What would life be like without borders?

In this thread about the UK, Myglaren expresses a distaste for patriotism, and says that borders should be eradicated. I've of course heard this sentiment before, but seeing it here got me to thinking about the concept.

What would the world be like without borders? Would it be a better world than the one we live in now?

Is it attainable? In our lifetimes, or sometime in the future?

What political structure would/could there be?

Can people give up nationalism? Would other Isms rise in its place?

Any thoughts?

I think removing borders on a global scale would not work.

To remove borders then you have to standardise across all the countries with no bordes and you can look at the EU as an example of why its not working. Also look at Yugoslavia which was several areas that were combined together removing the borders between them Currently it is 5 different countries as the differences between the local populations were too great to allow it to remain together.

People think and act different merely because of where they come from. In order to remove all borders, you would not only have to standardise governments, economics but also people as well and have them all thinking in the same way. You couldn't belong to a tribe or group of people or race, you would have to become one of the many in the new superstate.

Also if you remove borders, you allow mass migration of people from poor areas to rich areas. The US was like this, send us you poor, downtrodden and destitute etc, etc. Now look at it, hidden behind visa walls and very protective of its own people and culture.

Before the walls come down, the people need to change first. This lifetime, not a chance, a few hundred years, don't think so, give it a millenia maybe two before people across the world think and act as one.

Will it happen, I think it will eventually. Already the world is being bought closer together through communication which is key to understanding. It already has a global language in English (the French would disagree of course).

North and South Sudan are about to seperate. Yugoslavia broke up and broke up ugly. Scotland and North Ireland and the Basques all want to seperate from their country. Iraq and Turkey appear to be borderline breakaways regions as far as the Kurds in particular are concerned.

So no, I do not think humanity is close to being mature enough to live without borders. We are decades and decades away still. A global language would be a huge help but that is not likely to happen in our lifetimes either. The UN is poorly constructed and would need to be effectively replaced. We would need to start a long term world congress and build towards a world Constitution or the like.

Religion will also continue to get in the way, it might not be an -ism but it is still and always has been a very divisive force to unity. I don't believe the more radical and fundamental religions are compatible with world unification or life without borders. We need religions to all be tolerant of other beliefs and lack of belief first.

Since humans are a social animal and need to group themselves into smaller units, I wonder if getting rid of nationalism wouldn't just lead to ethnocentrism, with people clinging to common blood instead of common country? It's a beautiful and admirable goal, but I don't know if we're socially evolved enough for it yet.

Yeah I'd say give it at LEAST a couple of hundred more years.
Having said that though, the Internet has acted to flatten cultures in my lifetime in ways perhaps even more effective than television and/or radio had done previously.
During the Yugoslav war it was pointed out how similar in culture the different ethnicities in the Balkans had become, compared to even 50 years before.
Old enmities sometimes die hard but the example of the US where people of pretty much all cultures get on fairly well might be one that the world will or could emulate sooner than you think.

I really hope so, but the EU is surprisingly slow to bind together better and these are high income and high education level countries.

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Originally posted by What Exit?

I really hope so, but the EU is surprisingly slow to bind together better and these are high income and high education level countries.

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The EU isn't really all that old, and keeps taking in new states that it has to absorb. The US had a lingua franca from its beginnings which in a sense forced people to assimilate at least linguistically in order to participate. The EU doesn't and may never have that level of cohesion. How and ever there are people from all the EU states living comfortably as my neighbours, some like it, some don't, some come, some go. A lot of Irish are upping sticks now to greener pastures in the EU along with recent emigrés to Ireland who have found it hard to get by.

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Originally posted by Peeta Mellark

Since humans are a social animal and need to group themselves into smaller units, I wonder if getting rid of nationalism wouldn't just lead to ethnocentrism, with people clinging to common blood instead of common country? It's a beautiful and admirable goal, but I don't know if we're socially evolved enough for it yet.

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I think this is a much better worded version of what I wanted to say on the topic. While the idea of a world without borders is a great ideal, I don't think any of us are going to live to see it. People want to be part of a group. If we didn't group by location, we'd group in other ways that I'm not sure even a unified language or government could eradicate.

If it were possible right now to peacefully do away with borders, would you actually want to do that? Wouldn't you be worried that minority cultures would vanish in a vast, worldwide melting pot?

You say that like it is a bad thing Nrblex.

I don't think that Earth will unite as one until we have cultures elsewhere. Once Orbital, Lunar, Martian and Belter colonys break away politically we will have the Other that makes unification possible. You cannot be One without an Other.

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Originally posted by What Exit?

You say that like it is a bad thing Nrblex.

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Now all you have to do is pick the correct culture that everyone will be subsumed to.

It would have to British really, seeing as we have done it all before and know what we are doing in creating an empire. :D

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Originally posted by CatInASuit

Now all you have to do is pick the correct culture that everyone will be subsumed to.

It would have to British really, seeing as we have done it all before and know what we are doing in creating an empire. :D

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Well I was thinking Anglo-American Western Democracy with a healthy mix of other cultures. You know, Hollywood and Internet culture merging together into a fairly liberal, strong on human rights mega-culture.