All ‘global problems‘ – pandemics, international crime, climate change, cyber security, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, financial crises, etc – actually DEPEND on having strong states that are able to control the movement of goods, people, and money, NOT ‘removing boundaries’.

— scientism (@mr_scientism) April 8, 2020

Exactly. Some people have watched too much Star Trek. A borderless, global government might be a nice fantasy and if it’s possible, it might happen in 500 to 1,000 years (I have my doubts).

However — and this is a big however — that’s not the world we live in right now. We are nowhere adjacent to that place. It’s not some minor or non-traumatic transition. As in Star Trek, it’d probably take a catastrophe far larger than Covid-19 to get to any such world. (In the ST world it was massive, civilization-shattering nuclear wars.)

Right now we are stuck with nations. Without them, capital sloshes around the world with no restrictions and no loyalty in addition to a lot of other bad things mentioned in the tweet. Nations are the tool we have to work with. Is it the best? No. Does throwing a fit that we don’t have the unicorn space laser tool that we really wish we had help? Also no.

It’s nations or nothing for the moment. Get used to it.