Are competing nation states already in lock-in?

By JordanStone @ 2025-10-02T22:34 (+7)

I think this question is important^[1] and I wanted to do a deeper dive into it. But its outside my area of expertise and time availability so I'm posting it as a question. I don't necessarily endorse the argument outlined below. I mostly want to challenge the view that the pursuit of a World government increases the risk of lock-in (because we're already locked in).

Here's a simplified argument that the world is already in a state of lock-in^[2] due to competition between nation states, and that there is a need for global systemic change:

Many of the global challenges we face are made significantly worse by global anarchy and the security dilemma. Nations are in constant competition to acquire more resources and power, and losing or exiting that competition will likely result in that nation being destroyed, conquered, or disempowered. So, despite the huge cost to maintain military might and the negative impacts on the World and the future, there are strong incentives for nations to feed the competition. If there were security guarantees from a stronger international power, then global anarchy would end and the security dilemma could dissolve. However, no powerful nation would voluntarily give up their power to an international body. That leaves us in a state of lock-in, where the concept of the nation state is extremely stable, and nations will continue to develop increasingly dangerous technologies to compete and maintain security. While nation states can change global values over time, that does not seem to have affected the way that nation states behave towards each other^[3]. So, we are locked-in to the values of competition and conflict. This mechanism is a driving force of x-risks from AI, nuclear weapons, and bioengineered pandemics, and prohibits collaboration on other important issues around climate change, space governance, and global health and wellbeing. A key priority to tackle numerous global pressing problems should be to overcome this lock-in through pursuit of global systemic change.

From what I can tell, EAs are averse to advocating for a "World government" primarily because of:

• Risk of (tyranny) lock-in
• Tractability challenges/ aversion to systemic change

I think it's an important question and it definitely comes up a lot in the EA space, but I haven't seen a dedicated question or discussion about it on the forum. 

Here are some polls to encourage discussion:

And some questions: 

• Can competing nation states create a good long-term future?
• Is it tractable to work on this problem?
• What would work on this problem actually look like?
• Why is EA (perceived to be?) bad at working on systemic change?
• What should a World government look like? Is it possible to eliminate the risk of tyranny?
• Will a World government emerge anyway after superintelligent AI? Will we have any influence on that?
• Which is the worse lock-in? Nation states or world government?

1. ^{^}

   This mostly comes up when I discuss space governance, especially relating to power grabs of space resources which could allow one entity to set the long-term trajectory of human civilisation. 

2. ^{^}

   "Value lock-in is a state in which the values determining the long-term future of Earth-originating life can no longer be altered." https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/value-lock-in 

   So in this context, the value we are locked-in to is an arms race that can never be ended. 

3. ^{^}

   i.e. geopolitical realism