Indeed, our Earth’s Westphalian concept of sovereign states is the main thing propping up Somalia and North Korea. There was a time when any state that failed that badly would be casually conquered by a more successful neighbor. So maybe the successful Earths don’t have a Westphalian concept of sovereignty; maybe our Earth’s concept of inviolable borders represents a failure to solve one of the key functions of a planetary civilization.
A point good enough to be worth extending. What things other than bits of geography do we have Westphalian borders around? As in: We agree to leave certain topics to be settled according to a certain group of people or method or belief, in exchange for them not claiming dominion over other topics.
Religion, obviously. And this has historically been a good thing. Separation of church and state.
A point good enough to be worth extending. What things other than bits of geography do we have Westphalian borders around? As in: We agree to leave certain topics to be settled according to a certain group of people or method or belief, in exchange for them not claiming dominion over other topics.
Religion, obviously. And this has historically been a good thing. Separation of church and state.
What else?