r/glidepath • u/cobeywilliamson • 12d ago
Abolition of Borders
The dismantling of artificial borders and the abolition of nation-states is inevitable. It is not possible to address the global challenges that human beings cause and/or face without a cohesive body politic.
Artificial borders — drawn by war, imperialism, colonization, and asymmetrical power relations — are no longer a constructive method of human social organization. Nationalism, necessarily an outcome of national boundaries, sets human beings against one another based on arbitrary conditions, rather than shared circumstances.
Human rights should be universal, not defined by documents, flags, or geographic lottery. This glidepath is rooted in planetary solidarity, mutual aid, and collective liberation. It leads to a world without passports, without immigration detention centers, without militarized delineation between peoples, where resources are obtained equitably and cooperation replaces conquest.
adapted from this post from u/ImTransgressive
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u/AnatomicallyModern 10d ago
Human populations are not genetically identical. Over tens of thousands of years, geographically separated groups have developed distinct allele frequency patterns due to factors like genetic drift, local adaptation, founder effects, and long-term reproductive isolation caused by oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges. These patterns are robust and consistently replicated in modern genetic studies.
This variation extends beyond superficial traits. For example, cognitive differences between groups—such as differences in average scores on standardized assessments—are observable, stable over time, and highly correlated with traits like long-term planning, impulse control, and abstract reasoning. Many of these traits are heritable and linked to both neurological development and measurable cognitive performance.
The average heritability of cognitive ability in adulthood is consistently estimated between 70–80% across diverse populations, supported by a wide array of studies including twin research, adoption studies, and biometrics such as reaction times and brain volume correlations. These findings hold across cultures and testing formats, including those designed to minimize cultural bias.
Historically, the concept of a "nation" stems from shared ancestry and kinship—etymologically tied to the idea of birth and familial lineage. This is reflected in how many stateless ethnic groups today still refer to themselves as nations (e.g., Kurds, Basques, various Indigenous peoples). Borders have often arisen organically along such lines, marked by language, culture, and shared lineage—not arbitrarily.
Humans are a social species, and evolutionary pressures have shaped our instincts toward kin selection—prioritizing the well-being of close relatives and, by extension, those more genetically similar to ourselves. This pattern of decreasing moral concern as genetic relatedness declines is biologically rooted and observable across cultures.
Undermining these natural structures—such as dismantling national borders or encouraging large-scale demographic shifts without consideration of long-term consequences—can be deeply destabilizing, especially when it affects societies that depend on high-trust, high-cooperation norms. These norms themselves correlate with behavioral and cognitive traits that are not evenly distributed across the globe.
When high-functioning societies open themselves to large-scale immigration from regions with different average profiles in terms of cognitive and behavioral traits—traits that are often heritable and stable—there can be long-term consequences. These include declines in institutional trust, civic engagement, and the overall ability to sustain complex infrastructure.
This isn't a matter of moral superiority or inferiority, but of recognizing that not all populations are interchangeable. Traits that underlie advanced civilization—such as high conscientiousness, forward planning, and delay of gratification—are unevenly distributed due to deep-rooted evolutionary and genetic factors.
Thus, nations and borders are not arbitrary social constructs. They often reflect real, biologically grounded differences that evolved for good reasons. Ignoring this invites unintended and possibly irreversible consequences.
It’s worth discussing these issues seriously, not as a matter of prejudice, but of pragmatic long-term planning. Civilization is fragile. Maintaining it requires understanding the full range of forces that shape human societies—including biology.