I agree that making connections and learning more about the World Federalism movement seems valuable, especially for people working in global governance from a longtermist perspective.
I agree that achieving a federalist world government would potentially solve lots of coordination problems that contribute to x-risk while being less susceptible to especially bad world government lock-in problems (than other world government types)
That said, I think I’m a bit pessimistic about the tractability of the end goal of achieving a federalist world government, since it seems like a political impossibility without a massive change in global dynamics (which could happen in response to a large war, global catastrophe, x-risk evident enough to create political will, etc.)
I should note that WF orgs are working on relatively more tractable subgoals for now that seem like they might be valuable by themselves, like trying to set up a (consultative) UN Parliament or improving representation/democracy/transparency in other global institutions.
I don’t think the World Federalist Movement is larger now or more attractive than it was after WWII, and it’s not clear to me that there’s reason to believe it’ll grow past that point. (Really unsure about this point though)
Some thoughts I have:
I agree that making connections and learning more about the World Federalism movement seems valuable, especially for people working in global governance from a longtermist perspective.
I agree that achieving a federalist world government would potentially solve lots of coordination problems that contribute to x-risk while being less susceptible to especially bad world government lock-in problems (than other world government types)
That said, I think I’m a bit pessimistic about the tractability of the end goal of achieving a federalist world government, since it seems like a political impossibility without a massive change in global dynamics (which could happen in response to a large war, global catastrophe, x-risk evident enough to create political will, etc.)
I should note that WF orgs are working on relatively more tractable subgoals for now that seem like they might be valuable by themselves, like trying to set up a (consultative) UN Parliament or improving representation/democracy/transparency in other global institutions.
I don’t think the World Federalist Movement is larger now or more attractive than it was after WWII, and it’s not clear to me that there’s reason to believe it’ll grow past that point. (Really unsure about this point though)