Regarding the final point, about whether there is a way to "quit the ant game", I think there may sort of be one in the future. The article doesn't account for the possibility of there being only one ant colony that has dominated the entire area, thus eliminating the competitive aspect of its evolution.
I think we are a long way off from even a world government in name, and if and when we first get there it will perhaps be like the wild west in that there is a loose sense of a government presence but much conflict is still settled locally. But if the centralized powers become strong enough, eventually they could effectively end war, with massive economic ramifications as that expense is diverted elsewhere. Obviously there would still be peacekeeping forces, but those would be a massive deescalation compared to the current state of the world.
The danger of this centralization, of course, is that all the eggs are then in one basket. Corruption of that society means corruption of all of humanity. But the cost-benefit of even enslavement under such a government may be worth it on the whole. It doesn't look like it when you're living in a place not ravaged by war, but a world dictator would be better than being in a country being bombed and mined (in both senses of the word) over and over again. And who knows, perhaps we could have a world government some day that is democratic, and our biggest battles will be protests and politics. Call me naive. :)
I think we are a long way off from even a world government in name, and if and when we first get there it will perhaps be like the wild west in that there is a loose sense of a government presence but much conflict is still settled locally. But if the centralized powers become strong enough, eventually they could effectively end war, with massive economic ramifications as that expense is diverted elsewhere. Obviously there would still be peacekeeping forces, but those would be a massive deescalation compared to the current state of the world.
The danger of this centralization, of course, is that all the eggs are then in one basket. Corruption of that society means corruption of all of humanity. But the cost-benefit of even enslavement under such a government may be worth it on the whole. It doesn't look like it when you're living in a place not ravaged by war, but a world dictator would be better than being in a country being bombed and mined (in both senses of the word) over and over again. And who knows, perhaps we could have a world government some day that is democratic, and our biggest battles will be protests and politics. Call me naive. :)