Zachary Caceres has a new, insightful post at Let A Thousand Nations Bloom. Zach contends that taking Popper’s evolutionary epistemology seriously requires us to critically assess the nation-state system and envision a social system that better approximates Popper’s ideal of the open society. Zach identifies some of the basic properties of what he “semi–seriously call[s] The Really, Really Open Society.” Reflecting on what he says here and has said in previous posts, Zach seems to have in mind a voluntaristic, polycentric social order that features a rich degree of competition among its constitutive social systems.
Zach’s suggestive argument points towards a promising, interdisciplinary research agenda that should guide our attempts at grappling with the variety of complex, social problems that confronts us moderns.