this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Like, the only reason countries exist is because some rich guys decided that they ruled this chunk of land, and everyone else just kinda said "Yeah, whatever, I don't really give a shit, just let me farm and leave me the fuck alone".

Then the rich guy on the next bit of land said "I want a bit of what he's got going on", and before we knew it, all the bits of land were ruled by people who's only claim to them was that they were the first to have the idea.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and some of the bits of land are ruled by people who wear gold hats and spout a load of bollocks about divine right, while some of the bits of land are ruled by people who convinced the rest of the people to let them do it, and really, there's no difference between, like, France and Spain, but some old dudes drew a line and said "Nah, that bit speaks this version of a language, and that bit speaks another version of it".

You ever think about that?

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[–] forestG 9 points 1 year ago

Well, there was a time when people lived moving around foraging and hunting, mostly avoiding bad weather and other predators, during the change of seasons. A time where human populations were so small that it was impossible to view every single patch of land as someone's ownership. Both land ownership and people like those you probably call rich, started to appear after humans started settling down on certain areas and farming instead of foraging. I think borders are an evolution of that land ownership as populations and communities living permanently on certain (probably fertile) patches of land started to scale.