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> Where people weren’t arbitraged across artificial boundaries? The boundaries aren’t arbitrary; they reflect ethnic differences between groups. Homogenizing

> Where people weren’t arbitraged across artificial boundaries? The boundaries aren’t arbitrary; they reflect ethnic differences between groups. Homogenizing people is an abhorrent suggestion — and without that, large governments don’t really work. > Well, if it were reasonably run, why not? This is extremely unlikely, because history has shown us that remote, centralized governments are generally both arbitrary towards citizens and ineffective at addressing regional needs. Big, centralized government has killed 100M people in the past century. > Imagine a world where the trillions going into the military were spent in other ways? There’s basically zero chance that would happen, as a central world government would need a lot of force to keep regions following their edicts. That you even suggest it shows that this isn’t a serious proposal. > Would that be so horrible? So much more terrible than what we have now? Yes, absolutely. You seem to have a fantasy, not a serious view of how that would operate or the consequences to human well-being based on historic precedent. It’s not that people don’t cooperate, it’s that what you’re proposing is dangerous and harmful, so people cooperate to oppose it.

leto_ii 7y ago
> The boundaries aren’t arbitrary; they reflect ethnic differences between groups. > Homogenizing people is an abhorrent suggestion Ok, just for the sake of throwing gasoline onto the fire, why do you think that boundaries are a natural thing, and why do you find the mixing of ethnic groups abhorrent?
- miscPerson 7y ago
  Boundaries are an expression of each tribe exerting an area of influence. A boundary forms where two areas of tribal dominance collide. You can watch animals pee and poop on things to mark theirs, among other signals. I didn’t say boundaries should be completely non-porous (as your comment implies), but rather that we don’t want to eliminate human ethnic/cultural diversity and that requires boundaries which enforce rate limited exchange. To borrow an analogy, there’s a reason cells have membranes. Intermingling at a rate which allows each tribe to maintain its integrity is natural, and has evidence going back longer than writing. As does outbreaks of violence at exceeding that rate. For example, Brexit was an act of political violence because the UK immigration exceeded the rate at which the society could naturalize immigrants leading to horrific events like “grooming gangs” of immigrants raping native children. Typically at the point gangs of migrants are raping natives, we drop the word “immigration” and talk about “invasion” or “colonization”. Similarly, other lurches towards nationalism in Europe and the US. Homogenizing everyone into a single global culture, which would be required to have a single government without boundaries that rate limit migration, would be verging on genocide. Your comment assumes a very negative interpretation of what I said.
  - leto_ii 7y ago
    > Your comment assumes a very negative interpretation of what I said. Not sure that it does :D I'll address your points one by one: > Boundaries are an expression of each tribe exerting an area of influence. Modern boundaries, like modern nation-states, don't really work like tribes did. Prehistoric tribes tended to move around, didn't build fences or patrol them with armed guards and usually had a relatively vague concept of ownership. In many places around the world boundaries were drawn by colonial powers according to their own interests and not by natives themselves. For that reason borders very often actually split cultures and lead to ethnic tensions (e.g. in the Middle East). > we don’t want to eliminate human ethnic/cultural diversity ... Fully agree. > ... and that requires boundaries which enforce rate limited exchange I really don't understand why you think this is the case. It seems to me you're operating with a mechanistic/thermodynamic model about how cultures work. It's simply not true that you need borders to allow diversity to survive. Take for example the concept of linguistic continuum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum. This actually ante-dates modern borders and shows how you can have cultural diversity and cultural mixture at the same time. > Intermingling at a natural rate which allows each tribe to maintain its integrity is natural, and has evidence going back longer than writing. Again, tribes and cultures used to mix all the time and modern states are not like tribes (or ancient kingdoms or empires for that matter). > Brexit was an act of political violence because the UK immigration exceeded the rate at which the society could naturalize immigrants. While I agree that Brexit was caused by a perceived flood of immigrants, the act of violence is mostly self-harm. The public's belief that immigration is excessive and harmful was encouraged by certain political and economic interests and is not an objective fact. > Homogenizing everyone into a single global culture, which would be required to have a single government without boundaries that rate limit migration I wasn't arguing for a global government to begin with. However, again, I don't see why you think administrative unity requires cultural uniformity. We can, and do, have institutions that oversee multiple diverse cultures, both across nation-states (e.g. UN, EU, NATO etc.) as well as inside them (many countries are federations that oversee ethnically diverse populations).
  - leto_ii 7y ago
    > leading to horrific events like “grooming gangs” of immigrants raping native children. Typically at the point gangs of migrants are raping natives, we drop the word “immigration” and talk about “invasion” or “colonization”. I didn't notice this sentence before. Did you edit your comment to add in this part? If so you should mention it. In any case, given the tone of this particular statement as well as that of your previous comments I really don't think we can have a productive conversation, so I'm gonna stop replying.
nico_h 7y ago
> The boundaries aren’t arbitrary; they reflect ethnic differences between groups. no they don’t. they’re the result of a lot of wars and invasions. just look at a map of the middle east or Africa. or of china for example. low correlation between border and ethnies.

leto_ii 7y ago

> The boundaries aren’t arbitrary; they reflect ethnic differences between groups. > Homogenizing people is an abhorrent suggestion Ok, just for the sake of throwing gasoline onto the fire, why do you think that boundaries are a natural thing, and why do you find the mixing of ethnic groups abhorrent?

miscPerson 7y ago
Boundaries are an expression of each tribe exerting an area of influence. A boundary forms where two areas of tribal dominance collide. You can watch animals pee and poop on things to mark theirs, among other signals. I didn’t say boundaries should be completely non-porous (as your comment implies), but rather that we don’t want to eliminate human ethnic/cultural diversity and that requires boundaries which enforce rate limited exchange. To borrow an analogy, there’s a reason cells have membranes. Intermingling at a rate which allows each tribe to maintain its integrity is natural, and has evidence going back longer than writing. As does outbreaks of violence at exceeding that rate. For example, Brexit was an act of political violence because the UK immigration exceeded the rate at which the society could naturalize immigrants leading to horrific events like “grooming gangs” of immigrants raping native children. Typically at the point gangs of migrants are raping natives, we drop the word “immigration” and talk about “invasion” or “colonization”. Similarly, other lurches towards nationalism in Europe and the US. Homogenizing everyone into a single global culture, which would be required to have a single government without boundaries that rate limit migration, would be verging on genocide. Your comment assumes a very negative interpretation of what I said.
- leto_ii 7y ago
  > Your comment assumes a very negative interpretation of what I said. Not sure that it does :D I'll address your points one by one: > Boundaries are an expression of each tribe exerting an area of influence. Modern boundaries, like modern nation-states, don't really work like tribes did. Prehistoric tribes tended to move around, didn't build fences or patrol them with armed guards and usually had a relatively vague concept of ownership. In many places around the world boundaries were drawn by colonial powers according to their own interests and not by natives themselves. For that reason borders very often actually split cultures and lead to ethnic tensions (e.g. in the Middle East). > we don’t want to eliminate human ethnic/cultural diversity ... Fully agree. > ... and that requires boundaries which enforce rate limited exchange I really don't understand why you think this is the case. It seems to me you're operating with a mechanistic/thermodynamic model about how cultures work. It's simply not true that you need borders to allow diversity to survive. Take for example the concept of linguistic continuum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum. This actually ante-dates modern borders and shows how you can have cultural diversity and cultural mixture at the same time. > Intermingling at a natural rate which allows each tribe to maintain its integrity is natural, and has evidence going back longer than writing. Again, tribes and cultures used to mix all the time and modern states are not like tribes (or ancient kingdoms or empires for that matter). > Brexit was an act of political violence because the UK immigration exceeded the rate at which the society could naturalize immigrants. While I agree that Brexit was caused by a perceived flood of immigrants, the act of violence is mostly self-harm. The public's belief that immigration is excessive and harmful was encouraged by certain political and economic interests and is not an objective fact. > Homogenizing everyone into a single global culture, which would be required to have a single government without boundaries that rate limit migration I wasn't arguing for a global government to begin with. However, again, I don't see why you think administrative unity requires cultural uniformity. We can, and do, have institutions that oversee multiple diverse cultures, both across nation-states (e.g. UN, EU, NATO etc.) as well as inside them (many countries are federations that oversee ethnically diverse populations).
- leto_ii 7y ago
  > leading to horrific events like “grooming gangs” of immigrants raping native children. Typically at the point gangs of migrants are raping natives, we drop the word “immigration” and talk about “invasion” or “colonization”. I didn't notice this sentence before. Did you edit your comment to add in this part? If so you should mention it. In any case, given the tone of this particular statement as well as that of your previous comments I really don't think we can have a productive conversation, so I'm gonna stop replying.

nico_h 7y ago

> The boundaries aren’t arbitrary; they reflect ethnic differences between groups. no they don’t. they’re the result of a lot of wars and invasions. just look at a map of the middle east or Africa. or of china for example. low correlation between border and ethnies.