Modern states are the result of changes in the information processing capabilities of humanity

Modern states, meaning the states in which most of us live (i.e. centralised nation states) are not the product of evolutionary development towards a particular end. They are not an improvement on previous forms of state that historically appeared from time to time (e.g. empires, city-states etc.). Modern states are not the product of a linear development—this is true even though their next level of organisation, meaning the formation of archipelagos, is already in sight, in the form of the EU. On the contrary, modern states are the result of changes in the information processing capabilities of humanity. Need and opportunity are very visibly at play here: individuals need to augment their information processing and will take advantage of whatever opportunities to do this come their way; states need their citizens to do exactly that. Whichever technical tools (e.g. information technology) and organisational measures (e.g. centralised administration) are available at any given time are used to the fullest extent possible. While the use of technical tools is self-explanatory, why this process culminated (today) in the centralised state perhaps needs some more explanation. (On why this has culminated in the nation state, see §18.00.03.) Individuals need to augment their information processing and they thus invent tools (from language and writing to computers) to achieve exactly that. Any increase in their information processing is translated into increased processing by their state, which also has to keep up. (Therefore, it is individuals that create a drag on the state and not vice versa—causing a lag that can be witnessed today in the digital world.) Any increase in the information processing by the state leads to greater centralisation, in a cycle that can be interpreted in many ways, but which seems (historically) inevitable.

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