# Do away with borders
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 11, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238 "2014-09-11T21:15:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/61 "2014-09-12T21:30:21Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Meh, Foreign Policy. People like Rhodes created both Foreign Policy and half the problems of Africa at the same time. The foreign policy establishment of the USA seems to like nothing better than to operate outside of the law, and cause chaos and bloodshed all over the place. Hardly think they are people to preach or look to for their talents in bringing order.
So what? Do you think Cecil Rhodes cared if he caused all those problems? It was the Africans who had to pay for the problems not Cecil Rhodes. Same thing with American foreign policy or any other country’s foreign policy. Your country gains the benefit and the other country pays the price. That’s what happens when there are no laws. The biggest guys do what they want and the little guys get screwed.
And if there was no American government, California would be doing it to Oregon. And if there was no California government, Los Angeles would be doing it to San Diego. And if there was no local government, one neighborhood in LA would be doing it to the next neighborhood over.
---
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/62 "2014-09-12T21:33:33Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> Not inevitably. Anarchy simply means that there is no centralized authoritarian structure to react to and deal with violence and disorder, but that by itself does not guarantee that the citizenry are helpless to regulate and enforce peace and civil order.
If the citizenry regulate and enforce peace and civil order, what do you call that? I call it a government but you can call it a centralized authoritarian structure if you want. But either way, you no longer have an anarchy if people are organizing and enacting laws and enforcing them.
---
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/63 "2014-09-12T21:36:20Z")
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> not true.
>
> nice people will spontaneously behave themselves.
Nice people will. But not everybody is nice. Even if only one person out of a hundred is a criminal, the criminals will hurt all the nice people. Unless the nice people organize together to stop the criminals.
---
### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/64 "2014-09-12T22:24:04Z")
> [@beowulff](#):
>
> [Maybe you should read this first](http://www.larryniven.net/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.shtml).
> That’s what _he_ thought.
Thanks for that link. It’s been a long, long time since I first read it.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/65 "2014-09-12T22:37:06Z")
> [@](#):
>
> There you go with your imaginary protector again. Why would anyone agree to participate in a voluntary cage match if they have an advantage outside of the cage?
Pity that humans don’t function according to rational self serving game theory, really, because then what you say would stand up.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/66 "2014-09-12T22:43:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> So what? Do you think Cecil Rhodes cared if he caused all those problems?
Doesn’t matter, contention is that Foreign Policy are not an authority, based on their own history and function.
> [@](#):
>
> It was the Africans who had to pay for the problems not Cecil Rhodes.
Uhuh
> [@](#):
>
> Same thing with American foreign policy or any other country’s foreign policy. Your country gains the benefit and the other country pays the price. That’s what happens when there are no laws. The biggest guys do what they want and the little guys get screwed.
Think you’ll find that law is essential in making all this work because state on state competition is predicated on taxes.
> [@](#):
>
> And if there was no American government, California would be doing it to Oregon.
They already compete using the law as competitive apparatus, with real lives at stake. Local governments compete for money and all sorts of shit. The violence is encoded in law and inescapable whether you like it or not.
> [@](#):
>
> And if there was no local government, one neighborhood in LA would be doing it to the next neighborhood over.
They already do - Niggas With Attitude say so. The law abiding state is already half in anarchy.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/67 "2014-09-12T22:49:44Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> Thanks for that link. It’s been a long, long time since I first read it.
How about that, read loads of Larry Niven myself, never saw that.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/68 "2014-09-12T22:50:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> It doesn’t matter who destroyed it. The point is that it was destroyed.
Still happens.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/69 "2014-09-12T22:52:00Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> Not inevitably. Anarchy simply means that there is no centralized authoritarian structure to react to and deal with violence and disorder, but that by itself does not guarantee that the citizenry are helpless to regulate and enforce peace and civil order.
>
> Anarchy in the OP’s context, I think, means not subject to the sovereign authority of the neighboring nations, nor bound by the threats of international sanctions…
Perfectly sensible summation.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/70 "2014-09-12T23:13:57Z")
Actually I take back the bit about Rhodes and Africa - they were pretty far gone before the Europeans ever turned up.
---
### Author:  [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/71 "2014-09-12T23:29:17Z")
**MrQwerty** , let me be clear about this in case there is any confusion. If you start an anarchy zone, I, myself, am going to come take all your shit. If I have to beat you up first, I will. If I have to sneak up behind you and shoot you, I will.
You don’t have to guess and argue and wonder about whether someone will try to take advantage of you. I’m telling you right now that someone will, and that person is me.
There. It’s settled. Now no more arguing about how people will act or won’t act because you have a firm answer.
So you best not go through with this idea or I’ll make you pay for it, m’kay?
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/72 "2014-09-13T01:38:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If you start an anarchy zone, I, myself, am going to come take all your shit. If I have to beat you up first, I will.
Well, we’ll see how you enjoy life with one testicle, then we’ll see what sort of attitude you maintain with none, and then if necessary we’ll say goodbye for ever.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/73 "2014-09-13T01:41:40Z")
What about a scientifically induced anarchy, in which the specific genes and areas of the brain and genes that influence hierarchical behaviour the most are tinkered with ?
We could maybe ask [Robert Sapolsky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZcTvFqzxA0) for some ideas on this.
To save the pain of watching, Sapolsky describes a troupe of baboons in which the aggressive alpha males all got killed by a virus, leaving loads of females a and a bunch of chilled out males.
The alpha males never came back due to genetic drive, the baboon culture remains changed, and new baboons joining the new baboon anarchy end up chilling out and changing too. The cycle was broken.
---
### Author:  [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/74 "2014-09-13T01:45:12Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> All chaps are assless, that’s what makes them chaps and not pants.
>
> In order to replace the current borders with anarchic neutral zones, you’d have to cede territory along the borders to form the new neutral zones. How many countries are going to want to do that? Who’s going to pay to relocate the citizens who live in the neutral zones? What if they don’t want to move, but don’t want to live in the new zone?
>
> Here it is in 2014, and we’ve got a lot fewer zones than I thought we’d have when I was a kid. Forget your flying car, I was promised zones. Forbidden zones, neutral zones, phantom zones, danger zones, dead zones. And all we got are some crappy time zones and free trade zones.
Starting after Mexico heading south just call every other country an anarchy zone. Wouldn’t change a lot.
---
### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/75 "2014-09-13T01:54:31Z")
Post NSA it’s clear you’re in … The Twilight Zone.
---
### Author:  [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/76 "2014-09-13T03:25:45Z")
**MrQwertyasd** , have you studied anarchism? It seems that most of the rest here have not.
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> If only those anarchists would get organized.
Case in point.
---
### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/77 "2014-09-13T03:48:29Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#):
>
> Case in point.
I believe that was what we in the trade\* call a joke.
Anyway **Lemur866** has the right of it, as he usually does. A fully functional anarchic society of whatever flavor is, much like functional communism, a utopian pipe dream. They sounds nifty if we could just get everyone to do the right thing. But not everyone will and on human nature doth all utopia’s perish.
---
### Author:  [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/78 "2014-09-13T03:54:46Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> I believe that was what we in the trade\* call a joke.
>
> Anyway **Lemur866** has the right of it, as he usually does. A fully functional anarchic society of whatever flavor is, much like functional communism, a utopian pipe dream. They sounds nifty if we could just get everyone to do the right thing. But not everyone will and on human nature doth all utopia’s perish.
Yeah, it’s a joke that’s often told, and completely misses the point, as does referring to anarchism or communism as utopian experiments undone by so-called “human nature.”
---
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/79 "2014-09-13T03:55:30Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#):
>
> **MrQwertyasd** , have you studied anarchism? It seems that most of the rest here have not.
Studying anarchism by just reading literature written by anarchists is likely to make you deluded. Anarchists only talk about the good side of anarchism and ignore its flaws. (Which is not unique to anarchists. People of all political ideologies do the same.) If you want to get a realistic view of anarchism you need to read both anarchist literature and anti-anarchist literature. Of course, reading literature that disagrees with your personal beliefs and, worst yet, points out the flaws and inconsistencies in your personal beliefs is an unpleasant experience. So most people choose to avoid it. Sticking to just reading more of what you already believe is comforting even if it’s not enlightening.
---
### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/80 "2014-09-13T03:57:54Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#):
>
> and completely misses the point, as does referring to anarchism or communism as utopian experiments undone by so-called “human nature.”
So what point might that be?
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238.md?page=3)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238.md?page=5)