Reply #150: It may very well be

[The2ndWheel]

I could be completely wrong. However, once a central authority has power by default, that authority will do whatever it has to do to survive, and expand its reach. Look at Washington D.C.(or any capital of an empire) as a good example.

It's voluntarily the way it is now. It can be voluntarily then to opt out. But the process of globally integrated centralization(i.e. globalization) eventually leads to the choice no longer existing. We already have to(for the most part, and for now) work for the corporations so that we can buy the products they own and sell us, and we already have to keep the state running(we don't get to pick and choose what we want to pay for...like Iraq, and the next war, and the next war, and the next war) under penalty of force.

Both of those institutions have massive power, by default(a power acquired over a long time), over the lives of human and non-human alike. My guess is that the system will become opt out(until the next step). It sort of has to. As much as the whole system is sort of running by itself, it does still need people in some capacity. We may just be cogs, utilitarian objects, but at least we're still needed.