1/ Tricky question: what is the opposite of a āborderā? The typical fearful-right idea of a non-border is a vague fear of a massive flood of people, suggesting a dam-like containment of pressure. The idea of developing world āoverpopulationā encourages this mental model.
Conversation
2/ This sort of human flooding does happen on occasion, but generally it takes an unbelievable kind of pressure. The India-Pakistan partition is an example. 5 million flooded in 1 direction, 6 million in the other, with 1 million dead.
2
20
3/ But this sort of massive social disruption is rare. In practice borders are places where you disconnect from one social graph to connect to another. Usually via a social ābridgeā like a migration āchainā.
1
18
4/ Humans are far more social than we realize. Migration is not isolated atomized things flowing anarchically along a pressure gradient. It is more like a careful, minimal kind of making and breaking of bonds.
2
1
26
Replying to
This feels like the sort of āprinciple of minimum energyā that could drive a real-world psychohistory. (With the unusual person that dislocates as a quantum tunneling effect that creates Mules.)
1
1

