Like, the only reason countries exist is because some rich guys decided that they ruled this chunk of land, and everyone else just kinda said “Yeah, whatever, I don’t really give a shit, just let me farm and leave me the fuck alone”.
Then the rich guy on the next bit of land said “I want a bit of what he’s got going on”, and before we knew it, all the bits of land were ruled by people who’s only claim to them was that they were the first to have the idea.
Fast forward a few thousand years, and some of the bits of land are ruled by people who wear gold hats and spout a load of bollocks about divine right, while some of the bits of land are ruled by people who convinced the rest of the people to let them do it, and really, there’s no difference between, like, France and Spain, but some old dudes drew a line and said “Nah, that bit speaks this version of a language, and that bit speaks another version of it”.
You ever think about that?
Yup.
If you bop enough people over the head and take the land they are on, you can soon afford to exert a lot of control, and through that continue to expand your wealth.
And if you fear being bopped over the head by someone who wants the land you are on, you’ll do what you can do defend the boundaries.
So yeah, almost all of it comes down to control of resources, with plenty of use of mass psychology to get populations to assist.
It is disturbing that what amounts to a very small proportion of humanity somehow manage to conduct societies to their ends so very effectively.
Here’s a little animation you might find interesting. Doubt it is super-accurate but it conveys the basic idea just fine https://yewtu.be/watch?v=UY9P0QSxlnI
On the more local scale, but by the same mechanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure Today it is often less about land, but you’ll see it with stuff like the sale of water rights to multinational corporations and the emphasis which many jurisdictions place on property rights compared to human rights.
That was fascinating. Wonder what was wrong with the south-eastern bit of Sicily that neither the Greeks nor Carthage wanted it until the Romans staked their claim around 210BC.
No idea, but probably easy enough to find out. I’d imagine they all wanted it before that, but were unable to take control. Also possible that the evidence of who exactly was there previously is not definitive enough to associate with any given group?