h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

....Eutopia's dont work, every body being equal doesn't work, every body living where they like doesn't work.

Even if you strip everything away from our way of life, down to pure survival, we would still have our own territories where we would find our food and not want anyone else to get at it so we defend our area. You only have to look at the way animals live. You have to go very far down the intellegence levels of animals before they stop defending an area.

Going back to the way we live, I quite like the idea of being able to go where I please. But to go back to find someone else sitting in my front room and not be able to do anything about it, would be rather anoying to say the least.

I know these a both simplified examples and maybe slightly to the side of the point, but if you opened up all borders this is what it boils down to - survival and to have what someone else has got.


enrico the second.

"You have to go very far down the intellegence levels of animals before they stop defending an area."

That's very neatly put

On second thought not quite correct though. I was just thinking in terms of dashing and snarling, but that's not all that can be done to deal with intruders. Even on the lowest microbial level there is quite a lot of poisoning of competition going on!

So maybe the answer is that you have to get quite far up the intelligence levels before htis all works, and we're not here yet.

There is very little empirical indication that there is somewhere, anywhere to go "up" to. Except for those nice Bonobo chimpanzees maybe.

But it would be very arrogant to assume that we're as intelligent as it gets. Also rather depressing.

Why would that be arrogant? It would be arrogant to assume that somebody else mightn't get more intelligent that we. Somebody in GEO once suggested that dogs might be the next sapient species, if they aren't already, my dog is ertainly more intelligent than a lot of people i know
On the other hand, what exactly IS intelligence? Is it indeed an expression of intelligence to be nice to each other? Infinitely more attractive, i agree, but why more intelligent? Is it maybe rather more intelligent to always sit on top of the foodchain whatever it takes? Or are different things intelligent at different times, and true intelligence consists in knowing which is appropriate when?

Sitting on top of the food chain is exactly what it is, what else is evolution?

We would not be discussing the nature of intelligence (by the way article was on borders!), if something was trying to eat us!

THe point I was trying to make was that I do not beileve that we are currently the most intelligent species that it is possible for there to be, which is in part demonstrated by my apalling typing.

However I also think that a problem with the conversation is agreeing what is meant by intelligence. I'm not even sure I know what I mean by it. I do think though that my definition includes (and with one bound he gets back on topic) not shooting anyone who strays a few miles from where I think they should be. In an enlightened world where we actually tried to make life as pleasant as possible for everyone, free travel between countries wouldn't be a big deal. And yes I do realise I'm hopelessly idealistic.

I agree - free movement, but not free to live anywhere.

Imagine you have a nice orderly home and garden....then someone comes to visit. It's OK and we accommodate the inconvenience as long as we know it's for a short time and then they'll go again. But then they stay forever....and drink all the milk....and then their family arrive too...then they start bringing their cousins and their families to visit....and they stay too...

It's just the whole immigration argument in microcosm.

People move from where they perceive there is a lack of resources to where they perceive there is a surplus of resources. Those who have don't like those who haven't coming around to share it. It doesn't matter if you are human, dog, hamster reptile or amoeba. You either fight to protect your territory or you have to give up half of it quietly. If the intruder is of the opposite gender of your species, you may get some sex in just to sweeten the deal!

There is a way out. Help those who have less to make more of their own so that they don't feel the need to move. Share knowledge, skills, inspiration, motivation, trading opportunities and maybe just a little more money than we do at the moment and the immigrants will stay where they are.

Yeh I suppose more like Socialism ideals than communism. Helping each other but not giving up our own rights.

I think we have to know more about the history of trade and colonialism to understand some of the reasoning around migration.

If I live in a comfortable place with excess to my needs now it is probably because my ancestors set up a system which took more than was needed from a source outside of my own land. If people from another land follow the wealth that has migrated from their land to where it now lives that seems quite reasonable.

In your allegory above imagine that you are actually living in a house that was made from bricks that your grandfather took from their garden and that the furniture was taken from their small house and that all the labour for it was either supplied by them against their will or paid for with money taken from them.

Whose house are you actually living in?

Good point Vestboy!

Most of the so-called resources that the borders protect have been (and still are) stolen from other territories.

The main reason that the idea of open borders won't ever be popular is because then there would be a chance for equal distribution of resources. This wouldn't be popular with the priviledged ones.

2/3

People are greedy, I say. Greedy, greedy, greedy!

Well, not everyone at least. The majority, though.

If We could just get it into our little minds that if we have an excess of something we should give it to someone who needs it, then the world could be a good and happy place.

Enrico,

What makes you think that anyone would want to sit in your front room?!
Thats very arrogant thinking! And thats one of the obstacles that would prevent open borders from working.

Believe it or not! There are some people who like their own front rooms better! Even though their fromt rooms may not seem to be as nice as yours.
Some people like living outdoors and wouldn't care for the confines of a 'room'.

Some, for example like the fact that their front room is next to the beach and that this morning they went for a swim, caught a few fish and are now lazing in their hammock. And would not trade that for a well-heated front room in London/New York/any temperate city.

Sure a certain percentage of people would move but its probably the minority. And it wouldn't all be in one direction!

2/3

The OP of this thread puts forth a VERY odd argument.

There are currently no 'borders' between my house and the one next door. I have the same rights as a citizen of my country as the guy next door does. I feel no nationalistic disaffinity for him. Yet, bizarrely, I do not go and sit in his house without his permission! Even if I wanted to, our society has these fun things we call "laws" and "property rights" which enable him to boot me out if he wanted to.

Imagine that!

*gasp, shock, horror, etc*

The dissolution of borders does not mean an end to property rights, but the enforcement of them. I can use my money to rent a house anywhere on the planet - why can't I live there without filling out jumping through administrative hoops? Why am I free to move from Newcastle to Manchester, yet constrained from moving to Washington DC? What justifies allowing someone from Montgomery, AL to move to Washington, but not allowing them to move to London?

Nationalism and the fetishisation of borders is the way we do things now, but it is by no means the only way to do them, nor the best way.

'If We could just get it into our little minds that if we have an excess of something we should give it to someone who needs it, then the world could be a good and happy place.'

No, because we'd keep arguing about what actually constitutes 'need' and 'excess'.

True enough.

But going back to some statements that I just find too stupid to ignore...

~*~You only have to look at the way animals live. You have to go very far down the intellegence levels of animals before they stop defending an area.~*~

*coughs* *clears throte*

~You~ are an animal. Twit.

~*~But it would be very arrogant to assume that we're as intelligent as it gets. Also rather depressing.~*~

Finally! I meet someone with a brain!!

~*~Sitting on top of the food chain is exactly what it is, what else is evolution?~*~

Evolution, dearest, has nothing to do with "improving" oneself. It's the adaptation to survive. Now I realize this may be exactly what you were saying, but I had to throw in that statement anyway.

~*~Yeh I suppose more like Socialism ideals than communism. Helping each other but not giving up our own rights.~*~

And welcome to The United States of America...

~*~People are greedy, I say. Greedy, greedy, greedy!

Well, not everyone at least. The majority, though.~*~

I completely agree. I, however, am one of the few it seems.

Bye. *Runs away before the others attack*

Alternative economic systems can really make you think about your own. In Worgl (Austria) in the 1930's there was huge unemployment (just as in most of the rest of the Western World at the time) and the local Mayor decided to deposit some money in the bank and issue their own notes backed by this money. The notes _had_ to be spent within a month of being received and a stamp was put on the note when it changed hands to show it had been exchanged.

Local unemployment was halved within a very short period of time and a range of civic projects were undertaken to improve the town. All local traders would accept the money but big companies were not really interested in it because they could not spend it anywhere other than Worgl. So this initiative boosted the small local traders much more than the big companies.

Sadly the banks took the Mayor to court saying that it was their job to issue money and that he was behaving illegally and so the project stopped.