Borders are trees covered in pee.
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
543 points (88.4% liked)
Science Memes
20212 readers
1584 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Sigh Unzip. If that's what I've got to do to carve out some space, then so be it!
Welcome to Border Peetrol.
Paw Peetrol
Maintaining healthy trees with urine covering with federal employee benefits and a government pension sounds like a dream job.
No doubt they'd find a way to make it a bureaucratic nightmare of a job. But I'm down.
"Sorry sir, we have to deport you back to your impoverished, war-torn country, because wolves pee on trees".
Very compelling.
Also, countries need authoritarian governments because lobsters pee on each-other's faces.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The modern notion of nation States, with clearly defined borders, and mechanisms of violence to enforce them, only arose around the 17th century.
Wolves don't build border walls, have customs checkpoints, or leave refugees to drown in the Mediterranean.
This isn't a "science meme", it's a falacious attempt to cloak reactionary rhetoric in the aesthetic garb of scientific rigor.
Might as well show plant tissues with defined cell walls and say "borders are natural".
Only a half truth. Borders may have been loosely defined but they were absolutely defended with violence. You couldn't wander in and hunt in your neighbors woods, take their timber or set up a farm too close. Hell, sometimes they even had well defined natural borders or walls (see: Hadrian's wall, the great wall of China)
Moving through an area in large numbers might draw a violent response and you might be coerced to leave if you spoke the wrong language or dressed the wrong way. If you were an unknown group of strangers they may well let your boat sink or leave you to starve outside their walls. Modern states have simply codified these reactions into law.
Proto-states and the associated mechanisms developed extremely quickly once sedentary agriculture became dominant. If your entire livelihood is tied to a field of grain you no longer get to run or hide from conflict; controlling who can and can't get near it becomes imperative.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
I know it's just a shitpost but it's so fucking stupid.
It's comparing a home to a country. Like arguing "If you're so against borders, I'll just come into your house at any time." No, fuckface, there's a difference between personal space and (what should be) public land.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Pretty sure their borders aren't made up of countries, taxes, and slavery.
and they aren't forcing other animals to comply and pay taxes for the maintenance of those borders
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
They overlap significantly. In addition to what's seen in the image, the wolves' territories will move around due to various conditions. There are no fixed lines that could be likened to states' borders, only vague areas that can be likened to respecting personal space. Compare the wolves' ranges with the white line indicating the national park border also seen in the image, which does not move around based on vibes.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Animals are more civilised than Israelis it seems
Not a hard bar to clear.
The top quote is refering to borders as a state construction. Nobody denies the existence of boundaries between things in general
those wolves don't cross borders those because they already have what they need, and avoid upsetting their neighbors. not because the other wolf built a fance and has an army that will kill him, and is forced to live in his territory and pay taxes so his territory can be protected ny an army that will kill any wolves that enter without permission.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I must have totally forgotten that I'm a Wolf. I've always thought that I'm a Human. Crazy. Good to know that now. But I want that Friedrich Merz pisses on all of them trees at the German Border, because thats how the natural way to mark ur territory just works. And everything from nature is always the perfect and correct bahaivor for everyone!
Exactly. Wolves are also one of the species that practice infanticide. Clearly there is no point in being better, and we should just replicate everything we see in nature.
Whenever someone makes an appeal to nature, you know you're in for a treat.
I pissed in my neighbor's garden, got his wife pregnant and then ripped apart his newborn with my bare teeth and now my neighbor just wanders in the communal parking lot. At first I felt like the bad guy but I feel a lot better now, because his wife snarls at him whenever he gets close to the house.
Sometimes life surprises you.
load more comments
(17 replies)
Yes but humans are not wolfs. Each behave differently.
Primates also have territories, and chimps, one of our closest relatives, have wars over them.
And they're so much smarter than us, we saw no reason to change such a winning strategy.
load more comments
(1 replies)
and bonobos, chimpanzee's closest relatives have found evolutionary strategies that work without wars. we have changed our ways of eating and living before, we can again. all we need, as a society, is the imagination to remake ourselves as we have before
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
It really bothers me when people use "fear" and "respect" interchangeably. This borders on that.
wrong, there are no borders... so this cant border on anything
those aren't borders, those are territories arrived at by wolves interacting with each other and deciding to keep the peace. has nothing to do with formal borders imposed on us by states
has nothing to do with formal borders imposed on us by states
You mean the entities who interact with each other and decide to keep the peace as an abstract representation of those residing within them?
load more comments
(10 replies)
I mean we're on Lemmy in /c/sciencememes, i.e. (pedantic fuckweasels)² 😆
load more comments
(2 replies)
I love how people call it natural when anyone but a human does something.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Am I allowed to immigrate across countries if I engage in a match of melee combat with the leader of said country and perform well? Murder optional.
You have my vote, melee matches to the death preferred. I think the first two matches should be Trump, then Bibi. Is their any way we can expand this to billionaires before filling out the rest of the tour agenda?
Ok, sounds like we don't have to put so much energy into policing them then.
load more comments
(6 replies)
In that case, is it even a border if people aren't frequently peeing all along it?
load more comments
(7 replies)
Everybody is against borders until it is what they see as their land that is treaded on.
view more: next ›