Borders are a recent enough invention that two of my grandparents migrated before passports were a requirement when they were young newlyweds (showing my age lol). They traveled from Austria-Hungary to France though Germany, it was a normal migrant journey, you were casually welcomed and given citizenship by your new country as long as you had money to spend and/or could provide labor. Another one of my grandparents was a vagabond (vagrant) who just walked from place to place, changed countries often, he stopped when most countries adopted anti-vagrancy laws. This happened a century ago, not millenia ago.
WWI, colonialism, and the rise of nationalism and fascism in early XXth century europe are what caused borders to become strictly enforced. You have a very poor understanding of geopolitical history, and likely have been brainwashed by modern heinous discourses on immigration, like too many people sadly.
Your story is nonsense. If you have money travel is possible so borders have never existed? Are you familiar with the Roman Empire? Persians? Egyptians? They didn’t have borders? Are you absolutely out of your mind? Where were born has mattered forever that’s borders friend
You’re talking about power and territory, not borders.
Roman, persian, egyptian borders were zones of influence, not fixed lines. A peasant or merchant could move across countries without having to go through border control or anything resembling a border. They were not able to join the local ruling class in most cases, due to being an outsider, but were still welcomed for their labor or money in the territory they had entered.
Ages ago, for some political history courses, I had to read CR Whittaker’s book called “Frontiers of the Roman Empire”. As the title implies it touches on this very topic. I wouldn’t recommend reading it, it’s quite dull. Anyway, one of the first things it touches on is that trying to understand history requires shedding modern concepts. Borders are the first one he asks the reader to shed.
Once again, you have a very poor understanding of geopolitical history. I don’t think you should be talking so confidently about a topic you are completely out of your depth in. It makes you look like a dunce.
You are being awfully condescending here. The Great Wall and Hadrian’s wall are pretty clearly borders. You’re just a dreamer. I respect that but you’re also being silly. Focus your clearly competent mind on something possible please
The Great Wall and Hadrian’s Wall both served the same purposes:
Deterring raids and armed incursions, a purely military role
Marking the end of military control (eg. on the other side of this line you’re on your own)
Signaling than anything within those walls would be subject to taxation (the price of military protection)
Enabling signaling (chains of beacons/towers to warn in case of military invasions)
They were not designed to stop individual peasants or merchants. Those walls all had gates to let them in and out. In Frontiers of the Roman Empire, CR Whittaker goes through archaeological records to better understand Hadrian’s Wall and its role, and did not find any form of deterrence against migrants or any historical record showing any individual border control.
I am being condescending because you are being stubborn. I see no reason to be nice when you are speaking confidently about a topic you very clearly know nothing about, which happens to be one of my fields of expertise. You’d probably do the same if you were in my shoes, it is very frustrating to see misinformation spread on something you have academic knowledge of. If you are unwilling to learn and want to cling to your modern preconceptions of what a border is, then I must ask you to get the fuck out off radical leftist spaces and stop spreading your racist propaganda. You will never be welcome there as long as you hold those views.
What about anything I have said is racist? Do you really believe a world with no borders is possible anytime soon? You’re off on a tangent about merchants and military purposes when that’s literally what borders are. What I’m saying is you’re wasting your time on this nonsense when you could be using your clearly passionate and intelligent brain to be solving something possible and realistic. How about we worry about feeding everyone before we start dreaming about a world where the aren’t nations anymore
People will stop calling you a racist when you stop acting like one by repeating racist talking points. It’s in your hands.
We have the means to feed everyone on the planet. We decided not to. You are this close to understanding imperialism and capitalism, but I’m afraid that from what we’ve witnessed so far, you don’t have the ability to work both of your neurons hard enough to understand it.
God damn stop being so insufferable and open your eyes to reality please. Recognizing that borders exist is just how it is. Pick something else to fight for because I promise you that we won’t live to see a united earth
Is it that important to you that we ourselves live to see it?
Your previous comment here also mentioned “it won’t be anytime soon” somehow assuming that that means we can neglect to express the ideals of it?
Either humanity gets there, or we won’t. Some people will do whatever they can to make sure we get a closer. Because if we don’t ever get there, why even continue the species at all?
[Thanks to everybody putting in the effort dealing with this. It’s too steep a Brandolini’s Law charge for my spoons stock to diligently take on thoroughly… So I continue here more as a general commentary stepped back from getting tangled up in all the…]
Strawman, moving goal posts, redherring, non-sequitur, ad-hominems, false dilemma, appeal to antiquity, appeal to novelty, circular reasoning, appeal to ridicule (ironically), appeal to authority, loaded language, ignoring counter-examples, conflation, equivocation, … on and on it goes.
You seem to have decided you’re right, and keep doubling down, despite the cogent arguments and corrections offered your way, contorting your position to prevent entertaining1 an idea from outside the world view that you seem to identify with, and fight to protect like your life depends on it.
It does not.
The ignorance that dies is not you.
I hope you find a healthier peace of mind in this.
I expect you’ll more likely continue to reject1 any idea not conforming to the naive-realist world-view you subconsciously perceive as you.
1 “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it.”
You don’t have to reply twice to the same comment.
You already made it clear that you do not understand the difference between military and civilian structures, and have a negative understanding of political history. Don’t need to clarify, we all saw it and understood.
That fetish of yours for public humiliation is not my kink, sorry. You’ll have to find someone else to continue the roleplay with.
Borders are a recent enough invention that two of my grandparents migrated before passports were a requirement when they were young newlyweds (showing my age lol). They traveled from Austria-Hungary to France though Germany, it was a normal migrant journey, you were casually welcomed and given citizenship by your new country as long as you had money to spend and/or could provide labor. Another one of my grandparents was a vagabond (vagrant) who just walked from place to place, changed countries often, he stopped when most countries adopted anti-vagrancy laws. This happened a century ago, not millenia ago.
WWI, colonialism, and the rise of nationalism and fascism in early XXth century europe are what caused borders to become strictly enforced. You have a very poor understanding of geopolitical history, and likely have been brainwashed by modern heinous discourses on immigration, like too many people sadly.
Your story is nonsense. If you have money travel is possible so borders have never existed? Are you familiar with the Roman Empire? Persians? Egyptians? They didn’t have borders? Are you absolutely out of your mind? Where were born has mattered forever that’s borders friend
You’re talking about power and territory, not borders.
Roman, persian, egyptian borders were zones of influence, not fixed lines. A peasant or merchant could move across countries without having to go through border control or anything resembling a border. They were not able to join the local ruling class in most cases, due to being an outsider, but were still welcomed for their labor or money in the territory they had entered.
Ages ago, for some political history courses, I had to read CR Whittaker’s book called “Frontiers of the Roman Empire”. As the title implies it touches on this very topic. I wouldn’t recommend reading it, it’s quite dull. Anyway, one of the first things it touches on is that trying to understand history requires shedding modern concepts. Borders are the first one he asks the reader to shed.
Once again, you have a very poor understanding of geopolitical history. I don’t think you should be talking so confidently about a topic you are completely out of your depth in. It makes you look like a dunce.
You are being awfully condescending here. The Great Wall and Hadrian’s wall are pretty clearly borders. You’re just a dreamer. I respect that but you’re also being silly. Focus your clearly competent mind on something possible please
The Great Wall and Hadrian’s Wall both served the same purposes:
They were not designed to stop individual peasants or merchants. Those walls all had gates to let them in and out. In Frontiers of the Roman Empire, CR Whittaker goes through archaeological records to better understand Hadrian’s Wall and its role, and did not find any form of deterrence against migrants or any historical record showing any individual border control.
I am being condescending because you are being stubborn. I see no reason to be nice when you are speaking confidently about a topic you very clearly know nothing about, which happens to be one of my fields of expertise. You’d probably do the same if you were in my shoes, it is very frustrating to see misinformation spread on something you have academic knowledge of. If you are unwilling to learn and want to cling to your modern preconceptions of what a border is, then I must ask you to get the fuck out off radical leftist spaces and stop spreading your racist propaganda. You will never be welcome there as long as you hold those views.
What about anything I have said is racist? Do you really believe a world with no borders is possible anytime soon? You’re off on a tangent about merchants and military purposes when that’s literally what borders are. What I’m saying is you’re wasting your time on this nonsense when you could be using your clearly passionate and intelligent brain to be solving something possible and realistic. How about we worry about feeding everyone before we start dreaming about a world where the aren’t nations anymore
People will stop calling you a racist when you stop acting like one by repeating racist talking points. It’s in your hands.
We have the means to feed everyone on the planet. We decided not to. You are this close to understanding imperialism and capitalism, but I’m afraid that from what we’ve witnessed so far, you don’t have the ability to work both of your neurons hard enough to understand it.
God damn stop being so insufferable and open your eyes to reality please. Recognizing that borders exist is just how it is. Pick something else to fight for because I promise you that we won’t live to see a united earth
Is it that important to you that we ourselves live to see it?
Your previous comment here also mentioned “it won’t be anytime soon” somehow assuming that that means we can neglect to express the ideals of it?
Either humanity gets there, or we won’t. Some people will do whatever they can to make sure we get a closer. Because if we don’t ever get there, why even continue the species at all?
Random thing but thanks for writing all this. The other person is probably beyond saving, but the history trivia is nice.
[Thanks to everybody putting in the effort dealing with this. It’s too steep a Brandolini’s Law charge for my spoons stock to diligently take on thoroughly… So I continue here more as a general commentary stepped back from getting tangled up in all the…]
Strawman, moving goal posts, redherring, non-sequitur, ad-hominems, false dilemma, appeal to antiquity, appeal to novelty, circular reasoning, appeal to ridicule (ironically), appeal to authority, loaded language, ignoring counter-examples, conflation, equivocation, … on and on it goes.
You seem to have decided you’re right, and keep doubling down, despite the cogent arguments and corrections offered your way, contorting your position to prevent entertaining1 an idea from outside the world view that you seem to identify with, and fight to protect like your life depends on it.
It does not.
The ignorance that dies is not you.
I hope you find a healthier peace of mind in this.
I expect you’ll more likely continue to reject1 any idea not conforming to the naive-realist world-view you subconsciously perceive as you.
1 “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it.”
I direct you to every fort and castle ever made. Every wall and mote. Every single fence. Borders are ancient and you’re being silly
You don’t have to reply twice to the same comment.
You already made it clear that you do not understand the difference between military and civilian structures, and have a negative understanding of political history. Don’t need to clarify, we all saw it and understood.
That fetish of yours for public humiliation is not my kink, sorry. You’ll have to find someone else to continue the roleplay with.