Today’s idea of a nation is molded by politics, but it doesn’t have to include a political framework at all. And now, as we begin to understand what a world might look like without political chaos, enterprises like Peacekeeper could change the contemporary notion of how national identities might evolve.
Historically, it was understood that people of a general region that shared each other’s culture were a “nation”. No lines painted on a map by politicians defined it, and it wasn’t a necessary element to have “legal” gangs (cops) roaming the countryside enforcing edicts politicians call “laws”. In fact, nations often bled over into other nations. They commingled, and their identities weren’t defined by Constitutions or boundaries that politicians call borders.
There were no so called “representatives” planning the “right way” to handle conflicts or regulating exchanges and economic activity. And there definitely wasn’t a small group of people who absurdly and arrogantly thought they could attempt to manipulate and control the money supply in the name of doing right by all people (see government sanctioned central banking institutions).
Orders emerged through cooperation, conflict resolution processes, and voluntary exchanges. Some ways were more effective than others, but that’s mostly irrelevant. Failure (in economic terms “loss”) is a necessary function of the market process. It shows us what doesn’t work comparatively. Societies that understood this and moved on from the losses, instead of trying to prop them up with more laws and money, prospered longer, and not just for the few either.
Point here is there is no reason this simple yet historical idea of “national identity” can’t be applied in today’s times. And there’s no reason the future can’t resemble a past with better, more robust alternatives to conflict resolution or outright violent conflict prevention. All that world really takes to manifest is an alteration of perspective in the minds of people. Just looking at something slightly different like the definition of what a “nation” is can lead to epic changes in the social order. Often, I’ve found, after a small alteration in one’s perspective, the rest of the static, politically charged reasoning falls like dominoes.
So, imagine if there were such a thing as the “Peacekeeper Nation” where anyone in the world could partake in it as they wished and where “citizenship” existed in the cloud.
But let’s first understand what Peacekeeper is. Right now, Peacekeeper offers an emergency alert service that provides users an easy way to send strong alerts to their Emergency Response Group and Alliances in event of fire, medical, and even attack by an aggressor. Each user has the ability to associate with who he or she wants in their network. In fact, the Peacekeeper company plans on implementing a number of reputational devices within the app to help weed out any potential bad actors. No central authority is built into the app, not even within the neighborhood ERGs (Emergency Response Group). So no one Keeper has power over their neighborhood group as a whole, and everyone builds reputation that is open for all other users to see. This is in stark contrast to state emergency response “services”. You have no idea who you are calling or how proficient they are in their trade. Sometimes that leads to dead dogs, wrongful arrests, beat downs of innocent people, or worse — death of the people who help is called for.
But if we consider the decentralized nature of the Peacekeeper idea, and then apply it to other areas the state has monopolistically commandeered from the people under the color of law, is it too great of a leap to discern that competition might emerge?
For instance, I could imagine within this new global community of Peacekeepers connected by the cloud could peaceful conflict resolution and arbitration services (also known as “courts”) spring forward; even perhaps new ways of incarcerating violent individuals Keepers have successfully protected their communities from. Historically, “courts” were understood in some cultures as “tribunals”, and participation in them were widespread, unlike today. A return of something similar to that through your internet/cloud portal doesn’t seem too outlandish if Peacekeeper really can successfully compete with the very thing ingrained in people’s minds the state is necessary for: 911. Moreover, it doesn’t take a political dismantling of the state from within for this concept to have a chance. Only the offering up of an alternative idea in competition with the old one (the state) is required.
Even new and albeit necessary ways of identification unbound by bureaucratic political processes could find their way into application through the decentralized Peacekeeper solution. Granted, there are a million baby steps between now and that potential future, but everything begins first as an idea.
The revolutionary beauty here is each Peacekeeper “citizen” is the authority. It’s not special, privileged authority granted by the state and its agents either. It’s authority given to the user by other users — voluntarily. If we understand economics, we understand that paves the way for incentives, and incentives, if profitable (effective), can lead to success.
For me, with that perspective in mind, as someone who takes no interest in identifying with a political group or their crony institutions, I would be happy to identify as a “citizen” in the Peacekeeper “Nation” or community or whatever you want to call it.
Maybe I sound like a dreamer. Maybe I am a dreamer. But just maybe dreams come true.
