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1 - borders are just a way of marking territory.
2 - human nature would cause new ones to be drawn
3 - no. not good or bad, just different than the way the human race works.
4 - worse off, materially. maybe we'd learn to better use what we have though.
5 - no, and it generally doesn't here in the states... folks have health care, food, and shelter even if they're "undeserving" according to darwinian rules.
6 - as a whole, no. in some places, yes.
7 - depends on who's controlling it. that's a slippery slope.
8 - it can be. that's sort of asking like "does this shirt look good in orange?"
9 - it can be. see #8
10 -yes. I think for gross majority of humans, philosophy goes out the window where survival is concerned, but if they're fed, clothed and have a few basic needs met that they will be peaceful.

2- chaos. "we're not ready for that yet." (Plus, the bible says when that happens, we have to deal with the antichrist and the end of the world and such. So people who believe in all that aren't really gonna be supporting that 'no borders' deal.) And I don't know if we'll ever be ready to not have 'countries' with defined borders. So much of the world economy is based on a divided world... I can't even begin to mentally figure out how things would operate. Then again, the Euro is about to take center stage. Perhaps Europe will begin to pioneer this concept before anyone else. They can be the rats in the experiment :)

5- I think being human means we're "above" that and have the quality of 'mercy'. It really depends what you're talking about. Cause right now, humans have the advantage and current policies is that we basically come first, and have taken over land and destroyed resources worldwide, just for our luxury comforts. Evolution hasn't stopped 'yet' in my opinion, but we seem to be taking it out of the hands of 'god'/'nature' and into our own labs and this will likely only give us further 'advantages' or perhaps in the long run, lead to our own demise. Who knows at this point. But once genetic engineering gets going smoothly (and it will, no matter if every country outlaws it, it will,) it will be the more 'dangerous' point in human history, more dangerous than nuclear in my opinion, of what humans will have to 'deal with' in the future. I think the implications of what could happen are currently limitless and unfathomable.

Ok, how did I get on that? Anyhow.

6- with humans, oh yah. BIG time.
7- OH YAH. I would love to see financial incentives in place for limited population growth worldwide. But I would never want to see it become a 'law' anywhere. But worldwide health care and good education has to happen at the same time. Most people don't want or can't currently afford to have more than 2 kids IF they live a fufilling life, with education and good, safe work, and a longer life. So along with incentives, there has to be much more to serve as an incentive. AND you have to get rid of archaic ideas like in the soviet union and japan, who are ENCOURAGING their population to have more kids because their growth rates have slowed. RIDICULOUS. But their economies are somewhat based on this. So...Grr.

8- I would think so. I guess it depends on how much of a fundamentalist or what kind of christianity you believe in...and how much you want your beliefs to rule the world. Many "christians" can't stand gays or other lifestyle choices, yet are happy to buy 18K gold earrings...Bah.

That's a view I hadn't heard before. I'll have to think about it. Of the whole bible, the only part that 'rings a bell in me', is when they quote christ's teachings. He had some good stuff. :)

10- I think from what we're seeing in studying our closest primate relatives and their social structures, that we're inherently violent. Again, if you haven't read about the bonobo chimp/peaceful society (which is female dominanted, sex based and food is gathered more on the ground only, is 98%+ vegetarian,) compared to the common chimp which we are genetically most closely related to, who are male dominant, eat significant amounts of meat, hunt and kill fellow primates and eat them, war with neighboring chimps, spend quite a bit of time in the trees and on the ground, and is overall way more agressive than other related primates, have a lot of sex, but also a lot of rape.... well its pretty clear where our genetically driven tendencies now come from. (And these more indepth, long term studies are just now really coming to the forefront as data from years is being compiled and evaluated as troops are followed for several generations.)

We seem to be working really hard to overcome some of these things, and yet they persist. Racism, sexism, rape, wars, killing, torturing each other and animals, short sightedness and keeping our eyes on immediate rewards-- as a species, we have very low emotional IQs. We don't see 'the big picture down the road' very well. We still live for the moment, and damn to what future generations will have to deal with.

Maybe capitalism is incompatible with long term survival if our species?

I have two of de waals books :) And have met him twice. I also got to assist in Lanting's shoot for the bonobo book at the San Diego Zoo (since his cerebral malaria prevented him from continuing in africa.) Lanting has always had a very long respect for de Waal and was the one who turned me onto him.

I also recommend reading some of Jared Diamond's books, they're very interesting.

I agree that you can't suppose we know everything about either of the species (although we do know we are more closely related to the chimps genetically,) and it was really hard for me to summarize every idea out there. I personally like to "play" with the ideas of 'if humans were decended from bonobos, we'd all be perfect loving highly sexed and female dominated perfect society.' :) DO I actually believe this? Or even know it? No of course not. BUT it makes for fun thought.

The only thing I disagree with that you said was that I do feel humans ARE as violent and war mongering as chimps (from what I have read and seen.) And I mean this by looking at human history. Not just the past 100 years. I mean, humans have always been very...nasty. :)

1. It depends how you define borders. Borders are necessary to allow structured government and regional decision-making. However, they can be used to divide.
2. There'd be anarchy. This is not a Good Thing. Humans are not naturally inclined to the good of the community.
3. No - or at least not until ther sphere of humanity is bigger than the world. I imagine that should we ever colonise space, then it will become necessary to subdivide the 'empire' into local world governments. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on the nature of the government.
4. a) I'm not an American so less of the 'we' please :> b) Of course you'd be worse off. The US enjoys a one of the highest standards of living and per capita are by far the biggest consumers of resources.
5) Define 'fittest'. Fit means 'suitable for a purpose' i.e. adapted to a particular environmental niche. The best adapted people will always be more successful and therefore will reproduce more. Evolution is still at work. It does apply. Whether or not that's 'fair' or 'moral' is an entirely different question.
6) Yes.
7) The biggest control on human reproduction is economic security. This is demonstrated by comparing birth rates with GDP per capita. When children become expenses rather than social provision for the future the birth rate falls quickly. This is the main reason why Western populations tend to be stable or decreasing and third world populations are increasing.
8) No. How can a religion led by a man who told people to 'sell all their goods and give to the poor' and told his followers that they only needed one shirt be compatible with an ideology that celebrates greed, acquisitiveness and the self. That's not to say that Chrisitans can't be economically successful, but they should never hold Mammon above God.
9) No. Communism is a form of governent related to socialism, but not the same thing. Communism believes in the centralisation and control of resources, people and industries. Socialism can be more devolved and people oriented. Communism is also inherently atheistic. Socialism includes people who hold those beliefs partly because of their religious beliefs. As a socialist, I would be quite annoyed if you called me a communist.
10. Inherently violent, selfish and acquisitive. Watch any group of small children to see that. They have to be taught to be social and share.

As a strong believer in social programs, its certainly not one I would use. A healthy population with access to resources would benefit everyone.

The point I'm making is that if everyone consumed resources at the same rate as the US per capita there wouldn't be enough to go around. I recently saw a website that calculated the 'ecological footprint' of a person based on lifestyle. In order to support everyone currently living at the US rate of consumption vs production would require 7 Earths.

We of the West consume far more than our fair share of the worlds resources. We have to rein in our greed and throwaway lifestyles and live in a more conservative and resource efficient way in order to make a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

1. I see it as more like "I control what goes on over here and you control what goes on over here. And don't try to exert your control over my territory."
2. If physcial borders were eliminated then we would create non-tangible borders. Humans aren't the only animals that do this. I think all animals and most plants recognize some type of border between territories. If you and I were placed in a room together we would recognize some time of border between us.
3. I don't see a world government happening anytime soon. When you erase the physical borders there are still all the idealogic borders to get past. Given the vast differences in things like religion and world views, I think we have a long, long way to go in that arena. I don't know a governmental sytem in the world today that is agreed upon by all those under it's control and you're talking about all the world's population trying to come together under one government.
4. It depends. People put different values on different things. But given the current mindset of most humans I think some resources would very rapidly be used up which is not always a good thing. I think having restrictions on some resources forces people to find alternate methods of doing what they need or want to do so the resource is not used up so quickly. Note- That's in a perfect world view, not neccesarily the way things happen now.
5. I don't think we have a choice. It does apply to humans ultimately. I know there are times when it seems the weak are surviving over the strong but I think, in the end, only the fittest do survive.
6. It would seem to be when you look at raw numbers but you have to qualify that question at some point. You go somewhere like Sao Paulo, Brazil and there are like 15 Million people living in a city the size of Chicago. They are living right on top of each other in many cases. And you think, "Man this world is so overpopulated!" But then you go a few miles outside of Tucson and there is miles of open land with not a soul in sight and you have to wonder, why couldn't we put people out here? I think it's all a matter of perspective. We have millions of hungry people in the world and yet we have millions of acres of farmland that the US government pays farmers not to plant. All a matter of perspective I guess.
7. I'm not sure that you can control it. I think it's one of those instinctive things about us. About any living being really. I think we've probably passed the point where we need to have big families to ensure the survival of the species, given the resources we have and our current lifespan. But I think attempts to legislate reproduction have always proven futile and will continue to do so. If there is going to be a change, I think it must come from individuals deciding something needs to change.
8. Sure, I think it can be when you get down to the heart of both systems. But I think the current state of both things is a poor model to judge by.
9. No, again, I think at the heart they are very different idealogies. Unfortunately we've never really seen good working models of either system so it's easy to confuse the two.
10. It depends on how you define violence. I think that ultimately we are all members of a warrior race and that when neccessary we will all fight to protect what we percieve to be ours or to ensure our survival. I think the trait of killing for the sake of killing is a behavioural trait we are capable of modifying.

Thanks for this. It's like my final exam in Sociology or Philosophy.

Peace,

Wander

Most certainly. I don't think most Americans really buy into the Melting Pot ideal. If we did, we wouldn't be so concerned about all the labels we put on ourselves and each other. I think it's pretty amazing there isn't more chaos in our country than there already is but part of that is the willingness of people to give up the right to make thier own decisions on things and let others do it for them. But even among people who seem to have ideals in common, you find so much disparity of individual thought. It's almost a little scary to think what might happen if people acted on what they truly beleived.

Then when you get to the basic concept of borders, realize all the borders that would have to come down just to have a unified American government (which we don't truly have by the way). I think we are a long way away from that as well.

Wander