8 ms·

What I Saw in the Darién Gap

59 points by thazework 2y ago

benw214 2y ago
If you want to see actual video of crossing the Darien Gap - this guy makes great videos. He did the crossing himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswvkdCpZYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswvkdCpZYc
- tptacek 2y ago
  (For what it's worth, so did the author of this piece).
  - firesteelrain 2y ago
    [flagged]
- gambiting 2y ago
  +1 on this, I'm a big fan of his videos, and the Darien Gap crossing must be one of the most interesting that he's done. I still think it was beyond stupid to attempt this, both him and his companion admit that they could have just died multiple times while there and no one would stop to help. On the other hand, they brought the experience of what it really looks like for thousands of migrants trying to cross every year to the millions on youtube - an experience you wouldn't be able to see otherwise.
noughtme 2y ago
Good overview and history of the Darien Gap migrant issue: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-gap-became-migration-crossroads-americas https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-g... Also, see the work of journalist Michael Yon. https://youtube.com/watch?v=VVxUYulIEUk https://youtube.com/watch?v=VVxUYulIEUk
- ivann 2y ago
  On the "Center for Immigration Studies": > The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an American anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham alongside eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). It is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA. > Reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers and news outlets, and immigration-research organizations. The organization had significant influence within the Trump administration, which cited the group's work to defend its immigration policies. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated CIS as a hate group with ties to the American nativist movement. The CIS sued the SPLC over the designation, but the lawsuit was dismissed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies And on Michael Yon in the Darién Gap: > Since 2021, Yon has worked as a fixer in the Darién Gap, a dangerous stretch of jungle used by migrants entering the United States illegally. He has worked with figures such as Alex Jones and Laura Loomer, getting them access to the camps where legacy media are barred by security. A New York Times article noted that he targeted the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, quoting him as saying that "they’re coming across the border and it’s being funded with Jewish money.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Yon#2021-24_%E2%80%93_Dari%C3%A9n_Gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Yon#2021-24_%E2%80%93_...
  - palmfacehn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ivann 2y ago
      I don't need fact checkers to know it's bad when white nationalism and Alex Jones are involved.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
reducesuffering 2y ago
https://archive.md/bWIoH https://archive.md/bWIoH
mieses 2y ago
Michael Yon has been down there for about 2 years (?). Before that he was in HK and in Iraq. His reporting doesn't have a pro-globalist bias.
sgt 2y ago
This is crazy and obviously has to be stopped somehow. Can't the US Army be sent down there to patrol the upper border of the jungle, so force the migrants to return?
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - altacc 2y ago
    What nonsense! Title 42 is still in place and as much as the GOP likes to paint Democrats as immigration loving there were more deportations under Obama & Biden than Trump. Perhaps look past the political soundbites and more at the numbers and the immense complexity of the situation.
    - faku312 2y ago
      You mean to say there were more deportations in 12 years than in 4 years?
    - lazide 2y ago
      It’s been pretty common over the last decade for actual on-the-ground reality for each administrations policies to be the opposite of their perceived positions. For instance, Obama’s admin was far more pro-gun (in actuality) than Trumps.
    - readthenotes1 2y ago
      It is worth looking at the numbers. There's a good article from the LA times during the Obama years debunking his deportation numbers. Iirc, he included everybody sent back from the border as a deportation, which did not used to be the case. It may be true that there are more people stopped at the border than during the trump years as well at the same time it being true that there are 5 to 10 million more illegal immigrants inside the US than in jan 2021.
- grecy 2y ago
worstspotgain 2y ago
Just in time for election season, these "human interest" pieces casually begin to appear, surreptitiously stoking anti-immigrant sentiments. The Darien Gap is still "wild" because not a lot of migrants crossed it historically. Most US migrants came from Mexico. However, migration from Mexico has greatly decreased in recent decades. The net flow is around zero. [1] That's because Mexico is no longer an undeveloped country. Its nominal per-capita GDP is above Russia's and China's. [2] NAFTA was an important component of its success. Mexico offers a blueprint for what needs to happen in Central and South America before we no longer face the temptation of putting children in cages at the border. There are only a few countries left that fit the bill, such as Guatemala and El Salvador. Brazil and Venezuela have been recent additions (hence the Gap crossings.) Parenthetically, we have Putin to thank for a few of these, especially Venezuela. I think we should reconsider the "hands off" attitude that (with a few exceptions) has prevailed since the end of the Cold War. Political deference, while culturally sensitive and insisted upon by some US-weary groups, has not turned out so great. Direct US participation should be at least as much as in Europe and Asia, particularly financially. The IMF and World Bank don't have enough teeth, and it certainly beats spending money on cages. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-covid-19-more-mexicans-came-to-the-u-s-than-left-for-mexico-for-the-first-time-in-years/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
- altacc 2y ago
  The answer to immigration is indeed to improve the countries that are the sources of migration but I think this should be by making the world fairer, more equal and less profit led. History shows that direct or indirect intervention by the US fails terribly as much, if not more, than it succeeds and those failures lead to immigration. The United States' post-9/11 wars have resulted in mass population displacements and widespread regional instability. Afghanistan: failure, Iraq: failure, Somalia: failure, Yemen: failure, Libya: failure. And that's only in the last few years. The West keeps thinking that it can destabilize a country, choose which side they want to win and somehow that country will emerge as a stable & successful ally without any side effects. That's delusional thinking but our governments keep doing it. We need to try something else and we know prosperity creates a more stable peace than any army.
jc_811 2y ago
When commenting about how this affects economic policy, immigration reform, military involvement, the causes of why we’re here, laws, title 42, migrants, justifications, and everything in between.. Remember that these are people just like you and I. They, like all humans, are seeking safety and stability for theirselves and families. The difference is that they were born, or ended up in, situations so dire they felt they had better odds trekking through the dangerous jungle(!) on foot for hundreds of miles (followed by thousands of more miles) rather than stay in their current situation. It’s easy to get lost in the thousand foot view and giving opinions while sipping coffee & working on a laptop commenting on hacker news. Not to say any of our opinions aren’t valid - but rather just think about the people before jumping to any conclusions Edit: This is not an argument for or against anything or any policy. Rather just a reminder that whichever side you are on, or whatever you are advocating for, just to remember we are talking about humans. That’s the only point I’m making.
- gwervc 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gambiting 2y ago
    >>I read/hear this argument a lot in Europe to justify mass immigration I don't really see it as a justification of mass migration, but I do see it as an argument for treating migrants as human beings not cattle(or worse). There are enough politicians and people in general who think that the boats and people at the borders should be just shot at, that will stop them from coming surely /s. You see this sentiment everywhere, and the "Remember that these are people just like you and I" thought process is missing.
    - netsharc 2y ago
      Yeah, the whole "they're 'savages'" argument feels like a justification of why "we" (westerners living in relative luxury) are allowed to deny them the basic neccessities for life (food, housing, freedom from falling bombs). To throw more fuel to the flamewar, just look at the Israeli treatment of Gazans... For a longer essay of the idea of "refugees welcome", from an Iranian refugee who with her parents got asylum in the US after asking many embassies: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-ungrateful-refugee https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-un... > But what America did was a basic human obligation. It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks. It is your duty to answer us, even if we don’t give you sugary success stories. Even if we remain a bunch of ordinary Iranians, sometimes bitter or confused. Even if the country gets overcrowded and you have to give up your luxuries, and we set up ugly little lives around the corner, marring your view. If we need a lot of help and local services, if your taxes rise and your street begins to look and feel strange and everything smells like turmeric and tamarind paste, and your favourite shop is replaced by a halal butcher, your schoolyard chatter becoming ching-chongese and phlegmy “kh”s and “gh”s, and even if, after all that, we don’t spend the rest of our days in grateful ecstasy, atoning for our need.
jmyeet 2y ago
Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the US imposed devastating sanctions on Saddam Hussein's regime that continued for over a decade until 9/11 was used as an excuse to topple a regime that really had nothing to do with 9/11 at all. Let's also remember that Saddam Hussein was a US creation, a foil against Iran. The US supplied weapons to Iraq to figh ta war with Iran that cost over a million lives. And why was Iran an enemy of the US? Because there was a revolution against the US puppet Shah regime after the US backed a coup against the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953. So for a decade we got to see the impact of those sanctions and also get to look back at the aftermath. A report came out claiming that half a million children had died as a result of those sanctions. On 60 Minutes in 1996, then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State responded to this question [1]: > “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?” > “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” Did the sanctions topple the regime? No. They almost never do. Arguably they played a role in ending the apartheid regime in South Africa but other than that, economic sanctions are simply used as a tool to punish our enemies without using a single soldier. Roughly 8 million Venezuelans have fled in the last decade as the country has descended into chaos. It's a big part of why there's been a more than tenfold increase in people crossing the Darien Gap. Also responsible is US bribing countries in Central America to deny visas to likely refugees, forcing them to make this dangerous journey. The sanctions on Venezuela have crushed the economy [2]. They have created the very refugee crisis that is now a domestic political issue. And it's not the leaders of Venezuela who suffer. It's people like this who risk death to try and have a better life. You might say "Maduro is a bad guy". I'll put that up agains tth elong list of "bad guys" the US is entirely happy to support and work with: Augusto Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Ferdjinand Marcos, Pol Pot, Mohammed bin Salman, Benjamin Netanyahu. This isn't a partisan issue either. Both politicla parties are pretty much united when it comes to US foreign policy. Sanctions on Venezuela have a history through the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. So if you read a story like this and have empathy for refugees fleeing chaos and violence or maybe you simply see the (completely made up) "border crisis" and don't understand what's going on, I would hope that you can see the direct connection between these migrants and the US policy that destabilized or destroyed the countries they're mostly coming from. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-madeleine-albright-as-who-she-really-was https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m... [2]: https://www.wola.org/2020/10/new-report-us-sanctions-aggravated-venezuelas-economic-crisis/ https://www.wola.org/2020/10/new-report-us-sanctions-aggrava...
S_Bear 2y ago
Sometimes I like to imagine what the US would look like if we took a fraction of the trillions of dollars we wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and used them to help our southern neighbors develop and modernize. Happy and content people don't risk their lives to cross the jungle.
- blooalien 2y ago
  It's a bit late for that these days, what with all the climate change and all that. Migration (in likely huge numbers) is coming and likely already largely underway around the world. There's gonna be more and more places humans simply cannot physically survive anymore and that alone will drive people to move elsewhere. This of course will likely lead to violence, because that's what far too many humans do when other humans try to "muscle in on their territory". It's a sad fact that unless most of the human race grows up and starts acting like adults for a change, we're likely in for war pretty much everywhere soon enough.

59 points by thazework 2y ago

If you want to see actual video of crossing the Darien Gap - this guy makes great videos. He did the crossing himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswvkdCpZYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswvkdCpZYc

tptacek 2y ago
(For what it's worth, so did the author of this piece).
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  [flagged]
gambiting 2y ago
+1 on this, I'm a big fan of his videos, and the Darien Gap crossing must be one of the most interesting that he's done. I still think it was beyond stupid to attempt this, both him and his companion admit that they could have just died multiple times while there and no one would stop to help. On the other hand, they brought the experience of what it really looks like for thousands of migrants trying to cross every year to the millions on youtube - an experience you wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

noughtme 2y ago

Good overview and history of the Darien Gap migrant issue: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-gap-became-migration-crossroads-americas https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-g... Also, see the work of journalist Michael Yon. https://youtube.com/watch?v=VVxUYulIEUk https://youtube.com/watch?v=VVxUYulIEUk

ivann 2y ago
On the "Center for Immigration Studies": > The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an American anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham alongside eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). It is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA. > Reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers and news outlets, and immigration-research organizations. The organization had significant influence within the Trump administration, which cited the group's work to defend its immigration policies. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated CIS as a hate group with ties to the American nativist movement. The CIS sued the SPLC over the designation, but the lawsuit was dismissed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies And on Michael Yon in the Darién Gap: > Since 2021, Yon has worked as a fixer in the Darién Gap, a dangerous stretch of jungle used by migrants entering the United States illegally. He has worked with figures such as Alex Jones and Laura Loomer, getting them access to the camps where legacy media are barred by security. A New York Times article noted that he targeted the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, quoting him as saying that "they’re coming across the border and it’s being funded with Jewish money.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Yon#2021-24_%E2%80%93_Dari%C3%A9n_Gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Yon#2021-24_%E2%80%93_...
- palmfacehn 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ivann 2y ago
    I don't need fact checkers to know it's bad when white nationalism and Alex Jones are involved.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

reducesuffering 2y ago

https://archive.md/bWIoH https://archive.md/bWIoH

mieses 2y ago

Michael Yon has been down there for about 2 years (?). Before that he was in HK and in Iraq. His reporting doesn't have a pro-globalist bias.

sgt 2y ago

This is crazy and obviously has to be stopped somehow. Can't the US Army be sent down there to patrol the upper border of the jungle, so force the migrants to return?

readthenotes1 2y ago
[flagged]
- altacc 2y ago
  What nonsense! Title 42 is still in place and as much as the GOP likes to paint Democrats as immigration loving there were more deportations under Obama & Biden than Trump. Perhaps look past the political soundbites and more at the numbers and the immense complexity of the situation.
  - faku312 2y ago
    You mean to say there were more deportations in 12 years than in 4 years?
  - lazide 2y ago
    It’s been pretty common over the last decade for actual on-the-ground reality for each administrations policies to be the opposite of their perceived positions. For instance, Obama’s admin was far more pro-gun (in actuality) than Trumps.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    It is worth looking at the numbers. There's a good article from the LA times during the Obama years debunking his deportation numbers. Iirc, he included everybody sent back from the border as a deportation, which did not used to be the case. It may be true that there are more people stopped at the border than during the trump years as well at the same time it being true that there are 5 to 10 million more illegal immigrants inside the US than in jan 2021.
grecy 2y ago

worstspotgain 2y ago

Just in time for election season, these "human interest" pieces casually begin to appear, surreptitiously stoking anti-immigrant sentiments. The Darien Gap is still "wild" because not a lot of migrants crossed it historically. Most US migrants came from Mexico. However, migration from Mexico has greatly decreased in recent decades. The net flow is around zero. [1] That's because Mexico is no longer an undeveloped country. Its nominal per-capita GDP is above Russia's and China's. [2] NAFTA was an important component of its success. Mexico offers a blueprint for what needs to happen in Central and South America before we no longer face the temptation of putting children in cages at the border. There are only a few countries left that fit the bill, such as Guatemala and El Salvador. Brazil and Venezuela have been recent additions (hence the Gap crossings.) Parenthetically, we have Putin to thank for a few of these, especially Venezuela. I think we should reconsider the "hands off" attitude that (with a few exceptions) has prevailed since the end of the Cold War. Political deference, while culturally sensitive and insisted upon by some US-weary groups, has not turned out so great. Direct US participation should be at least as much as in Europe and Asia, particularly financially. The IMF and World Bank don't have enough teeth, and it certainly beats spending money on cages. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-covid-19-more-mexicans-came-to-the-u-s-than-left-for-mexico-for-the-first-time-in-years/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

altacc 2y ago
The answer to immigration is indeed to improve the countries that are the sources of migration but I think this should be by making the world fairer, more equal and less profit led. History shows that direct or indirect intervention by the US fails terribly as much, if not more, than it succeeds and those failures lead to immigration. The United States' post-9/11 wars have resulted in mass population displacements and widespread regional instability. Afghanistan: failure, Iraq: failure, Somalia: failure, Yemen: failure, Libya: failure. And that's only in the last few years. The West keeps thinking that it can destabilize a country, choose which side they want to win and somehow that country will emerge as a stable & successful ally without any side effects. That's delusional thinking but our governments keep doing it. We need to try something else and we know prosperity creates a more stable peace than any army.

jc_811 2y ago

When commenting about how this affects economic policy, immigration reform, military involvement, the causes of why we’re here, laws, title 42, migrants, justifications, and everything in between.. Remember that these are people just like you and I. They, like all humans, are seeking safety and stability for theirselves and families. The difference is that they were born, or ended up in, situations so dire they felt they had better odds trekking through the dangerous jungle(!) on foot for hundreds of miles (followed by thousands of more miles) rather than stay in their current situation. It’s easy to get lost in the thousand foot view and giving opinions while sipping coffee & working on a laptop commenting on hacker news. Not to say any of our opinions aren’t valid - but rather just think about the people before jumping to any conclusions Edit: This is not an argument for or against anything or any policy. Rather just a reminder that whichever side you are on, or whatever you are advocating for, just to remember we are talking about humans. That’s the only point I’m making.

gwervc 2y ago
[flagged]
- gambiting 2y ago
  >>I read/hear this argument a lot in Europe to justify mass immigration I don't really see it as a justification of mass migration, but I do see it as an argument for treating migrants as human beings not cattle(or worse). There are enough politicians and people in general who think that the boats and people at the borders should be just shot at, that will stop them from coming surely /s. You see this sentiment everywhere, and the "Remember that these are people just like you and I" thought process is missing.
  - netsharc 2y ago
    Yeah, the whole "they're 'savages'" argument feels like a justification of why "we" (westerners living in relative luxury) are allowed to deny them the basic neccessities for life (food, housing, freedom from falling bombs). To throw more fuel to the flamewar, just look at the Israeli treatment of Gazans... For a longer essay of the idea of "refugees welcome", from an Iranian refugee who with her parents got asylum in the US after asking many embassies: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-ungrateful-refugee https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-un... > But what America did was a basic human obligation. It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks. It is your duty to answer us, even if we don’t give you sugary success stories. Even if we remain a bunch of ordinary Iranians, sometimes bitter or confused. Even if the country gets overcrowded and you have to give up your luxuries, and we set up ugly little lives around the corner, marring your view. If we need a lot of help and local services, if your taxes rise and your street begins to look and feel strange and everything smells like turmeric and tamarind paste, and your favourite shop is replaced by a halal butcher, your schoolyard chatter becoming ching-chongese and phlegmy “kh”s and “gh”s, and even if, after all that, we don’t spend the rest of our days in grateful ecstasy, atoning for our need.

jmyeet 2y ago

Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the US imposed devastating sanctions on Saddam Hussein's regime that continued for over a decade until 9/11 was used as an excuse to topple a regime that really had nothing to do with 9/11 at all. Let's also remember that Saddam Hussein was a US creation, a foil against Iran. The US supplied weapons to Iraq to figh ta war with Iran that cost over a million lives. And why was Iran an enemy of the US? Because there was a revolution against the US puppet Shah regime after the US backed a coup against the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953. So for a decade we got to see the impact of those sanctions and also get to look back at the aftermath. A report came out claiming that half a million children had died as a result of those sanctions. On 60 Minutes in 1996, then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State responded to this question [1]: > “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?” > “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” Did the sanctions topple the regime? No. They almost never do. Arguably they played a role in ending the apartheid regime in South Africa but other than that, economic sanctions are simply used as a tool to punish our enemies without using a single soldier. Roughly 8 million Venezuelans have fled in the last decade as the country has descended into chaos. It's a big part of why there's been a more than tenfold increase in people crossing the Darien Gap. Also responsible is US bribing countries in Central America to deny visas to likely refugees, forcing them to make this dangerous journey. The sanctions on Venezuela have crushed the economy [2]. They have created the very refugee crisis that is now a domestic political issue. And it's not the leaders of Venezuela who suffer. It's people like this who risk death to try and have a better life. You might say "Maduro is a bad guy". I'll put that up agains tth elong list of "bad guys" the US is entirely happy to support and work with: Augusto Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Ferdjinand Marcos, Pol Pot, Mohammed bin Salman, Benjamin Netanyahu. This isn't a partisan issue either. Both politicla parties are pretty much united when it comes to US foreign policy. Sanctions on Venezuela have a history through the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. So if you read a story like this and have empathy for refugees fleeing chaos and violence or maybe you simply see the (completely made up) "border crisis" and don't understand what's going on, I would hope that you can see the direct connection between these migrants and the US policy that destabilized or destroyed the countries they're mostly coming from. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-madeleine-albright-as-who-she-really-was https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m... [2]: https://www.wola.org/2020/10/new-report-us-sanctions-aggravated-venezuelas-economic-crisis/ https://www.wola.org/2020/10/new-report-us-sanctions-aggrava...

S_Bear 2y ago

Sometimes I like to imagine what the US would look like if we took a fraction of the trillions of dollars we wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and used them to help our southern neighbors develop and modernize. Happy and content people don't risk their lives to cross the jungle.

blooalien 2y ago
It's a bit late for that these days, what with all the climate change and all that. Migration (in likely huge numbers) is coming and likely already largely underway around the world. There's gonna be more and more places humans simply cannot physically survive anymore and that alone will drive people to move elsewhere. This of course will likely lead to violence, because that's what far too many humans do when other humans try to "muscle in on their territory". It's a sad fact that unless most of the human race grows up and starts acting like adults for a change, we're likely in for war pretty much everywhere soon enough.