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worst case scenario

Computer(mathematically) model all the countries of the Earth suddenly losing sovereign boundaries.
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Just wondering how chaotic the chaos would be.

Like with most things, I am guessing a bit energetic then a gravitation to a single steady state.

People being people, I don't think a local area would lose it's local societal difference, if the local people stay in support.

Of course there is always a business opportunity in a fire sale.

Wondering if the mathematical modelling up to the complexity. Maybe some human minds, a think tank?

In computing terms, there would be an array for each earth citizen with a set of variables, like dungeons and dragons( what these variables are I'll leave to more learned folk) + human nature component. The simulation would have the variable set run for current Nations as a current state. Each country would affect citizens and they would be free to choose another country or stay put as the modelling dictated. Or we could ask those in the know which countries would have the runs, which would be stable and which would sink( if there were enough travelers which I doubt)

wjt, Nov 14 2021


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       Say such a function exists, I wonder what parameters would be fed into that function to determine the location of a boundary?   

       Natural geography would of course play a role, so many of the existing borders along coastlines, rivers and mountain ranges would likely look the same.   

       The rest would evolve over time depending on the relative comfort of the people, and the availability of military/arms and personnel. If you fight wars with clubs, spears and arrows, the boundaries between spheres of control are going to look different to boundaries established using a different war-time set of technologies like petrol-powered planes, cars and other industrially-produced armaments. People who's bellies are full are less likely to risk their lives to control the means of food production, while those who are lucky enough to find themselves sitting on rich and fertile soil might be faster to join together and pool their resources into protecting their assets from outsiders.
zen_tom, Nov 14 2021
  

       This idea runs immediately into the general problem of counterfactual history. Given that everything is in some sense connected to everything else, you have to find a way to change one variable without (a) imposing your own preconceptions of why things are the way they are (including the actual value of that variable) or (b) unraveling the whole sweater.
pertinax, Nov 14 2021
  

       Yes, there is a somewhat lack of mechanism how this //losing sovereign boundaries// might be implemented. Presumably there would be some kind of conference a bit like the climate thing, where heads of state would agree a legal text to proclaim and sign as an international treaty, except they would also probably all have to go home and also enact it in domestic legislation. Some countries probably include definition of their boundaries and territories in their constitutions, and would probably require a referendum to approve such a constitutional change. The legal text would have to be carefully worded to avoid ambiguities and loopholes, as there would for sure be legal challenges, both by people seeking to profit from those ambiguities and also from citizen campaign groups who are more and more now turning to legal action as a way to influence government and policy.   

       Not to mention that there are more boundaries than sovereign boundaries; there are also administrative and customary boundaries. A lot of the legal arguments may centre around whether a certain boundary is primarily sovereign or administrative, or to what extent certain features of that particular boundary have sovereign and/or administrative aspects.   

       I would imagine these legal cases would take years and so the process of //losing sovereign boundaries// would be far from sudden - in fact it may never happen.
pocmloc, Nov 14 2021
  

       Baked, already 'modelled' in the real world, the end result was separate countries with national borders.
Skewed, Nov 14 2021
  

       ... except it's a little premature to call it an end result - it's more of a provisional result. On a history- of- civilisation timescale, the Treaty of Westphalia was quite recent and very parochial, and the number of countries has fluctuated quite a lot just in my lifetime.
pertinax, Nov 14 2021
  

       Not really premature [pert] the actual position of the borders are relatively fluid over time but the fact of borders is not, humans organise themselves & that naturally results in 'what's ours' & 'what's yours', just because they change location a little now & again says nothing about the fact of borders not being an immutable feature of human society, as it most likely is.   

       In other words, just because something moved doesn't mean it doesn't still exist, because it does, it couldn't move if it didn't, your logic here (they changed a lot in my lifetime so that means they don't need to exist) is flawed because it means (or at least is no evidence for) no such thing.
Skewed, Nov 14 2021
  

       "Borders", yes. "National", not so much. And actually, even borders are somewhat contingent on population density and land use intensity. When Greece was city- states, you wouldn't see a sign, or cross a line, saying "You are now leaving Boeotia", "You are now entering Attica".   

       Where a particular agricultural region was subdivided there were boundary stones, IIRC, but these would separate the holdings of individuals, not of "nations".
pertinax, Nov 14 2021
  

       Nation is just the word we use to name the groupings that are the proximate cause of the borders we currently have, you can change the name (if you really must) but it will still be the same thing by any other name, again I have to tell you (I think) your logic is failing you [pert] :)
Skewed, Nov 14 2021
  

       On the contrary, logic always has problems where set- cardinalities are poorly defined, as they are in this case.   

       We could postulate a Russell Empire, that governed all the states that didn't govern themselves.
pertinax, Nov 14 2021
  

       //a Russell Empire//   

       Emperor Brand?
Skewed, Nov 14 2021
  

       Be sure and include a model of the countries whose borders will no longer exist as they are entirely under water.   

       Russell Empire seems like it would be a more muscular UN.
RayfordSteele, Nov 15 2021
  

       //Emperor Brand?// more Bertrand in this case Skewed.   

       Nationality is largely a recent concept - few nations have a heritage much older than 2 or 3 hundred years or so.   

       Prior to that, there might have been Duchies, or Principalities and such. And people pretty much supported their local Feudal Lord/Church with tithes and tributes for fear of them sending the boys round.   

       Even post nationalism, with the feudal tax collecting systems more administratively brutal (rather than being explicitly so) there certainly weren't any border controls or policing. If the memoirs of Stefan Zweig are to be believed, most of that is still only 100 years or so old and a result of more recent totalitarian governments rising in Europe in the early to mid twentieth century after the various financial crashes and crises of the period. In terms of the status quo, in evolutionary or civilisation terms, it's fairly new.   

       Forts, land ownership and geographic power would of course have existed, but if someone turned up and started tilling some unclaimed fallow field, they'd probably be left alone, until it was time to pay up to whichever local Baron was most enthusiastic in offering their "protection".
zen_tom, Nov 15 2021
  

       //Nationality is largely a recent concept//   

       Nice little buzz phrase that, commonly used, & completely untrue in the impression it strives to give, it's a recent name for an old thing but the thing has always been there, there have always been groupings of people, sure they're larger now than they used to be but the essential thing is still the same.
Skewed, Nov 16 2021
  

       //the essential thing is still the same//   

       No, it really isn't.   

       There have always been identity groups, but they have often been subsets or supersets of other identity groups, and each such group may or may not overlap with other groups.   

       To understand this, you need to spend some time reading primary sources written before the nineteenth century.   

       For example, in Latin, the word "gens", which is sometimes translated as "nation", can also refer to a family, or a tribe, or any size grouping in between, and it carries with it no assumption of sovereignty, or military autonomy, or diplomatic status, or defined frontiers.   

       Or suppose you lived on Samos in, say, 460 BC. Your cultural identity was Greek, which, for example, entitled you to take part in the Olympic Games, but your citizenship was Samian (so you only had a vote on Samos), your dialect was Ionian, which you shared with many other islands, and you depended for military security on the Delian League. You could travel to any of these places without a passport because ... what's a passport? So, was your nationality Greek, or Ionian, or Samian, or Delian? Answer: none of the above, because the concept was not applicable.   

       Or consider Von Eschenbach's Europe, c. 1200 AD; the knights in his story come from all over the place - Portugal, Wales, Thuringia, etc. - and they do a lot of traveling. But they never cross a border. That's because there are no borders. They communicate with other knights in bad French (the "lingua franca") and the main law governing their lives is the Law of Chivalry, which was a real thing, and was actually enforced by courts.   

       A hundred years later, young William of Ockham was talent- spotted in Oxford and offered a teaching job at the Sorbonne before he'd even graduated. There was no paperwork required to work in France because, for most purposes, there was no France. All the characters in that story communicated in bad Latin, and their lives were governed mostly by Canon Law, which was largely indifferent to which side of the Channel you were on.   

       Are you getting this yet?
pertinax, Nov 16 2021
  

       //No, it really isn't//   

       Yes, it really is.   

       //the word "gens", which is sometimes translated as "nation", can also refer to a family, or a tribe, or any size grouping in between//   

       That's right, & that's probably because they understood that besides scale all those things are essentially the same thing (in simplest terms, groups of people) with a few more or less bells & whistles. Your other examples are equally silly in the context of this discussion, members shared by multiple groups & individuals changing groups has always happened & still happens now so no change there then, & no change means no evidence for something new. just because borders weren't policed as tightly they are now doesn't mean they didn't exist, they did, kings fought wars over them even in the 1200s & before, you appear to be arguing from the conviction of doctrine you've been fed or read rather than a position of intellect.   

       And I can't help but feel you've confused the not infrequently used statement that patriotism among common people is a relatively new phenomena as being a statement that countries are somehow a new concept which is not what that one's about at all, that you've read a few headlines & not really understood them & this is where your argument is coming from.   

       Hell, even chimp troops, wolf packs, lion prides (to name just three) & other animals have territories with borders so the idea that these things haven't always been with us since before we were even human is simply silly, as is the notion a nation is somehow not the same thing simply extended in scale in an even more social species that organises in much larger groups.   

       //Are you getting this yet?//   

       I got it a long time ago, seems to me you haven't, but I have every confidence in you, that you'll continue to not get it, don't let me down :)
Skewed, Nov 17 2021
  

       //you've read a few headlines//   

       No, I've read primary source documents from previous centuries. I suggest you do the same.
pertinax, Nov 17 2021
  

       [Claps hands together joyfully]   

       Well done! with the not letting me down ;D
Skewed, Nov 17 2021
  

       OK, we might need some definitional clarification here.   

       Groups are inevitable. I think we can agree on that.   

       If you then define "country" or "nation state" as nothing but a synonym of "group", it follows that countries are inevitable.   

       However, that's not what is usually understood by "country".   

       A functioning "country" is usually taken to supply all, or at least most, of the following unities:
1. Strategic unity (one army, not at war with itself)
2. Diplomatic unity (one voice in negotiation with other countries)
3. Cultural unity (one identity, with which group members can identify, notwithstanding that sub- identities can co- exist within it)
4. Legal unity (one ultimate jurisdiction, within which internal disputes can be resolved)
5. Linguistic unity (which is an important enabler of the other functions)
6. Monetary unity (a single recognised currency in which taxes can be raised to fund #1, and compensations can be awarded as part of #4)
  

       If a group does only a small fraction of this, do you still call it a country?
pertinax, Nov 17 2021
  

       Definitely.   

       But we forgot to include the truly worst case of all: we’re forced to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special.
RayfordSteele, Nov 18 2021
  

       [pertinax];
//3. Cultural unity...//
I would question this one, especially in these days of international migration (er, Covid notwithstanding...), with most places being "melting pots" of multiple cultures.
neutrinos_shadow, Nov 18 2021
  

       It's true, there has been a trend away from monocultural states. However, it could be argued that this is part of a trend away from nation states. Opinions vary about whether this is a good thing.
pertinax, Nov 18 2021
  

       //when you would say definitional clarification instead of just "definitions."//   

       IIRC, "definition" is originally a metaphor from the placing of agricultural boundary stones, while "clarification" is the act of making something better known.   

       So, if we paddle the semantic canoe upstream through the mists of time, we find a place where I put a large stone to mean "This is where my field starts", and that's definition, but there's no clarification until I tell someone I've done so.   

       We might stop here for a picnic, if it weren't so misty.
pertinax, Nov 19 2021
  

       My question was, what would the world be like if a citizen of the earth can vote with their feet, with the globes current level of education and moral codes. Most people would want to stay with what they know and if a government was losing it's people, I am sure it would adapt.   

       Everyone still governs, just can't block leaving and entry unless local valid law broken. Isn't border work laws just national protectionism, anti global capitalism.   

       As long as the travelers live by the rules of the region/entity they are got to, why should there be a barrier. There will always be the self centred, that deviation in the distribution, anywhere.   

       Stimulus for idea: Seeing a country block entry of a minuscule group of people because the problem would be theirs rather than it being a global shared problem.
wjt, Nov 19 2021
  

       I thought this idea was going to be about some people's habit of eating pungent German sausage and then you having to smell their rank, sausagey breath as they embrace you. Oh no, hang on - that's the Wurst Kiss Scenario
hippo, Nov 19 2021
  

       The kiss wouldn't be mutual then would it. Else it's just a glimmer of life experience.
wjt, Nov 19 2021
  

       There was an opera about an evil delicatessen. My favourite bit was the wurst käse sin aria.
pocmloc, Nov 19 2021
  


 

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