you don't see the 241 countries and territories
that we've divided ourselves into.
You don't see the boundaries that
we've carved out through bloodshed,
or the conflicting ideologies that
have evolved on either side of them.
You just see one giant rock —
home to a species that has
the capability to tear itself apart.
After World War II,
where humans wiped out three
percent of the world's population,
global leaders began discussing the
idea of having one world government
to avoid repeating the mistakes
made over the previous 25 years.
The idea quickly fizzled out, but
they might have been on to something.
This is WHAT IF,
and here's what would happen
if the world was a single country.
For centuries, leaders have fantasized about
a day when world peace becomes a reality.
But as long as countries are blowing each other
up over political and religious differences,
that doesn't seem very likely.
So what if we just took all
the countries in the world
and merged them into one giant nation?
Surely there'd be nothing
to fight about anymore, right?
It wouldn't be that simple. It's not
like we'd be starting from scratch;
instead, we'd be taking thousands of years
of cultural histories, prejudices, languages,
and currencies, and amalgamating
them into one giant melting pot.
It would be one of the most complicated
endeavors the human race has ever undertaken,
so before we go any further maybe we
should weigh out the pros and cons,
and ask ourselves:
would it really be worth it?
Starting on the bright side, the first
pro of making the world a single country
would be that we could tackle the
Earth's problems as a unified force.
One area where we'd see this benefit most
is in our planet's fight against climate change.
For example, in 2015
both the United States and China pledged to
drastically cut their greenhouse gas emissions
as part of the Paris agreement;
since then China has heavily invested in clean
energy sources to keep up with their goals,
while the United States has all
but pulled out of their commitment.
A world government would
eliminate this sort of inconsistency
by allowing us to develop
a global plan of attack
on how to make improvements
to our environmental situation,
and by ensuring that it would
be followed across the board.
This unified front would also
come in handy in times of crisis
such as natural disasters
or disease epidemics.
These catastrophes wouldn't
have to impact developing nations
so much harder than developed ones.
Resources could be spread out to make sure
every part of the world had
the same opportunities to recover.
The next great benefit would be that
acts of war could be eliminated
because the primary reasons
for wars being started in the first place
would be almost non-existent.
Some experts think that
the elimination of war
is an absolute necessity if
humankind wants to survive.
It is estimated that there are 17,000
nuclear weapons on the planet right now,
with France, China, the U.S.,
Russia, Pakistan,
Israel, India, the UK, and
North Korea all possessing them.
If they were to be used again, we'd all suffer,
no matter where the conflict was taking place.
The third good thing that could
come from a one world government
is that there'd be a better balance of
quality of life across the globe.
For starters, with no more wars,
defense budgets would
be dropped substantially,
making more cash available for
other needs, like global healthcare.
With everyone reporting to the same governing
party and following the same rules,
it would be easier to defend human rights
and set safe labor standards for
workers in every part of the world.
A global nation would mean a global currency,
which would mean a reduction of the
economic power of developed countries
like China.
With no currency exchange in the mix,
it would no longer have
the means or the need
to offer up goods and services on
the world market on the cheap.
Eliminating this means giving
companies a fairer shake,
no matter where they might be in the world.
Developing countries could benefit,
although it wouldn't just happen overnight.
Now, a global government
wouldn't guarantee that
everything on the planet would
be all sunshine and roses,
and that brings us to the cons.
Our first, and potentially most important 'con'
is that the wrong person could
be put in charge of the entire planet.
To elect them, there would probably need
to be one vote from every former country,
but campaigning for the position might still
be similar to what we see in today’s elections.
Obviously, there can be problems, and
you can never rule out the possibility
of corruption or backroom dealings.
Who's to say we wouldn't end up with a
leader with malicious interests in mind?
One of the foundations of
the Nazi political belief system
was the establishment of a global
government, which, in their case,
would have led to more genocide
and the wiping out of democracies
around the world in order to force
their political ideology onto the masses.
Our second problem would be that
the idea of nationalism would be lost.
Nationalism develops cultures,
and it helps fuel a want and need to achieve
things like technological advancements.
Think about the space race
between the U.S. and Russia
and the way it affected the
global desire to explore space.
Not to mention bragging rights when it comes
to kicking some butt at sporting competitions.
But now that we think of it, no nationalism
could lead to some good stuff too.
No nationalism can mean people are far less
concerned about where a person is from
and more accepting of cultural
and religious differences,
which means less potential for conflict.
So, maybe we're best to
move on from this one.
Our final con is that the whole
thing would be extremely complicated,
and could just end up
leading to more global conflict.
Making the world a single country
would be a logistical nightmare!
We'd all have to adapt to whatever
universal languages we decide to use,
and then there'd be the potentially bigger
issue of figuring out a common currency.
How long would existing
currencies be accepted?
What could we develop to oversee the physical
printing and distribution of the new money?
So many moving parts.
On top of that, there's the fact that there will
still be a good chunk of the world population
who are opposed to the whole
idea of a single world government.
Sure we'd all be living under one umbrella,
but it could be an umbrella full of rebellions,
widespread corruption, and
cultural clashes, the very kinds of conflict
we were trying to avoid in the first place.
It sounds like a good idea on paper, but
considering how unbalanced the
current political and economic fields are
it would take a lot of convincing
to get every country on board.
Maybe it would take World War III
in order to convince everyone,
and by then it might be too late.
But that's a topic for another WHAT IF.
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