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Humanity won't be ready for a single, centralized government until we have someone else to fight. Say, for example, we terraform Mars. Suddenly we have a growing population that really isn't answerable to the Earth governments. What happens? Massive spin. "Astronomers today have confirmed that the Martian Federation has been building up a stockpile of nuclear weapons. When reached for comment, the President warns that Mars will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and will take steps to stop them. Mars has welcomed UN weapons inspectors for decades, who have confirmed that the only nuclear material on the planet is being used to create electricity." The president will insist that Mars not continue to seek nuclear weapons, Mars will be like, "WTF?!" and there will be humanity's first insterstellar war. World war 5 is Mars vs. Earth. Suddenly, there are only 7 planets left.
Hmaunity is thousands of years away from a functional world government because we are still having trouble allowing our altruistic, forward thinking, patient, sympathetic, scientific, logical sides to have doninance over our baser instincts. It might happen, but I won't be around to see it.
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