[ 96 ]

[lilyground]

[Lily has finally decided to sit down with a globe of Earth. She feels like a moron in conversation when she doesn't know where Europe is in relation to New York City.

Germany is kinda far away from America.]

Hey, Earth people? What countries have you been to? Yeah, and, uh... what's it like there?

[Just a little exercise to help her with

Comments

[electronichound]

How many countries depends on how you define a country and what time period you're asking about. Where I'm from there are 189 countries and fifteen disputed areas. Antarctica is unclaimed.

[lilyground]

[Antarctica... there we go. Wow, that's big!]

I dunno what time period. [Lily spins the globe, looking for a copyright or something.] ... Umm... 2010? And I guess by country I mean, like... with government, and kinds of people? Things like that?

[electronichound]

What do you mean by government?

[lilyground]

[Batou, you are asking a 12-year-old girl how she defines government.]

I dunno, like police? And kings and queens and... [What's that one thing called...] ... and presidents? Different countries have different governments, yeah?

[electronichound]

[Being 12 years old is no excuse for not knowing the first rules of socratic dialogue: define your terms!

Kids these days. Sheesh.]

Police. That's a good definition. One of the definitions for government is the monopoly of physical force. As in, one group is allowed to use force to enforce rules and others are not.

[lilyground]

[Lily absorbs this until her mind can define it in terms she understands.]

Like, laws? So, like, some people make laws, and the rest of the people follow them. That's government, right?

[In preteen terms, yes! Kind of! A little!]

[electronichound]

Yes. More than making laws, it's the force required to enforce punishments when people do not follow the laws.

[lilyground]

Like the Captain and crew?

[electronichound]

Yes. Exactly like that. Can you think of any natural governments that exist in the wild?

[lilyground]

[Lily thinks back to all the picture books she read, all the movies with talking animals...]

... Bears. Bears like, they rule everything.

[electronichound]

Tigers sometimes kill and eat bears, but bears do have the ability to maintain a crude system of rules in their physical domain when tigers are not present. Males will run off other males during breeding season, and female bears with cubs will aggress against anything that encroaches herself or her cubs.

So yes, that is an example of a non-human government. I was thinking more of wolves, pods of dolphins, murders of crows, schools of fish and alligators, but bears work.

[lilyground]

[...?]

Murders of crows? Like... killing crows, or what?