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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

There is a lot of precedent for one tribe eliminating another tribe to gain land. The only way a conflict over land ends is if one side wins.

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Usually but not actually. Northern Ireland is a good example where if people are well-off enough, you can diffuse tensions. Many thanks to Brexit for stirring this up more recently, and having different US tariffs across the border will be interesting, but it's still a valid data point.

The problem is that until a few hundred years ago, you could stand your ground and either win or lose (happened a lot) or you sought uninhabited land elsewhere )or a weaker party to kick out) That also happened a lot. Back then borders were defined by what you could actively defend, though treaties also existed.

These days though, there is no unclaimed land or unpopulated place to move in to. Practically speaking anyway. No one would want to move into the Yucatan jungles or Boreal Siberia even if the host countries invited them in to settle land.

> The problem is that until a few hundred years ago, you could stand your ground and either win or lose (happened a lot) or you sought uninhabited land elsewhere )or a weaker party to kick out) That also happened a lot. Back then borders were defined by what you could actively defend, though treaties also existed.

That is the same situation that exists today. Might makes right is the only rule of nature. Treaties are just hopes that someone will help with defending your borders.

See Russia expanding its borders into what was previously recognized as Ukraine.

Right. But before you could “run away” if you were willing to. Today you don’t have places to run to without running into other people willing to defend their places.

In the past you had lots and lots of peoples who just got erased as modern concepts of fairness and justice didn’t work the same way. See the warring states period.

Maybe. I don’t know that there was a place to run to a few hundred years ago. That was when Native Americans were pushed out (in North and South), Aborigines in Australia, etc.

When China expanded in the 1600 and 1700s the non Han ran to uninhabited Southeast Asia. One example are the Hmong who moved to mountains of SEA from interior China. Also lots of internal movement in Africa.

The last major landmass to be settled I believe is Madagascar, only settled ~1500 years ago, with only scattered, remote islands remaining unsettled past that point. Madagascar itself is an island, albeit one of the largest in the world, so enough to constitute 'major landmass' in my book; discount all island groups entirely, and the unsettled lands haven't existed for over 10,000 years.

What that means is that all of the "run[ning] away" you are talking about is still violently displacing native peoples. So for example, when the Boers flee the Cape Colony to the Transvaal, they aren't moving to virgin, empty land, but rather land inhabited by native Africans (Zulu, I think), who needed to be dispossessed of their land. And such dispossession tends to require violence.

Tangential to your main point (with which I agree) but New Zealand was only settled ~700 years ago.

Pop density before the 1870s was generally low in most places with a few exceptions.

After all there was no "industry" it was 95% + agrarian, pescatarian, pastoral. Many populations had a preference for coastal, riparian settlements and mountainous areas were less favored... but were where displaced peoples could move to. People clumped, they were not evenly distributed so any region would have unsettled areas --just like today you have vast areas in Alaska that are not populated -even Wyoming. There are towns here and there but most areas of those states are not "populated" though they are under local, state and federal control. Government did not work that way back a few hundred years ago.

The Zulu only relatively recently moved into ZA (around the same time as Europeans maybe a bit before --the Khoisan are the native peoples of ZA).

There are people who, for various reasons, didn't need to displace the original inhabitants, e.g. the Hutterites.

People also moved (were displaced) for other reasons beside war: drought, depletion of game, disease, pests, tribal splits, insufficient carrying capacity, ecological pressures, etc.

Not to many places. Even a thousand years ago most places were occupied - other than a few places like New Zealand.

The Western Roman Empire was invaded by people who were fleeing other invaders.

Someone from the first world claiming might makes right? Convenient.

Is that not how the universe works?

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