Borders
(midwest.social)
Track_Shovel
Science MemesI love how people call it natural when anyone but a human does something.
Maybe a different interpretation is that "We may belong to a land but the lands don't belong to us."
I must have totally forgotten that I'm a Wolf. I've always thought that I'm a Human. Crazy. Good to know that now. But I want that Friedrich Merz pisses on all of them trees at the German Border, because thats how the natural way to mark ur territory just works. And everything from nature is always the perfect and correct bahaivor for everyone!
Exactly. Wolves are also one of the species that practice infanticide. Clearly there is no point in being better, and we should just replicate everything we see in nature.
Whenever someone makes an appeal to nature, you know you're in for a treat.
I pissed in my neighbor's garden, got his wife pregnant and then ripped apart his newborn with my bare teeth and now my neighbor just wanders in the communal parking lot. At first I felt like the bad guy but his wife starts snarling at him whenever he gets close to the house.
Sometimes life surprises you.
Human communities have borders and territories though
Turns out humans like borders too
Good to know that Humans are a Hivemind. Until now I acctually disliked borders. But I am a Human, and you say Humans like Borders. Man thanks for the Warning. I will be working on adapting the Hiveminds Opinion.
"Timberwolf Hivemind" is a damn good band name...
But we DO form similar social structures to that of wolf packs. The majority of human history has been one of tribadism
But it stays an Argument purly on Nature. And someone still needs to explain to me why nature automatically means better.
These are processes that'll just happen organically and those usually have the least upkeep. If something is made artificially it needs to be artificially maintained. I'll be honest, I am personally against borders, I greatly enjoy open borders in the EU but the fact that borders form naturally is a process we'd be aware of. Just like wealth accumulation in capitalism, its a natural conclusion that'd take measures to avoid.
Our entire world couldn't be more far away from what nature once was. And there are just so many "artificial" things that have proven to be better than nature. What I'm saying is that just saying that something is natural really does mean nothing. I can be both, good or bad. It's not like I'm denying nature. Because you said that I need to be aware of it.
Well borders are rather useful and good. Everyone has boundaries with other people, it's even kinda mandatory for mental well-being. Everyone has borders with their home. Those are even legally enforceable.
I'm fairly sure you'd be rather pissed off if i would randomly walk into your home and started harassing you.
I'm not the State. You are confusing personal boundaries with state borders. Totally different topics. Always a nice try to place state interests into personal interests of an individual. Oldest trick in the book. That's just like that argument that I need to go die for my country because if I was personally attacked on the street I would also defend myself. These are totally different scenarios. We can live together in big scale while still having private spaces. These things can coexist.
I'd say it's the exact same principle, just scaled up.
From personal boundaries and home rules, which are set up by each individual themselves. To HOA or apartment complex equivalents boundaries and rules which are set up by democratic voting(hopefully). To a district or state rules and boundaries to country to unions.
Yes we are primitive animals indeed!
At the end of the day, yes we are.
Return to monkey.
Not just any. Bonobos.
You know I've been having trouble with a mean outdoor neighbor cat. Even moose pee didn't scare that fucker away. Maybe I should give myself a uti then go eat some asparagus then go drink some beers and hold it afters so it gets really concentrated and then go let that burning foul probably should have gotten a catheter stream provide an olfactory anti-mean-kitten-defense (but signal to the nice kittens that they are welcome. It will totally work that way somehow) or I can just trap the mean cat, pop out her chip (although these owners...) then either take her to the only-killing shelter or on a midnight drive to see the turbine intakes at the local dam and if she makes her way back she's earned it.
uh...
you okay?
I just like yelling at clouds
It really bothers me when people use "fear" and "respect" interchangeably. This borders on that.
wrong, there are no borders... so this cant border on anything
Everybody is against borders until it is what they see as their land that is treaded on.
Is this meant to be serious?
I hope not, it's pretty pathetic to try and compare animals or packs of animals having territories, with militarized borders and state appointed violence. I don't think that's what the OP is doing, but many other people in these comment absolutely are serious.
Yes but humans are not wolfs. Each behave differently.
Yeah, humans are two wolves. Way different psychology.
We have to feed the good wolf...
Primates also have territories, and chimps, one of our closest relatives, have wars over them.
and bonobos, chimpanzee's closest relatives have found evolutionary strategies that work without wars. we have changed our ways of eating and living before, we can again. all we need, as a society, is the imagination to remake ourselves as we have before
There is a study from 2024 that says bonobo chimpanzees can be even more agressive than Gombe chimpanzees
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00253-7
Edit; Sync did not play nice with the link.
um... sorry but no, bonobos are as prone to extreme violence as any other chimps. They've even been seen to form groups and beat to death problematic (or in one case just unpopular) members of the community.
We have so much extra food we don't even really need to change much.
And they're so much smarter than us, we saw no reason to change such a winning strategy.
As a whole, humanity is still just a bunch of angry apes.
Speak for yourself. There are two wolves inside me --one of them respects boundaries.
That's not accurate. Humans behave very predictably in most cases
The generally and predictably do not like borders and keep crossing them. You know, passwports in modern society.
The amount of "NO U" in this thread is hilarious.
I know it's just a shitpost but it's so fucking stupid.
It's comparing a home to a country. Like arguing "If you're so against borders, I'll just come into your house at any time." No, fuckface, there's a difference between personal space and (what should be) public land.
Walled towns/cities used to be common. In some contexts, it makes more sense than walled countries.
People build structures to form their communities. Not everyone from outside the community can be trusted to respect the integrity those structures, especially when a rival community builds an army or if there are roaming bands of raiders or whatever. In those situations, a walled town becomes necessary for the common defense, provides a refuge for the surrounding villagers, and overall just makes it a lot easier for people to protect themselves.
Not only that, it's just much more practical materially. It's easier to build and man a wall one mile in circumference than it is to build one 500 miles long with no closure.
In the modern context, walled towns aren't really as necessary as they were in say medieval times when basically any land outside a fiefdom was more or less unpatrolled and most places didn't have a unified body-politic maintaining civic order.
However, as society breaks down, communities polarize, extremists turn to political violence, and law enforcement agencies no longer feel obligated to protect people, a time may come again when building a wall around your town or neighborhood and controlling access points may become useful. Especially in say a post-apocalyptic scenario where there's a complete breakdown of society and you can no longer trust that the people in the next town over or the trailer park beyond that aren't gonna bring violence to your door.
Of course now there's aerial technology which can defeat the purpose of a wall, but it might at least keep Johnny Redneck with his extra big-ass truck and AR-15 out of your town. And nets and things might snare drones before they can detonate...
What are you even talking about? Geopolitical borders are not the same as walls, towns are not countries, and we're not in medieval times or the apocalypse.
That's why I was saying they were different. Do you not know what it means to contrast things?
The modern notion of nation States, with clearly defined borders, and mechanisms of violence to enforce them, only arose around the 17th century.
Wolves don't build border walls, have customs checkpoints, or leave refugees to drown in the Mediterranean.
This isn't a "science meme", it's a falacious attempt to cloak reactionary rhetoric in the aesthetic garb of scientific rigor.
Wolves don't build border walls, have customs checkpoints, or leave refugees to drown in the Mediterranean.
Only a half truth. Borders may have been loosely defined but they were absolutely defended with violence. You couldn't wander in and hunt in your neighbors woods, take their timber or set up a farm too close. Hell, sometimes they even had well defined natural borders or walls (see: Hadrian's wall, the great wall of China)
Moving through an area in large numbers might draw a violent response and you might be coerced to leave if you spoke the wrong language or dressed the wrong way. If you were an unknown group of strangers they may well let your boat sink or leave you to starve outside their walls. Modern states have simply codified these reactions into law.
Proto-states and the associated mechanisms developed extremely quickly once sedentary agriculture became dominant. If your entire livelihood is tied to a field of grain you no longer get to run or hide from conflict; controlling who can and can't get near it becomes imperative.
Only a half truth. Borders may have been loosely defined but they were absolutely defended with violence.
Yes, but the means by which that state violence was organized and carried out often looked very different. Obviously there was some sort of distinction between medieval lordships or what have you, but the organizational form of the modern nation state wasn't codified until the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the 30 years war. This was co-constitutive with the enclosure of common land, and the birth of modern capitalist property relations.
But the nitty gritty details are besides the point. The main thing I'm stating in my comment is that OP is making a falacious appeal to nature. As though a dog pissing on a rock somewhere says anything at all about how humans should conduct border policy.
Might as well show plant tissues with defined cell walls and say "borders are natural".
They overlap significantly. In addition to what's seen in the image, the wolves' territories will move around due to various conditions. There are no fixed lines that could be likened to states' borders, only vague areas that can be likened to respecting personal space. Compare the wolves' ranges with the white line indicating the national park border also seen in the image, which does not move around based on vibes.
Borders are trees covered in pee.
Sigh Unzip. If that's what I've got to do to carve out some space, then so be it!
Welcome to Border Peetrol.
Paw Peetrol
Maintaining healthy trees with urine covering with federal employee benefits and a government pension sounds like a dream job.
No doubt they'd find a way to make it a bureaucratic nightmare of a job. But I'm down.
Ok, sounds like we don't have to put so much energy into policing them then.
Most countries dont but there are exceptions to the norm
Call me smudges but I read that as "executioners on the moon" and I thought it was terrifying but also a bit metal
all the executioners failed because the moon ate them.
"Sorry sir, we have to deport you back to your impoverished, war-torn country, because wolves pee on trees".
Very compelling.
Excuse me but the trees get off on it why are we punishing our neighbors for a little harmful fun?
Also, countries need authoritarian governments because lobsters pee on each-other's faces.
It's as good an excuse as any 🤷♂️
Yes, exactly what they're saying. lol
I pee on things when I walk around the farm
I'm so gassy I'm not allowed around open flames without an adult anymore.
Is this what enlightenment is?
For the Things? Yes.
Am I allowed to immigrate across countries if I engage in a match of melee combat with the leader of said country and perform well? Murder optional.
You have my vote, melee matches to the death preferred. I think the first two matches should be Trump, then Bibi. Is there any way we can expand this to billionaires before filling out the rest of the tour agenda?
Animals are more civilised than Israelis it seems
Not a hard bar to clear.
Pretty sure their borders aren't made up of countries, taxes, and slavery.
and they aren't forcing other animals to comply and pay taxes for the maintenance of those borders
they aren't forcing other animals to comply
They might be. It's still no reason for us to do the same
Aside from like not having a country name or formal procedures, I think you're probably mostly wrong actually.
oof
The top quote is refering to borders as a state construction. Nobody denies the existence of boundaries between things in general
those wolves don't cross borders those because they already have what they need, and avoid upsetting their neighbors. not because the other wolf built a fance and has an army that will kill him, and is forced to live in his territory and pay taxes so his territory can be protected ny an army that will kill any wolves that enter without permission.
Nobody denies the existence of boundaries between things in general
I do, I refuse to admit the existence of rivers!
Settle down, Heraclitus!
If you look closely enough, we're all composed of 99.99% empty space by volume...
Cool, now overlap with the paths of migratory animals
Now look at airliners which don't avoid overflying countries except where there are wars happening
Would that disprove that wolves don’t enter each other’s territory?
No, it debunks the appeal to nature as a basis for ethics and civilization
Yeah but we're not wolves 😄🏴
some leftists are furries though
those aren't borders, those are territories arrived at by wolves interacting with each other and deciding to keep the peace. has nothing to do with formal borders imposed on us by states
You just described a border.
Hint : the important part here is deciding, instead of imposed. If i go camping in a field, there is no border between me and my neighbor, but we will tend to hang around our own tents more. This is built on nothing more than will, as opposed to borders.
Now imagine that 8.3 billion people are trying to pitch their tents all around you. You're going to have to work out something formal with your neighbors to make sure all these tent groups fit.
Heh, debatable. Depends on the surface available, how many of them are already organized in campers groups, the definition of formal, etc. But i'll concede you the point, for it's not the matter here anyway, neither in the meme nor in the comment.
has nothing to do with formal borders imposed on us by states
You mean the territories arrived at by entities who interact with each other and decide to keep the peace as an abstract representation of those residing within them?
I for one could go for a few less layers of abstraction...
so the borders of the US were agreed upon by entities who decided to keep the peace, not established by war and genocide? the borders of several African states were not set by colonial violence? the border between Russia and Ukraine is being "renegotiated" and not fought over? Israel "renegotiating" with Lebanon?
there's a big difference between populations who come to agreements with each other and states who do things for power.
Why are you acting like I said the word "negotiate"? I said "arrived at"; the means – friendly cooperation, terrain, a myriad individualist agreements, threat of brutal violence – are irrelevant to the overall point that the wolves have very obviously formed borders. Israel and Russia are no longer keeping the peace, hence they're actively dissolving the borders and redrawing them to whatever they can arrive at through military and geopolitical force.
I'll be one of the first people who'll tell you that animals experience real thoughts and emotions and have real, deep, complex bonds with their fellow animal. I'm sure these wolves' borders developed along natural formations, inherent population limits, intimidation, etc., and you'd have to be delusional to think these are totally divorced from the means by which states form borders.
You're treating this as an argument that borders are inherently good when the argument is that no true Scotsmanning the wolves is fucking bullshit. And if "keeping the peace" involves no (relatively) small-scale, cross-border violence, then I'd like to raise a point about wolves.
you said "decide to keep the peace" which I provided counterexamples against. I shorthanded that as "negotiate" but you can just sub in your exact language and the point stands.
i don't deny the social abilities of wolves. i don't even claim that there are zero similarities between social boundaries and formal borders. what im doing is pointing out that borders formed by the institution of the state are fundamentally different from social boundaries adopted by people, wolves, or any being capable of negotiating them.
my motivation here is to undermine the idea that national borders are "natural", which tends to legitimate them in many people's minds, like the meme in this post tries to do. I want to undermine that because i believe it isn't true and because there are fundamentally better ways to organize society.
which I provided counterexamples against.
Your counterexample showed two countries deliberately not keeping the peace by actively disrespecting and changing the borders what the fuck are you talking about. Borders are dynamic (do I even need to say that? are we in 4th grade here?), and they're extremely often created through violence; nevertheless, borders stabilize when the parties decide to stop fighting. Even the DMZ dividing North and South Korea is static on the basis that total war awaits the country that violates it. Two parties do not have to be content with a border for it to be a border.
If I meant "keeping the peace" in some kumbaya fantasy sense with no skirmishes or threat of violence, then there would be no parallel to the wolves, because need I reemphasize: we are talking about wolves.
my motivation here is to undermine the idea that national borders are "natural"
And clearly the fuck they are, because here we are in a reality where borders exist and are enforced. Humans are not separate from nature. The meme is making fun of an appeal to nature, but it's nevertheless not accepting it as a precondition to support borders. It's saying even if your argument is stupid enough as "it's unnatural", it still makes no sense on its own terms. If you want to argue borders are bad, make an argument that borders are bad; if you want to make an argument that they're unnatural, 1) you're provably wrong and 2) even if you weren't, you're doing nothing to support your case to anyone rational.
i cited wars as counterexamples against peace. if that doesn't make sense to you, im not sure we can have a productive conversation.
i completely agree that humans are part of nature. So if you like, everything we do (and everything that occurs ever) is "natural" because everything is part of nature, but that's a fairly useless definition. we also do some relatively unique stuff, too, that is not mirrored by other animals. Nation states are not the same as wolf packs or bonobo societies or whale pods.
the most important difference here is that nations have institutions (such as a border) that exist despite the actual relationship of the people on those borders. the people on both sides of the Berlin Wall didn't want it to be there. The people who live in Beebe Plain, a town divided by the US-Canada border, have much more in common with their neighbors than the politicians in Washington DC and Ottawa who make decisions for them. this is not the same as pack membership setting territory boundaries, this is control from a distance by strangers.
anyway this has been interesting, im gonna get on with my day.
i cited wars as counterexamples against peace.
If your argument is that borders are unnatural because they're dynamic according to a complex web of interactions, then I'd like to sample whatever meth your ecology professor has been sharing with you.
If your argument is that an uneasy peace enforced by threat of violence isn't keeping the peace, then I'll point you back to what the other person initially said about wolves "keeping the peace".
Yeah it's the abstract representation that's the problem. I didn't consent to this BS.
LOL
I mean we're on Lemmy in /c/sciencememes, i.e. (pedantic fuckweasels)² 😆
While it is nice in theory to eliminate all national borders, it's not one wolf but a wolf pack. The pack is deciding democratically to respect the border of another pack.
Saying borders are "imposed by the state" is like a cub who ignores the pack, wanders into America and gets torn apart by nasty Americans.
The "state" is people.
the state is an organization that includes a tiny minority of people who get to command and control the greater population. you can argue that its power is legitimate because of elections if you want, but it is not the same as the people. meanwhile, the wolves don't experience that kind of government.
Are we just gonna ignore the parts where they cross over?
If you look closely, it's hard to find a "border" in the picture that isn't crossed.
They do it for the duty free shopping
Largely they don’t though, and where they do it’s probably just a wolf that hasn’t picked up the scent of the other pack yet. Once they do, they seem to revert course.
Yes because it doesn't change the author's point in the slightest
Except that it literally does???
The lines they've set with their piss borders need to be refreshed but they absolutely have declared areas that others respect the boundaries at risk of getting attacked.
A wolf occasionally crossing that border - either deliberately or because the scent wore off - doesn't change the point that they're making. It's not like they put up a physical fence.
This is actually fascinating because it demonstrates a social construct created by animals. Not all animals have the same intelligence, and in nature intelligence is typically found among animals living in groups. It requires intelligence to live and cooperate with others. To me it seems that these animals actually used their intelligence to preserve socially constructed zones for the general good of multiple groups of wolves, likely by staying where the right smell is and not going where the wrong smell is. Hopefully none of the wolves discover the prisoner's dilemma and become a wolf emperor by suddenly invading and enslaving their unprepared neighbors.
I've read that humans, chimpanzees and wolves are the only animals that have shown a capacity for genocide.
Dolphins will get there one day too.
Ants also wage war, with some species only stoping when the enemy colony is completely destroyed.
Checkmate, anarchists!
why?
It is a mutual agreement between wolves and other wolves, in order to manage territory and avoid over hunting. They don't force other animals to comply. they don't force other animals to pay taxes to maintain it. There isn't one king wolf drawing those borders.
so unnatural sheesh
Wind blows, trees' branches rub together and snap off twigs growing at the ends, creating gaps. They grow again, next windy day, they break again.
So you’re telling me that border skirmishes are completely natural?
This just in, Lemmy user doesn't understand that analogies are imperfect.
Just noticed this isn’t the shitposting community
No I'm telling you that if you're rooted to the ground close enough to a similarly rooted neighbors and the wind makes both of your arms wiggle hard enough, you might lose a finger. People can accommodate neighbors, move freely, and shelter from the winds.
If we were hunter gatherers I might believe you. People are just as rooted as trees. Almost nothing that sustains our civilization is mobile. Crops, forests, water supplies, minerals, etc...
If a freak famine (wind) causes a mass migration (swaying branches) onto your finite and fixed resources (canopy space), someone must lose fingers.
"Territoriality" implies defense of an area, and many researchers create maps that help graphically illustrate the range, or territory, of a given wolf pack.
However, the area defended is not as clearly defined as a map may indicate. Territory shifts can occur seasonally or year to year.
Also notable is that neighboring territories may overlap. However, while the same area may be used by several packs, use will not occur at the same time.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/life-of-a-wolf.htm
I only respect borders marked with urine
Like this? https://lemmy.world/post/46019997
What my first 3d print looked like
Hear that, Tuvalu?
Just redraw your borders and quit bitching about sea levels
They just haven't pissed into the ocean enough smh
We should draw congressional districts like this.
The lines they are drawing are still imaginary and don't exist in the physical world.
more important, those lines are made for wolves and respected by wolves.
They aren't forcing the other animals to comply.
Now I am wondering what happens if one pack is hunting something that ends up crossing into another pack's territory. Do they continue the hunt or give up because it's now the property of another clan? 🤔
They tag team it?
no idea.
I mean as far as I know, we also let other animals cross our borders. I have yet to see someone deport an animal cause it crossed a country border
Not when we build fences and walls.
they exist in piss
In Prometheus Rising, the comparison between politicians eking out borders is compared to animals rubbing feces and piss on trees.
But I don't have any wolves here :(
Borders defined by conflict, competition for resources, in-groups and out-groups. We're all the same thing and evolution defines it.
