Passports

All hail, a new dumping ground for thoughts beyond of "Random". Now there's "Life", something that hails more of a questioning of modern relics. Passports, currency, government, etc. being of these things to be questioned of their efficaciousness. It is intended to go deep into the roots of what we are, but, being completely ignorant of all the philosophical thought that has come before it... Enjoy!

Also, notice the added links!

To begin, let's define the purpose of a passport. It's used as a document to determine if a person can enter a country or not. Sort of like Country A trusts Country B, so they let their accountable citizens travel. How do we decide which citizens? Use the top tier and have them sign off on the authenticity and integrity of the person.

Let's take three small communities (A,B, and C) for example. C's people are completely untrustworthy; or so speculation goes, so no-one from C can enter A or B. A or B trust each other, and people wish to travel, but to leave a good impression, only a select few can travel.

If A, B, and C are small communities, each consisting of about 20 people. Under such circumstances, people from the community know exactly know should come and go. It's small, and can manage itself.

Let's bring the population up to maybe about 100 each. There will some bad apples in all 3 communities. C currently is being punished for no reason. A and B interchange people, but they now need guards to ensure that only those that are allowed travel. Still, it's a small community, and guarding the borders is relatively trivial.

Population boom, 10 000 people in each community. There are troubled people in each community. C is still being unfairly punished. A and B still interchange people, but having a few guards managing the borders is no longer reasonable -- the population is so big that it now needs police to keep the calm. As well as people outside verifying the borders.

Why verify the borders? so no evil comes in. But why? there are equal numbers of trouble-makers in A, B, and C. Each has their own police force. Only thing that they are attempting to stop is the spread of the crime; which is still leaking through the borders. Those that want to circumvent the system will manage; unless if easily rooted out by the nation.

In our non-fictitious world, people are just re-exported to where they came from.

The idea of the passport is good: guarantee that people going to another country originate from somewhere, and that they are somewhat screened. The downside: are countries too big to issue such control? The populations are massive; people no longer have to escape their community to reach anonymity. It's in the looming office building on the other side of the street.

Build a wall? Go right ahead; tunnels will be built, people adapt. And how can you be 100% sure that someone has not fooled the system.

Building a new electronic system? will people care about it? will all employers care?

Passports, like government, are an opt-in process. People can make a big fuss out of them and follow their every indication, or just do as though they mean nothing. Traffic ticket? It's your taxes that go to paying those officers that give out tickets. Income tax? It's just an agreement between enough people that it must be done: if 100% of the people disagreed, an no-one filed it one year, the government could yell and scream all it wanted, whine, complain, but theres no way it could imprison everyone at once.

Right now, we are opting in for passports. Well, governments (which we keep well funded) opted in for passports.

Are passports a good idea? of course; but at their current scale, they probably are somewhat of a joke (in the west that is).

Am I suggesting that everyone revolt against what they don't like about the government? Be careful of your decisions. It has to be practically unanimously agreed upon. 50% doesn't cut it (more than 50% take part in file-sharing, and under that logic it would become legal). Will people break under the pressure of the "leader"? (the ones we pay to lead the country are quite powerful, and have access to the military to make the population comply, no? - unless the military is against the government; which you have another issue at hand). So, the quick answer is no.

Is this an over-simplified version of things? of course; it's just here to make you think -- it has opened doors of thought in my mind as well. Excellent for creative writing.