Johannesburg - A world re-imagined, notwithstanding the obvious strides of human endeavour to stake a claim on anticipated futures, can be a dreadful proposition indeed.
Artificial intelligence (AI) – as a modern-day craft now a part of faculties at the tertiary level - propel scholars, budding scholars and scientists alike to experience “new life” ahead of its actual dawn.
Education is exciting when it is applied to life as a science. And, for its part, science is incredibly fascinating as it is based on studies and empirical findings thereof. In other words, most scholars are rejuvenated by science because it is evidence-based.
The challenge about futures re-imagined could be that, unlike laboratory-tested experiments, AI moves at a speed until recently unimagined, probing times ahead and attempting to live those times in the present moment. This week, I was fascinated by the standpoint of the world-famous SA-born dollar billionaire Elon Musk.
He was addressing the 2023 World Government Summit taking place in the UAE. Musk, always a busy-bee as SpaceX CEO, addressed the gathering virtually. The summit’s objective is to foster cooperation between nations.
One might be forgiven for prematurely applauding an initiative such as this, given the constant threat to multilateralism and myopic geopolitics that are a constant threat to global peace and stability. The organisers need to be praised for inviting not only politicians to the summit.
People such as Musk are generally fearless when it comes to expressing their views. They are renowned successful business people who harbour no fear of being “elected” or booted out when the next polls come.
As the participants were working out global strategies to weave together our diverse and divided universe, Musk was very quick to play a role of a party pooper.
Any attempt to create a single world government is a cause for concern, Musk opined, before explaining the hidden dangers. He said such a move could strip humanity of diversity. Furthermore, Musk argued, it could precipitate the end of civilisation as we know it.
In short, the participants were strongly warned not to get too excited and take their “dream” of a “world government” too far, perhaps too soon.
Musk, whose fame recently skyrocketed following his take-over of Twitter, elaborated: “We want to avoid creating a civilisational risk by having – and this may seem odd – too much cooperation between governments.”
Musk further argued that the global community has historically derived its strength from its diversity. Different civilisations were historically separated by distance, he said. When one went into decline, others could rise, he reasoned. “When ancient Rome fell, Islam rose and managed to preserve much of the Roman knowledge and build upon it,” Musk said. He further argued that in an era of globalisation, where the international community is interconnected and interdependent, this could no longer be a viable scenario.
RT international news quoted Musk as follows: “We want to have some amount of civilisational diversity, such that if something goes wrong with one civilisation, the whole thing doesn’t collapse, and humanity keeps moving forward.”
Musk acknowledged that humanity’s survival – now and in the future – could be a matter of “universal importance”. As far as is known, there are no other species anywhere that has “developed consciousness”.
“I have seen no evidence of alien technology, or any alien life whatsoever. I think I’d know,” he dared the audience. “SpaceX – we do a lot. I don’t think anyone knows more about space than me, at least about space technology,” said Musk.
He said the very thought that there were no “aliens” was deeply troubling. It meant that human civilisation in an era of modernity “is like a tiny candle in a vast darkness and a very vulnerable tiny candle that could easily be blown out”.
Musk’s parting shot was equally interesting. He warned the participants to remain careful and vigilant, and to “take great care to avoid humanity being wiped out by some cataclysm”. But, coming to think about it, if we had a “world government”, who would be at its helm?
In the book: A world of whose making? Making the international: Economic inter-dependence and political order, political scientist Simon Bromley et al notes that: “The international (order) is marked by massive economic inequalities and disparities in political power.”
Nation-states interact with each other invariably guided by their national interest and identity. It is on these principles that a country’s national strategy of development is premised.
Bromley et al further notes that: “International political order is rooted in the actions of the states in the context of constraints produced by the states system, the different interest and identities of states as they strive to give voice to their own particular concerns, relations of power between and among states, and the ability (or otherwise) of states to act collectively.”
In contemporary politics, the climate and context in which this week’s UAE summit to thrash out the modalities to form a “world government” took place, it is imperative to note the following basic and stark idea: Relations among states, by their nature, are anarchic. In other words, states pursue power in competition with one another.
It is therefore, no wonder, that in the current international architecture, the powerful states of the global north exhibit a penchant to club together against adversaries (competition) – real or perceived – and they set out as a collective to disempower such adversaries through brute military power, economic sanctions and international isolation or a combination of all three and even more.
The inequality among states is of course determined by economic power and military capabilities. With the US being the world’s only remaining superpower since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the turn of the 90s, when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.
For example, America’s practice to impose unilateral sanctions against its adversaries is sealed with a stamp of “binding”, meaning any state that cooperates with the enemy of the US is regarded and treated as an enemy. Hence, the US economic sanctions – once unleashed by any sitting administration,cRepublican or Democrat - forcefully bind all states to abide by them or face the dire consequences.
The practice happens with impunity despite the existence of the UN, the world’s supposed number one multilateral institution, which is constantly overtly undermined. So, it is inconceivable to fathom a “world government” that will topple the hegemony of the US, and its power to practice unilateralism.
The US succeeds in this practice because of the country’s huge economic muscle, and unmatched military prowess. The EU and Nato are explicitly under the unmistakable influence of the US. After all, it is Washington that keeps them financially viable and provides them with guaranteed military cover against any adversary.
Other supposed multilateral organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, for example, are like water in the palm of the US. Organisations such as the G7 and G20 exist through enormous iniquities among member-states. And that is normalised by treacherous bilateral relations between the powerful states of the global north and their weaker counterparts in the global south.
The rapid rise of China as the world’s biggest emerging economy poses a major threat to the dominance of the US in the global arena. To counter China and destabilise the government of President Xi Jinping, Washington has all of a sudden re-directed its foreign policy to embrace Taiwan as an equal competitor of China.
The US does so with the full knowledge that the majority of the international community at the level of the UN regard Taiwan as part of the One China Policy. The economic embargo of a growing list of Chinese goods and services from entering US soil is another of Washington’s strategies to undermine China’s epic rise in world politics.
Another example of a cantankerous geopolitical wave the world is going through is demonstrated by the US-led Nato sanctions against Russia. Even though their sanctions against Russia have not passed through the UN, they “bind” all states through threats and coercion instead of international law. No wonder the UN, I dare reiterate, could be moribund sooner than many think. We already have a “world government”. It sits in Washington.