this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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i cited wars as counterexamples against peace. if that doesn't make sense to you, im not sure we can have a productive conversation.
i completely agree that humans are part of nature. So if you like, everything we do (and everything that occurs ever) is "natural" because everything is part of nature, but that's a fairly useless definition. we also do some relatively unique stuff, too, that is not mirrored by other animals. Nation states are not the same as wolf packs or bonobo societies or whale pods.
the most important difference here is that nations have institutions (such as a border) that exist despite the actual relationship of the people on those borders. the people on both sides of the Berlin Wall didn't want it to be there. The people who live in Beebe Plain, a town divided by the US-Canada border, have much more in common with their neighbors than the politicians in Washington DC and Ottawa who make decisions for them. this is not the same as pack membership setting territory boundaries, this is control from a distance by strangers.
anyway this has been interesting, im gonna get on with my day.
If your argument is that borders are unnatural because they're dynamic according to a complex web of interactions, then I'd like to sample whatever meth your ecology professor has been sharing with you.
If your argument is that an uneasy peace enforced by threat of violence isn't keeping the peace, then I'll point you back to what the other person initially said about wolves "keeping the peace".
"Unnatural" in their argument just means "adapting my idealized personal philosophy to accept this is too hard"