WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Behind me is Lake Constance.

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It is a big lake, near the Alps, in the middle
of Europe.

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This bit of me is in Germany, and this bit
of me,

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on the other side of that sculpture, is in
Switzerland.

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...they took down the border fence and they
replaced it with sculptures.

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A few miles away behind me, over that horizon,
is Austria.

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And all three countries have a shoreline on
Lake Constance.

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And if you look at a map,

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you will notice that something is missing:

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the lines that denote
where the international borders,

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the lines that I'm standing on right now,
stop at the lakeshore.

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Lake Constance is a condominium,

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which is a fancy way of saying that it belongs
to more than one country.

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But no-one is entirely sure who.

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We are used to the idea that the Earth is
divided up,

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and different countries
own different bits of it.

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Which is kind of a strange idea when it's
put like that,

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but since most of the world agrees on it,
we stick with it.

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Laws, taxes, rights and responsibilities change
at formal, defined lines.

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Okay, there are international waters,

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and Antarctica's a special case, and okay,
there is that one bit of Africa

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where two countries both don't want to claim
it, but generally:

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each bit of the world is owned by one particular
nation.

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And sure, sometimes borders get complicated
because of treaty glitches or land disputes,

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but this isn't one of those: it's just that
no-one ever bothered

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to actually put down in an international treaty
where the borders are.

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According to Austria, over there,

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Lake Constance is a true condominium,

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shared equally by all three countries all
the way across.

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If you're on the lake, you are simultaneously
in Germany, and Austria, and Switzerland.

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Switzerland is not happy with that:

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according to them, the border runs straight
down the middle of the lake.

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And Germany is basically like, [shrug].

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No-one really has a problem with this.

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If there are any legal issues,

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they're settled on a case-by-case basis.

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So if you're wondering what happens if someone
gives birth in the middle of the lake,

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and what citizenship their kid would have,

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or what would happen under salvage laws

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if
someone pulls up sunken treasure for the middle of the--

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I mean, the answer is: [shrug].

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We'll sort it out when we have to,

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and in the meantime no-one's really going
to mind.

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The only people that this lack of defined
border does affect are cartographers, map-makers:

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there is no option on most digital maps for
[shrug].

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Computers and people
don't know where to draw the line.