I wasn't trolling, but I was engaging more in idle speculation than attempting rigorous argument. You probably remember the book from decades ago, "The Seven Nations of North America", that described what the author saw as natural cultural boundaries. It's unlikely to happen, at least not in a peaceful way, though it might be the shape of the recovery after some horrific disaster. In its own way it's a utopian fantasy, and that's what I was riffing on.

It isn't without merit, though. You talk about the possibility that social militants wouldn't be satisfied to stay in their box and would want to conquer neighboring cultures. Well, consider that the way things are now, conservative social militants are trying to gain control of the "uniform national culture" I talk about and change it to suit themselves. That power theoretically exists because of our present tightly-knit political structure and uniform culture, but it would be considerably weakened if the would-be mulllahs had to resort to making actual war across an actual national boundary. It's about putting up barriers to cultural imperialism within which regional cultural self-determinism can flourish (has my Liberal buzzword count reached critical mass yet?)

Would dividing up natural resources and assets and centers of commerce be a nightmare? Oh jesus mary n' joseph yes. I didn't say this would be easy or even practical--utopian fantasy, remember? 'Course, the mitigating factor, assuming it's an amicable divorce, is the economic interpendence, which already exists, and which everybody would want to maintain for mutual benefit. Not to mention the ties that would remain starting from a common cultural heritage. There'd be drift, but I suspect that there'd generally remain a residual solidarity, like the present solidarity in the English-speaking world.

Or maybe it'd descend into chaos and constant warfare. I don't claim to really know, I'm just riffing on notions. Cut me some slack, man...oh wait, this is Flame, you can't. OK, well, uh, oh yeah, there it is, hey, man you think I would ever live in that goddamn scorpion-infested hellhole that was about the last place on the continent to settle because all the good places were filled up, and the bottomfeeders got pushed out into the desert (how'm I doing?)