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Comment by fooker | Hacker News Reader

Like the Canada-US border ?

The Canada-US border is straight for the same reason many African borders are straight, actually. It was also drawn by foreign colonialists who neither lived in the area nor cared about the opinion of the people who did live there.

The Canada-US border was not imposed by colonial Britain. It was a compromise between the US and Britain after the American Revolution and War of 1812.

In this context, the distinction between "the US" and "Britain" is entirely immaterial. People of European descent came, had some internal bickering, drew lines on maps, didn't care about the opinion of the people already living there.

By the time the US/Canada border was drawn, the majority of people "already living there" (90%) were of European descent.

He does have a point. The border was straight because the people living there mostly (European descendants, the locals were already disenfranchised by that point) didn't give a crap about the border.

I'm Romanian. Ask a Romanian what he'd think about straightening the border around Timisoara, thus giving it to Hungary. Many of those people would die rather than letting it happen. Those borders represent family possessions, cherished childhood memories, remnants of stories past that bond together people on either side of the border, etc.

Normal, i.e. organic borders, are messy and rarely straight.

Yes, because native populations had been decimated by disease.

And that war started after the native inhabitants had been almost driven into extinction.

/angrily glares at plate of poutine

If Canada and US are in Africa and their borders where set by Europeans based on shares of diamonds, coal, gas, silver, gold or oil which is now shared by Shell or BP and you don't share ethnic groups, religions, traditions and you have 100x more ethnic groups than countries... then no. Not like in Canada-US. Did you know that some of those borders where made by Stalin just to provoke them, let them kill each other, provide them weaponry, so they could easily use their natural resources?

Stalin drew borders in Africa??? Which ones?:)

Probably the one between East Africa and Atlantis.

OK, the guy was obviously referring to Europe, but just did a bad job of it.

still, mixing up Yalta agreement and colonial borders in Africa... besides, it is not natural resources that Stalin was after.

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