I first heard of this idea while reading Larry Niven and Jerry Pournells novel Mote in Gods eye in which it was said earth having been to small for countries which had led to instability and wars switched to regions instead which were composed of almost half to a whole continent each, this led to less competition for land and ended boarder disputes. So what are your opinions on this good or bad and why. I believe that this is a good idea and would end many conflicts and save many lives.

uhhhhh, two words...Middle East. That region makes this impossible. You know why

wow... I think that is one of the worst ideas ever. Sure it sounds good at first until they decide that the world can be ruled by a single government (which is what I'm sure those people would push once they reduced the number of countries down).

I'd love to see you try and tell countries in Africa or in the Middle East, or India and Pakistan, or in South America that they are now going to be one country instead of 2 or 5 or 10. I just can't see this working.

Wouldnt work for sure.. Infact.. alot of countrys would be VERY against it. Would end up with a GDI vs NOD situation happening.

just out of curiosity, how would an idea like that function in such a society as ours

It' wouldn't. There just can't be a one government that everyone could be happy with.
People would divide themselfs into factions and they would just fight among themselfs.
And most of these factions will seek to overtake the government.
Yea it would kinda be like a old style civil war only global.

So No chance, people are sadly enough, supposed to be separated into groups.

i think if it happened, the countries would just reform. except in the middle east, where new boundaries would form

Timeline of this Scenario:
The "regions" would begin to spread, and unification of the world would begin ideas and plots in many. After a decade or two, there would be 2 major sides: Pro-Unification and Against. Among them would be smaller factions and such. In the end: Huge war, if Unification would win, many would be unhappy with new single government, revolt, massacres, the whole 9 yards. If Unification would fail, smaller factions would grow, and it would end up with many huge factions all fighting each other for control.

Mind you, this is major assumption.

For once, what Neyro said a) makes perfect sense and b) doesn't involve communism

We have actually already had two wars that spanned continents. We call them the World Wars. But I actually think that our planet is currently too big to not have countries, even if we end up calling them something else. And the Middle East wouldn't be the only trouble spot for the goal of regional unification - the Balkans, the Far East, and possibly Africa all present similar problems. Each contains feuds centered on ethnicity, religion, and/or ideology that will not be resolved quickly or easily.

I think we're at least a century or more from seeing anything close to a successful unified world government. Probably you would first need a stable dynamic of world superpowers, which we currently lack. For that you want at least three superpowers, with at least 90% of all nations with any significant political, military, or social power as allies or member-nations of those superpowers. Currently we have what, one and a half world superpowers? America's power is currently waning, but the European Union is on the rise and from what I hear China may become a contender eventually (although we've been hearing that for years). But who knows yet how either of those will turn out. Then, for a successful world government, there needs to be an external threat big enough for the superpowers to unite. Of course, it would just be a temporary measure until the threat passes, but there is a chance at that point for people to consolidate power under one banner, and so temporary may become permanent. Anyone here watch Gundam 00? Minus the giant robots, it actually makes a somewhat plausible case for what I just described. Any kind of long term global natural disaster might work too.

My other idea for something like a world government depends on major extraterrestrial colonization a la Ender's Game etc., which is something we're even less likely to see in our lifetime.

Neyro and others are right though, there's a pretty good chance for rebellion or factionalization in any world unification scenario.