50 Genius Things Other Countries Have That Make The US Feel Like It's Living In Another Century

If you’re reading this, it’s very likely you already know the answer to why there are borders between countries, why each country is different, and similar questions that deal with why someone has something and someone else does not.

But let’s humor the idea of there being singularity—like, what if there’d be just one country on Earth?

It’s romantic to think that, in some senses, our planet can be seen as a single country—a single place where we as a species live. And that’s what we share.

Apollo 9 space mission member Rusty Schweikhart explained that when he first looked at Earth from space, he felt a profound shift in perspective. Looking at it, he knew there were numerous borders on it, yet you couldn’t even see them.

Despite Rusty’s idea, despite our species essentially coming from a single place and sharing the same ancestry, we somehow got to a point where there are around 200 countries, each living its own life, relatively speaking. Why? How? What happened for these borders and walls to pop up and separate us?

One theory, validated by a number of studies, suggests that whenever people are made to feel insecure and anxious, the natural response is to cling to their identity and defend themselves against insecurities.

While criticized, the theory still explains why, in times of crisis and uncertainty, nationalism grows, and walls tend to be built.

So, to avoid that, the psychologist behind these insights, Steve Taylor, explained that the other end of the spectrum is where folks who are well-off reside—folks who incidentally often don’t have a sense of group identity.

Instead, they have transcended beyond that concept and found a calmer life where folks aren’t pigeonholed into nationalities, borders, identities, and the like.

Taylor noticed that folks who went through extreme psychological trauma—a life-threatening diagnosis or a loss in the family—often entered this next step in human development. They wouldn’t feel like they belonged to some nationality, religion, race, whatever. Having lived something that intense has led them to lose their group identity because they no longer felt separate, fragile, or insecure. And so there was no need for some sort of quick fix in the form of nationalism.