Heh, now this is an interesting debate, though it might get us downvoted.
Nowadays, however, the U.S. government acts a single global authority that you have to contend with, and it has little tolerance for regimes that are outside of certain approved bounds.
Perhaps the current global international order is a better way to phrase it, since the US usually carries with it a constellation of European countries, and economic and political interests in other parts of the world play a large role in determining the US policy. In many interesting ways Washington DC seems to be the global imperial capital where vassals go to pay tribute and hopefully determine or influence policy.
The argument you present is hard to attack or criticize. We live in a society where we speak of nation building, spreading democracy and even refer to "humanitarian bombings" without a hint of sarcasm. And this is merely direct military action! One needs only to look at other international both covert and publicly know activities designed and used to spread and enforce these "approved bounds", to realize that such military intervention plays only a small role in its upkeep. Many on Lesswrong seriously question democracy, but nearly any system they may have in mind to replace it is essentially unacceptable to the Western world. Because currently the ultimate purpose of the Western states or rather the superstructure they form is to expand into a universalist order that captures all humans everywhere. The very existence of humans living in a different system, or heavens forbid, thriving, is offensive to it. This I think includes even very moderate suggestions like say Futarchy. The ideology may not have a name, but it seems incredibly powerful, perfectly comparable in its influence on 21st and 20th century civlization with the influence of Marxist-Leninism or Jacobinism on the societies of their time.
Have you read James Scott's Two Cheers for Anarchy?
Recently the relatively awesome entrepreneur invested 1.25 million USD into this (seasteading institute website here).
It seems such a wonderful concept, finally somewhere where new forms of government could be tried out. But I'm just wondering how in the world they hope to deal with existing governments since their reaction to any kind of serious alternatives, especially one that either economically or ideologically presented a significant challenge, is bound to not be positive.
I was just wondering what LWer thoughts are on this matter? Also has there been any discussion of seasteading in the past that I've missed? Also I'm wondering if anyone would hazard to perhaps offer a prediction or judge how likley this is to succeed (maybe on predictionbook)?