Believe or not, ownership system is only applied to humanity.

Search for territorial bevahiors in animals.

The cat pissing on my front porch post this evening would beg to differ.

The cat is the hoMEOWner.

Well, there is Tree That Owns Itself, and Son of the Tree That Owns Itself. See the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself

Try taking dinner away from a bear and find out what it thinks about ownership.

Well that's complicated by the fact that bears are often eating other animals, so I think their general philosophy is, if you're powerful enough to take it and keep it, it belongs to you.

It is the same for humans, just that our rules and ways to determine who is more powerful are quite complicated.

But in the end the only thing that enforces any rule/ownership/law is violence, we just often do not have to go so far as we know it is not worth it.

One can also use ostracism to enforce a rule. I wouldn't classify that as violence.

Eh? That's pretty much the epitome of social violence. The only step further would be exile.

Most people only define violence as kinetic and physical. Mean words are not violence no matter how often sociologists say it.

>Watch yourself around the Jew.

>Don't get Gypped.

>A slave is worth 3/5 of a normal person.

There is a reason the pen is considered mightier than the sword.

A blade kills an enemy while it's wielder is alive, fit, and wielding it in anger.

The pen shapes the very thinking of entire generations. Anyone who says the space of violence is disjunct from the space of words is a downright fool. Hell, politics is just violence in it's Sunday/Friday/Saturday best.

None of those things are violence.

Humans think pretty much the same in this regard.

Sounds like it's simplified rather than complicated.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing in HN rules of engagement about bears, and even so, I'm very happy this comment made it in here. Thank you.

Well …while we figure that out we can make sure the fish does not belong to the guy with the biggest ship!

s/belong/has as much right to as their fellow humans/

Because we are the apex predators on this planet

We are just pathetic as a wild animal, and don’t come with the “our brain is our weapon” because 80% (yes i made that number) of the humans cannot even start a fire on the wild let alone build a shelter, pick food that won’t poison them, fabricate tools and weapons out of the environment.

And yet, you will go sleep tonight pretty sure that the only other animal that could possibly get into your home and kill you is another human. Most humans live their whole lives without having felt like being the prey not even once in their lives.

As individuals, most of us are not that impressive, or as you say, we are downright pathetic. But our power is in our societal organization, and our inherited culture.