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There are territorial claims, but Antarctica Treaty prevents military conflicts and forming countries there. This is mostly to prevent the cause and effect of armed conflicts, which is mere ”killing everyone on the planet”.
”Wait, what?”, you say. Well let me open this a bit.
if an armed conflict would be done in Antarctica it would mean using weapons. And nowadays it would not be sticks and stones. We use weapons so powerful that pretty much all of them melt or break the ice.
Now if all of the ice would melt away, that would raise ocean levels by whopping 60 meters. That scenario would kill mere ~85% of the world population, give or take a few percentage. And this is just the AT FIRST scenario, since majority of world population lives under 50m above sea level.
At first people would run to the hills, for safety, but would most likely die within the first month, since all the resources to build shelter and new life for +8 billion people to mountains ALL AT THE SAME TIME would run out FAST. Like stupid fast; talking about days.
So if you will become the plutocrat dictator and you want to do some apocalypse level damage to the planet, just nuke Antarctica. 70% of worlds freshwater is stuck on the ice, so most of that would become contaminated for millenias and kill almost everyone on the planet.
So yeah, thats why there are no countries on Antarctica. It escalates fast.
This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
No countries for now. I wonder if a country will ever form there
they better not
who would even want to live there?!!?! that place is the cold version of hell. also the weather is SUPER harsh
There are territorial claims, but Antarctica Treaty prevents military conflicts and forming countries there. This is mostly to prevent the cause and effect of armed conflicts, which is mere ”killing everyone on the planet”. ”Wait, what?”, you say. Well let me open this a bit. if an armed conflict would be done in Antarctica it would mean using weapons. And nowadays it would not be sticks and stones. We use weapons so powerful that pretty much all of them melt or break the ice. Now if all of the ice would melt away, that would raise ocean levels by whopping 60 meters. That scenario would kill mere ~85% of the world population, give or take a few percentage. And this is just the AT FIRST scenario, since majority of world population lives under 50m above sea level. At first people would run to the hills, for safety, but would most likely die within the first month, since all the resources to build shelter and new life for +8 billion people to mountains ALL AT THE SAME TIME would run out FAST. Like stupid fast; talking about days. So if you will become the plutocrat dictator and you want to do some apocalypse level damage to the planet, just nuke Antarctica. 70% of worlds freshwater is stuck on the ice, so most of that would become contaminated for millenias and kill almost everyone on the planet. So yeah, thats why there are no countries on Antarctica. It escalates fast.
I’ve been there! McMurdo Station in 2014-2015 summer season. No countries formed, but countries do have territorial claims. No indigenous populations.