formed. How has that worked out for the masses, especially during these post-covid 20203 days with tension boiling uncontrollably in affairs involving Nato/Ukraine v Russia, Allies/Taiwan v China, and Israel/USA vs Arab nations? Currencies dwindling down in value in many places such as Argentina and Lebanon where people once prospered and lived rich lives (Lebanon was referred to as the Paris/Jewel of the Middle-East only a few decades ago). The cost of living is increasing as inflation continues to rise in places like Canada and the UK. Are the states doing such a great job representing their citizens and promising them economical prosperity if they're elected? ..while only holding a four-year position when highly respected economists have warned us of the long term cycles necessary for an economy to thrive? Even more questionable is how history has shown time and again that the best state-related solutions were for the government to do nothing at all!? In such a case, do politicians’ promises - and our faith in them - make any sense at all?

Cognitive Biases

We’re innately prone to fall for ‘us vs them’ moral tribe mentalities and dichotomies, and often find a powerful saviour, often authoritarian, to help save us from our oppressors (these are few of many cognitive biases humans are subject to). The idea of a nation however, when broken down to its roots, is nothing more than an abstract and therefore imaginary concept. This may not sound obvious at first as we’ve been raised to accept the world as it is since the day we were born. We could easily try this thought experiment though to quickly validate such a statement: let’s say that everyone everywhere stopped believing in nations this very instant; would nations still exist? We have probably all heard of the term “world citizen” by now, so what exactly is such a person if one that doesn’t subscribe to the concept of a divided world? One may ask if nations were to disappear, how could we possibly maintain any form of order in the world? Will such openness leave everyone vulnerable to attackers or to those who prey on the weak?

Well, this very conversation is to resolve exactly that.

A Plausible Solution

What is keeping us from building our very own blueprint for how we can run our earthly lives together, respecting the individual, the collective (the greater good), and our environment (our shared and, for the time being, only home)? Inconceivable? Utopian? Idealist dream? What is the going definition of insanity, to expect change in results while doing and thinking (and living) in the same ways we always have? Is it not worthwhile even trying to change the status quo by applying all that we know about the humanities, the arts and the sciences, and overcoming any and all perennial dilemmas such as the tragedy of the commons, free vs controlled markets, monopolies and the (pursuit of, or potentially innate?) personal happiness?

If we began right now, without wasting any more time, such a blueprint would likely need to include the following discussions, at the very least:

Each of these will require a pilot/conversion/migration/exit plan from the existing state to our more desirable objective

• Regional Infrastructure (Public Works based on new and equally partitioned geographical areas; these areas could be based on biogeographical concepts such as the Wallace line in Indonesia (Alfred Russel Wallace, in The Malay Archipelago, wrote about a drastic variance in species which was later attributed to plate tectonics and supercontinent shape formation/deformation)
  

• Taxation and Policy-making (all humans can contribute a single credit per year to a universal fund; policies are decided on locally and independently by each community of citizens; funds are dedicated based on geographical surface areas)

• Equal and Equitable Property Ownership (all humans can have an equally pre-allocated piece of land – say 100m2?; they can choose to build on anywhere in the world and in any community that they feel they can belong to; if things change in that community, they can easily move to another of their choice; at death, all personal land is freed to be taken up by anyone else that may be interested)

• Value Exchange Medium and Bartering (all humans can have pre-allocated funds sufficient for their lifetime’s worth of basic needs; each unit can represent 1hr of a person’s productive time; the units are capped, say at 100k or 200k; all excess units must be redistributed to another account; a single unit can be redistributed to a different account on every transfer; at death, all personal units are sent to the collective budget)

• Human Development (All that is Learning, including a strong and healthy body and an acutely aware mind, and covering all that a human might care to learn regardless of where they may be located; always freely accessible to anyone; maintenance costs covered by collective budgets; additional proposal: copyright restrictions and all access limitations to information need to be fully eliminated and a new approach to compensating authors must be developed)

• Shared Values, Guidelines, Legislation and Conflict Resolution (Values are intertwined with both personal and group-based decision-making; I personally prefer justified guidelines and best practices over rules but as legislation is inevitable, it needs to be reinvented akin to a Golden Rule equivalent, and expanded on only if using common terminology - or vocabulary that is then made common to the masses so everyone can represent themselves in any case ruling – avoiding the use of behaviorist techniques such as conditioning at all costs; legislation, consequential penalties and correction facilities must use proven reform techniques such as ones applied in Norwegian correction facilities)

We could agree on a date to do just that. Set measurable and achievable targets, goals or even broader objectives that we can iterate on until we feel we have created a coherent reality that satisfies everyone’s needs everywhere. A dream, at the time of writing, but mathematically plausible. Against our preconditioned judgement (full of preconceived notions about fearing others and looking down on those that supposedly don’t try as hard as we do), I would argue that this ideal reality is certainly achievable! Why the certainty? Because I listen to the up and coming generations and feel them craving for a better world, pushing back on the nonsensical status quo that our previous generations had tolerated until they accepted, adopted and eventually dispersed as their own ideology and corresponding values. Do not fear your neighbour for she and he are seeking the same peace and joy that you and I seek.

Once we feel this open conversation has reached a maturity level where our blueprint design and tests can be implemented globally, we will finally have the opportunity to affect real change – redesigning our reality from the very core and removing all the bad roots that we’ve accepted at face value for far too long! Hearing MLK’s speech on the hill was a driving source of goose bumps that have haunted me every single day – and will continue to haunt me until I see this crucial, digitally-enabled conversation gain tread. Only then can I happily die knowing that the idea - the dream - regardless of how idealistic and utopic it may sound, will live on until it eventually bears fruit!