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--- writing:rethinking_maps [2026/03/30 12:27] – JacobCoffinWrites
+++ writing:rethinking_maps [2026/03/30 12:33] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites
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-Solarpunk stories are often stateless or
+Solarpunk stories are often stateless or trending in that direction, and for good reason.
-States are an absurd construct in modern times, and even more absurd in a solarpunk context. Borders are often based on geographical choke-points for military engagement rather than the culture, language, and peoples who live in the region torn by the arbitrary lines of martial conquest.
+Borders are often based on geographical choke-points for military engagement rather than the culture, language, Two communities that share a river are not naturally different peoples because they live on opposite banks. They have to coordinate their activities to properly manage their shared biome, and that’s complicated by the existence of states that seek to divide them.
-Two communities that share a river are not naturally different peoples because they live on opposite banks. They have to coordinate their activities to properly manage their shared biome, and that’s complicated by the existence of states that seek to divide them. During long stretches of peace, the land resists these unnatural constraints. Treaties that govern territories are dead as the tree pulp they’re written on, but rivers and mountains are alive, and their erosion and meandering redraws maps and cultural regions, creating political enclaves out of river bends.
+Other borders are drawn based on nothing more than invisible longitudinal lines chosen because they’re a nice round number in a numerical system invented by Babylonian astronomers. They are treaties based on the expected resource extraction to be shared by competing warlords, again with no consideration for the cultural and biological regions these compromises compromise.
+These arbitrary lines divide neighbors who would otherwise
+ During long stretches of peace, the land resists these unnatural constraints. Treaties that govern territories are dead as the tree pulp they’re written on, but rivers and mountains are alive, and their erosion and meandering redraws maps and cultural regions, creating political enclaves out of river bends.
-And that’s the best case when it comes to border logic: often borders are drawn based on invisible longitudinal lines chosen because they’re a nice round number in a numerical system invented by Babylonian astronomers. They are treaties based on the expected resource extraction to be shared by competing warlords, again with no consideration for the cultural and biological regions these compromises compromise. The state is an affront to nature.
-This at least avoids the absurdities of modern borders, which often divide communities