Borders. What if Earth dictated them for us?

Have you ever wondered why the country, city or community you live in has the boundaries, city limits or political districts it has?

Human made borders.

From the outside view much of the way we slice-up land seems quite arbitrary and primarily decided to control politics, direct economics and mange populations. In some places they align with natural boundaries - typically where there are large land masses or waterways - in others they are zig-zagging lines to manipulate political outcomes, and still other places they are the result of wars and struggle.

We have examples:

• Island nations: who have hard boundaries set by nature.
• Congressional districts: constantly shifting based on the ruling political party(ies)
• Post-war: dictated by the 'winners' of the war, and still being contested (ie: is Kosovo a country?).

The USA, Middle East and Balkan countries are a good reminder of how fickle and changeable borders are, and yet we are raised to 'respect' and abide by them; we are taught how important they are; they are used to create an 'us' and an 'other'; and primarily seem to be used to create arbitrary human-desired benefits (ie power + money) or to break them up... Which, begs the question, do we really need borders? and if yes, what benefits come from them?

Planetary borders. What if we asked Earth to create borders for us?

What if Earth choose our borders, and how would we have to adapt the way we design, create, govern and live? What would these borders look like? How would she choose? Are there clues or hints around us that we could look at?

How might Earth ask us to re-group or cluster our species differently? I think that we have some clues and examples we can take into consideration.

• Natural Boundaries: This planet is full of tough terrain for humans to inhabit - mountains, rivers, oceans, ice, deserts.
• Natural Flows: Water, wind and fire does not follow political boundaries or pay tolls when it crosses a boundary, it flows, blows and burns where and when it pleases; wild animals, birds + insects do not respect country borders, and natural disasters have a way of impacting many.
• Nomadic History: Humans were originally nomadic, alongside nearly every other plant and animal species who co-habitat Earth.
• Tribal Rule: Indigenous tribes did not have well drawn out maps that they handed out to each person in their community. What they did was a combination of ruling as far as they could physically move to, becoming nomadic when needed, and sometimes harder borders drawn on the ground or dictated by a tree-line or another natural feature.

Perhaps one, or multiple of theses ideas and approaches could be utilized, reconsidered and modernized for current ways of living. What would Europe look like if we used natural boundaries to draw country lines? How would South American countries look if they followed natural water and nutrient flows to control and manage surroundings? What might Africa look like if local people drew country boundaries?

And i'll leave you with this, do we even need boundaries?

This article was not written to advocate for any one of these options, rather, its here to provoke us to think differently, and consider what might a different system look like?

-J.Simunich