Nationalism will become a global threat
The world is turning inwards. In Europe, the support for far-right nationalism has now became a firm staple in mainstream politics. Economic troubles are polarising national attitudes. People are frustrated and naturally want an easy target for blame. It would be nice if that blame could be placed somewhere that a fight can easily be waged – rather than with an extremely complicated and boring economic framework. And so of course, the target becomes the foreigner!
The perfect target! It allows people to unite as a culture, with the aim of guarding their community. That motivational sense of patriotism – of belonging. By showing such pride in their community, they feel their community in return is proud of them! It’s win win all round, right?
And so whole communities come to say, “fuck everyone else! They want to live in a different way, then they can go home to their own countries. Their countries aren’t as good as ours – but that’s not our problem – their race/religion clearly isn’t able to live in peace – they can’t modernise like we have. What gives them the right to come and sponge off our taxes? And why should we have to send over money to help them in their countries? Charity starts at home! We have enough problems here, without having to give away billions in foreign aid.”
They are completely startled when it is suggested that they are seeing the world all wrong. They say that they see the world as it is; that they are proud of their country and all they want is to protect their way of life. Well I say they do have it all wrong, and here’s why:
The world as it is, is not the world that we should be defending
The world is changing, and there is no stopping it. What we need to defend is not what we already have, but what we are about to create.
Our safety will not be secured by simply keeping the foreigners out, and keeping ourselves rich with luxuries. We are ignoring the future that is coming. The only way to prepare for the upcoming security threats, is to organise ourselves so all cultures can work together to make decisions for the common good, rather than the good of themselves.
The future that I am warning about is one where weapons are massively advanced, and peoples access to those weapons is made much easier.
Future weapons
Technologies that are now only just emerging, during the next 40 years, will completely revolutionise our world. The rate that technologies are advancing is increasing. The technology we will have in another decade, will make the smartphones that we have now, seem as primitive as the bricks some carried around in the 80’s. Find out more about the accelerating rate of technology in our explanation of exponential growth.
Find out about upcoming dangerous technologies in our article, 5 emerging technologies that could destroy the world. The power of our weapons, combined with the increasing power of the individual, will make every enemy of anything, a threat to everything.
Everything is everyone’s problem
And it is for that reason, that everything becomes everyone’s problem. We are not understanding that, while we protest against policies that promote global integration; while we sit back taking our luxuries for granted, criticising the cultures of others; while we look down on those sitting at our borders, who dream for what we have.
What makes us more worthy of living in our country than those who are struggling to survive in theirs? We did not create the culture within which they live – our ancestors did! They have fought against the barbarianism of the past. They abolished slavery, they created our democracies, they fought to give women the right to work and vote. We just sit and protect what we have been handed on a plate, as if the world owes us that right.
In our ignorance, we even fight against the security measures that are being taken to defend us – paranoid that somebody is sat reading our personal emails. A way to increase security, inline with the increasing threat, is to increase surveillance. We may be able to enhance surveillance while maintaining our privacies – read how in our article, Embrace Surveillance! Not to be its Slave, but to Become its Master.
Regardless of which methods we use to secure our future against the malevolent, we are going to need to be able to cooperate. We need to help others in other countries to build democracies. We need to help other countries suppress radical Islam, for example. We need to deny radical Islamists access to the kind of weapons featured in our article 5 emerging technologies that could destroy the world. Should they decide that they have no hope in converting the whole world to their religion, they could decide that it is best to just end the world altogether.
Infinite more reasons will exist for people to want to cause mass destruction. Many of these reasons are due to those people being mistreated. We must stop oppressing those we believe less worthy. We must stop thinking that all our security depends on is the strength of our borders! Borders have absolutely no ability to protect us against some of the weapons that will be created in as little as 15 years.
We must stop believing that our traditional cultures are perfect, and it is the absolute priority above anything else to protect them. There is always room for improvement, and we must find a way to merge with other cultures to create communities that everybody feels comfortable to live in. This does not mean that people need to eliminate religion from their communities. We can create common ground, where religious beliefs are respected without needing to be shared.
Integration, I believe, is an imperative effort, that must be followed if we are to survive the test that is the 21st century. If we are successful, humanity will become defined by its ability to cooperate, and cooperation will be praised one day with more pride than independance.