This will eventually happen, but I'd be surprised if I live that long.

Both the UN and the League were simply naive attempts to nail down forever the result of the world wars that preceded each one's formation, and prevent it ever changing. So was the Congress of Vienna after Waterloo. I see no reason to believe that any such attempt either can or ought to succeed. Backing one only shows naivete.

Humanity continues to hopelessly chase Utopia, where all is sweetness and light, nobody ever disagrees with anybody else, and everyone has all they want. That delusion birthed the League of Nations, which failed miserably in preventing another conflict like the Great War. The League's cousin, the United Nations, oversees a world in conflict on every continent, but many are resistant to reality.

I can't believe it Doc...I just posted the same article...dang...ya beat me to it, serves me right for not being engaged lately...

I asked these Questions: why Ask the UN for permission?
What Are the rules and Regulations.
And last but not least...why would anyone want to join the UN

Our area knows how to handle emergency situations quite well. For example, we had power restored in only 12 hours after Hurricane Matthew. East Central Florida will be one of the last bastions worth living in, even during times that are right out of Atlas Shrugged.

LOL! Sold by all fine tire stores on a planet near you..

I don't think I want to go, not being that adven-
turous.--But they want to be in the UN?! Yuckh!!
Well, the Pilgrims in Massachusetts left European
tyranny, and look what happened in Salem in the
late 1600's.--For now, include me out.

Recently I wrote six essays saying what was wrong with Star Trek. First and foremost was their promotion of pure communism--for that's what their New Economy amounted to. Second was their Articles of Federation, which the producers literally cribbed, word-for-word, from the UN Charter. If you doubt that, go find a 1977 Star Fleet Technical Manual in your local library. Read the Articles of Federation. Change "Intelligent life-form" to "human" and "Federation Council" to "Security Council," and substitute USA, Britain, France, Russia, and China for Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, and Alpha Centauri, and you have your UN Charter.

Worse yet, in Deep Space Nine they used a lot of Hinduism, in their tales of the Prophets on the one hand, and the "Domineering" Great Link on the other. For what does it mean to join the Great Link of Changelings, except to achieve the Hindu Nirvana, which means dissolution of individual identity and the joining of the ultimate collective?

I had in mind a seven-year cycle that would tell what would happen to the Federation moving forward. Having fought the costliest war in its history, it would pass Townshend-like Acts on its new colonies in Gamma Quadrant. Those colonies would then re-fight the American War for Independence. Then I decided to take it further: with a full-blown mutiny within Star Fleet that ended with the overthrow of the original United Nations and the capture of the one person, or rather the succession of clones, responsible for all the bitter warfare the Federation had with Klingons, Romulans, and even the Dominion. I would end it with this "person" standing trial before a judge and jury brought in from the Delta Quadrant--and then the dissolution of the Federation and the reorganization of Star Fleet as an independent, non-governing fleet of interstellar rangers, tasking themselves to keep the peace (for an annual premium, like insurance), recruiting all comers regardless of race or planetary origin, and looking for new worlds, not to conquer, but to trade with.

Of course I know the rights holders of Star Trek will never agree to it. So now I'm trying to figure out how to change some race and character names and play it out independently of the Star Trek franchise. That would also let me fix some serious reality problems.

If you liked The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, you will likely enjoy B5, too.

I hope you all signed up because per the CEO, initial signup stops after 100,000 and they already have reached that per the email I just received from Asgardia.
In case you missed the CEO's address, read it here:
https://room.eu.com/news/plans-for-fi...

Thanks to DrZ for posting this topic ;^)

Agreed. Of course, it promoted "rational anarchy," that is, anarchy without the chaos Rand feared would always attend anarchy. It also lamented you'd probably never get there, because when people seize power, they tend not to destroy it but to get hooked on it. In the end, the lead character is talking about making a new life for himself among the asteroids, hoping to achieve there what he feels he missed on the Moon with its revolution.

But along the way, it covered all the bases. Self-sufficiency and self-sustenance, for one thing.

Under "normal" circumstances its not very congested as normally defined, and a lovely neighborhood. In abnormal (e.g., emergency) circumstances would you want to be stuck there with empty grocery stores, jammed and dangerous expressways, failing city services (water/electric/gas), unresponsive police, angry/hungry/envious looters ?

Reminds me of Stargate universe.

I didn't think that it was congested where I live, freedomforall. I live right near an uncongested I-95.

Great book. Probably in the top 5 for liberty minded people. It would be mandatory reading if I had a home school.

DrZ, the US government villified a bunch of innocent people and burned them alive just to get a bigger budget for the ATF. Covering up an attack in space would be much easier.
Definitely need a defense in place, and a live feed to lots of tv networks on earth. The enemy of my enemy ...

If it says Heinlein, it has got to be good.

Just let me know when you want to buy land to get out of the congestion and I'll be a good neighbor in the sunshine boonies, jb.

All the dissidents need to do is establish their own colony elsewhere. I suspect that things will be quite tribal and diverse in the community of colonies in the system. Star Trek style Federation under a unified, uniform, universal government is extremely unlikely.

I'm in the process of writing my first novel I've tentatively titled "Kaleidoscope" that takes place in the wildly heterogeneous collection of solar system colonies. Hopefully I can actually get the novel published in the next year, so I can see what the response is to a future very different from conventional futurist thinking.

While there is no guarantee that Asgardia won't devolve into the morass we find ourselves in, it would be an opportunity to start from scratch in a really big way. So long as we're being imaginative, there is the possibility of an earthlike planet if we overcome the speed of light limitation. While we SF nerds see this as a viable future, there will be skeptics. But then, who knows in what direction science will evolve? Where we are today, the communication/information era was a totally unexpected future that went into the current direction of a hand held device that is a computer more powerful than those that took up an entire floor of an office building in the 50's and also contained a phone and a camera and the ability to grow by down loading from a world wide internet. So, the world as predicted of interplanetary exploration, flying cars, and teleportation is way behind current innovations.

I signed up at the website. It would be great if this could get off the ground (literally). It looks like there are many logistical and financial problems to be solved for a project like this. Also, you would need a neutral corporation with launch capability. If Jeff Bezos of Amazon gets get his space delivery systems into consistent commercial use would be the best arrangement. One of the major technical problem would be is creating a magnetic field around the station to deflect cosmic rays. I'm assuming that the station will be at a Lagrange Point as mentioned in the comments. A cylindrical structure with a monopole at each end and with enough electrical power could create would create a large magnetic field. As with a B-5 station the central tube would have to be rotated to simulate gravity. The tube itself would have solar panels mounted on the entire surface or have an internal chemical power plant (APU). Rotating contact surface for an external frame for solar panels would need a lot of maintenance like a B5 structure. Micro-meteorite protection in the way of a self sealing material to surround the station would be needed.These are the most pressing requirements for a habitable station.

Solar powered EMP cannon could fry the electronics of any vehicle on approach, and possibly detonate any warhead onboard. When you start flinging stuff Earthward, it helps to do it from a long way off, like the Moon, or you're asking for real trouble. The EMP cannon would obviously not have the range to do damage to anything on or near the surface, and can be justified as strictly defensive.

Seems like these people found a fat donor. Total disconnect with reality, but kept the "feel good" parts, like the UN, over and above human squabbles, etc. Actually, pretty easy to do, as long as the money keeps rolling in...

I think the reason is that until a few years ago, we didn't have the connectivity that we do now. Had we had the phone/camera and internet back in the 60s, this world would be even more liberal than it is now. That's why we have the problems that we have now because they like to use two weapons: shaming and "social justice".

I can see some "dissidents" arising, but not 30% or higher. There probably are not that many in the U.S. now. If were that easy for a society to slide into collectivism, the whole world would have arrived there long ago and stayed there.