4 ms·

It is not silly. People carry necesities of life while traveling, but there have been deadly plages since there has been long distance traveling too. It is imp

It is not silly. People carry necesities of life while traveling, but there have been deadly plages since there has been long distance traveling too. It is imposible to know in advance everything any traveler might have on their person at the time of crossing the border, so everything that is not explicitly whitelisted should not be forbidden by default; and it is travelers duty to know the list of permitted things well in advance. It this is not the case right now, it means airlines and travel agencies are externalizing the cost of educating their customers, and this is reflected in the form of needless risks to public health. I don't know you, but I would hate to be a farmer that looses the family's apple orchard to a foreign parasite that got introduced by some dumb tourist, just because the fat-cat air industy need to sale cheap tickets to anyone with a pulse and cannot afford to send a damned brochure to the buyers' address.

jacquesm 10y ago
Yes, we all would hate to be that farmer, unfortunately for you that farmer as far as we know does not exist and is a hypothetical. There are as far as I know no pests that exist North of the border that do not exist South of it (though the reverse does occasionally happen). Of course all the good little boys and girls will only eat apples locally grown to make sure such terrible dangers will not befall the local farmers and to avoid 'needless risks to public health'.
- crpatino 10y ago
  It is more complex than that. It is obvious to you that apples cannot bring any pests. Last time I checked you were an IT professional, not an epidemiologist; so please forgive me if I am skeptical of you abilities to judge whether the assertation up there is true or not. Actually, I am skeptical of the abilities of the average tourist to judge whether the thing they are already biased to do for their own comfort is against the public good or not. But anyways... we were talking apples, what about oranges? What about pets? Do we really need to go through the list of all possible things that all possible travelers might think they are entitled to carry on their person? Wouldn't you agree that a rule that is not simple enough to be executed by your random clerk is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable? So, even if apples are sort of OK to bring in, they still should be banned until it is throughly demonstrated that they are OK to bring in. And the resources needed for that through demonstration can only happen if enough people want to bring those apples (and maybe pay a customs fare for it).
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Hilarious. I can take an apple from where I'm sitting to the Turkish border 2000+ km away without anybody batting an eye but somehow miraculously an apple in the possession of a traveler from Canada to the USA or the other way around is a huge danger. As for me being an IT professional: yes, that's my main occupation. But besides that I have a rather wide interest (as in pretty much anything that I can read that I can get my hands on) and have also lived on the Canadian/US border. And the thing that I recall is that every so often the USA would come up with some trumped-up reason to declare Canadian products/produce/whatever to be so dangerous that they could not possible cross the border any more, and more often than not (in fact, pretty much all the cases) were simply protectionism under the guise of safety. Fearmongering in the name of commerce, what else is new?
    - pvaldes 10y ago
      Is a much more complex problem than this. 1) Buy a Tesla car an send it hidden to China. 2) Take a Tesla car in China an send it to USA. Both are totally different cases Apples not only can carry diseases, they have an economical value also and this value can be surprisingly huge. The american apple sector means more than 3 billions of dollars each year. New fancy varieties supported by research and heavy marketing can represent a big chunk of this and have a strict copyright. This protected varieties can't be cloned or exported without a license of the company. Losing the control and exclusivity over your product valued in several million dollars is all except hilarious.

jacquesm 10y ago

Yes, we all would hate to be that farmer, unfortunately for you that farmer as far as we know does not exist and is a hypothetical. There are as far as I know no pests that exist North of the border that do not exist South of it (though the reverse does occasionally happen). Of course all the good little boys and girls will only eat apples locally grown to make sure such terrible dangers will not befall the local farmers and to avoid 'needless risks to public health'.

crpatino 10y ago
It is more complex than that. It is obvious to you that apples cannot bring any pests. Last time I checked you were an IT professional, not an epidemiologist; so please forgive me if I am skeptical of you abilities to judge whether the assertation up there is true or not. Actually, I am skeptical of the abilities of the average tourist to judge whether the thing they are already biased to do for their own comfort is against the public good or not. But anyways... we were talking apples, what about oranges? What about pets? Do we really need to go through the list of all possible things that all possible travelers might think they are entitled to carry on their person? Wouldn't you agree that a rule that is not simple enough to be executed by your random clerk is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable? So, even if apples are sort of OK to bring in, they still should be banned until it is throughly demonstrated that they are OK to bring in. And the resources needed for that through demonstration can only happen if enough people want to bring those apples (and maybe pay a customs fare for it).
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Hilarious. I can take an apple from where I'm sitting to the Turkish border 2000+ km away without anybody batting an eye but somehow miraculously an apple in the possession of a traveler from Canada to the USA or the other way around is a huge danger. As for me being an IT professional: yes, that's my main occupation. But besides that I have a rather wide interest (as in pretty much anything that I can read that I can get my hands on) and have also lived on the Canadian/US border. And the thing that I recall is that every so often the USA would come up with some trumped-up reason to declare Canadian products/produce/whatever to be so dangerous that they could not possible cross the border any more, and more often than not (in fact, pretty much all the cases) were simply protectionism under the guise of safety. Fearmongering in the name of commerce, what else is new?
  - pvaldes 10y ago
    Is a much more complex problem than this. 1) Buy a Tesla car an send it hidden to China. 2) Take a Tesla car in China an send it to USA. Both are totally different cases Apples not only can carry diseases, they have an economical value also and this value can be surprisingly huge. The american apple sector means more than 3 billions of dollars each year. New fancy varieties supported by research and heavy marketing can represent a big chunk of this and have a strict copyright. This protected varieties can't be cloned or exported without a license of the company. Losing the control and exclusivity over your product valued in several million dollars is all except hilarious.