4 ms·

People traveling, the tourism that is so often bemoaned, is a huge part of the connections between countries, a huge part of diversity and understanding. A wor

People traveling, the tourism that is so often bemoaned, is a huge part of the connections between countries, a huge part of diversity and understanding. A world with greatly reduced air travel is a more insular and less understanding world.

js8 7y ago
> A world with greatly reduced air travel is a more insular and less understanding world. I don't think there is an evidence for that. It is more likely that immigration increases cultural understanding rather than travel. In any case, emissions of travel can be greatly reduced by using other modes of transport and by making the stay in the target country longer. Such a cultural shift could actually even improve the understanding between nations.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > It is more likely that immigration increases cultural understanding rather than travel. What will the affect on immigration be if going back to the "old country" becomes significantly more difficult?
  - js8 7y ago
    U.S. and Canada had huge influx of immigrants from Europe in 19th and 20th century, when air travel didn't exist. It seems to me to be a basis of strong ties of these countries with Europe rather than other countries.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  > I don't think there is an evidence for that. It is more likely that immigration increases cultural understanding rather than travel. Disagree that travel doesn't matter, but even then, do you really think it being much harder to visit their home countries again will have no impact on immigration patterns? > In any case, emissions of travel can be greatly reduced by using other modes of transport Would love to hear how you propose to let Chinese and Indian immigrants in the states visit home sans airplanes > by making the stay in the target country longer. People would already take longer vacations if they could, dude. Making it harder and slower to get there isn't gonna help anything.
  - learnstats2 7y ago
    > Disagree that travel doesn't matter We know - you already made this point in the parent comment. > sans airplanes You've moved the goalposts from 'greatly reduced air travel' to 'sans airplanes'.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      > We know - you already made this point in the parent comment. ...is your point here that points can't reiterated or something? > You've moved the goalposts from 'greatly reduced air travel' to 'sans airplanes'. They're the one that talked about using other means of transport. I had already mentioned immigration. If you greatly reduce it by making it harder/more expensive, that impacts immigrants.
the_gastropod 7y ago
Ticking off the number of countries you've visited is hardly a benevolent hobby. You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book, if that's really what you're interested in.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  > You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book Is this a serious assertion? You think I can learn the culture of, say, Japan, from a book as well as by actually living there for a short period and experiencing it? This strikes me as woefully naive. Learning things from books, from a distance is fine and good, but there's no true substitute for being there, for experiencing a thing in person.
  - the_gastropod 7y ago
    I strongly suspect an average student who studied Japanese in college knows more about Japan than an average tourist who went to Japan for a week or two, yes.
    - katbyte 7y ago
      Im Canadian, I’ve read and researched a lot. I thought I knew my country but then I drove across it and realized how little I knew. Experiencing a place, people and culture is imho impossible without being there and present.
- romwell 7y ago
  Yeah right, because nobody who travels to a country reads up on the history, culture and traditions. Traveling and reading, after all, are mutually exclusive. /s Let me tell you of a night in Mardid. I headed out to see the night Madrid around midnight. Going along a crowded street, I heard someone singing. I was carrying a portable synthesizer, so I played along. Three people, carrying two guitars and a saxophone were walking in the opposite direction; they stopped, and joined in. Eventually, the girl who was singing left; and the trio asked me if I'd join them to hear a jazz jam. Something is still happening this late, I asked. Yeah, it starts at 2:30AM. I thought it was an open jam, but it was mostly the house/invited bands playing. Still, I managed to persuade the saxophone player to take the stage with a solo: he played it to me in the corner, where nobody could hear it, and I thought it was really good. When the jam was over, we resumed making music until sunrise, playing at a bus stop (no buses were running that late). Random people joined in at times. When the night was over, I left carrying with me something that I'd have trouble putting in words, much less so reading from a text written by someone else. It's an impossible task, after all, to convert a person or a memory into a string of characters losslessly. You can learn many things from books. And then there is so much more that you can't.
mehrdadn 7y ago
> A world with greatly reduced air travel is a more insular and less understanding world. That's dubious and far more benign than the consequences of a world with climate change.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > That's dubious and far more benign than the consequences of a world with climate change. I'd rather have a connected world with climate change than a disconnected world with WW3... (and probably still climate change, because war is great for CO2 emissions) For that matter, how many people will care about the Great Barrier Reef (etc) if there's no possibility of them ever being able to travel there?
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    You're worried about CO2 emissions resulting from war? You do realize the role climate change itself can play in migration, refugees, wars, catastrophes..? You need to be worried about climate change resulting in war...
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Climate change might also result in war! But I think cutting people off from other countries makes it a lot easier to categorize populations as 'other' and thus ok to go to war with. There's a lot of ways for the world to fail here.
ez9zpQyM 7y ago
The idea "travel == enlightenment and understanding" is sadly far from the reality. It once was true, insomuch as the privilege to travel was correlated with wealth which was correlated with education - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour It's hard to disambiguate the causality, but it is probably fair to say that prior to the global information economy it took literally seeing the world to learn certain things. Of course, it also was/is fun for many, and projects power, wealth, and status. But today with globally available information, truly frequent travelers (the ones with the most impact) arguably are really just doing it for status (and/or maybe trying to flee the inexorable inner void of the human psyche via endless novelty and distraction). More occasional travelers often pursue curated tourism experiences, and would gain more understanding from a book or even documentary. Is there something ineffable about "smelling the Sistine chapel"? Possibly - but no more ineffable than appreciating the beauty right in your neck of the woods. Do you need to experience diversity in culture, race, and history? Absolutely - and it can be done firsthand in plenty of major cities around the world. At least a bit of travel arguably is still good for education and appreciation. But the frequent travelers (who are oh-so-frequently tech employees), the ones who are constantly hopping on a plane to somewhere, are not really gaining anything intrinsic, and are exercising a huge footprint. And if anything, by devoting so much time and energy to travel, they tend to neglect their actual learning and education in other ways.

js8 7y ago

> A world with greatly reduced air travel is a more insular and less understanding world. I don't think there is an evidence for that. It is more likely that immigration increases cultural understanding rather than travel. In any case, emissions of travel can be greatly reduced by using other modes of transport and by making the stay in the target country longer. Such a cultural shift could actually even improve the understanding between nations.

vonmoltke 7y ago
> It is more likely that immigration increases cultural understanding rather than travel. What will the affect on immigration be if going back to the "old country" becomes significantly more difficult?
- js8 7y ago
  U.S. and Canada had huge influx of immigrants from Europe in 19th and 20th century, when air travel didn't exist. It seems to me to be a basis of strong ties of these countries with Europe rather than other countries.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
> I don't think there is an evidence for that. It is more likely that immigration increases cultural understanding rather than travel. Disagree that travel doesn't matter, but even then, do you really think it being much harder to visit their home countries again will have no impact on immigration patterns? > In any case, emissions of travel can be greatly reduced by using other modes of transport Would love to hear how you propose to let Chinese and Indian immigrants in the states visit home sans airplanes > by making the stay in the target country longer. People would already take longer vacations if they could, dude. Making it harder and slower to get there isn't gonna help anything.
- learnstats2 7y ago
  > Disagree that travel doesn't matter We know - you already made this point in the parent comment. > sans airplanes You've moved the goalposts from 'greatly reduced air travel' to 'sans airplanes'.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    > We know - you already made this point in the parent comment. ...is your point here that points can't reiterated or something? > You've moved the goalposts from 'greatly reduced air travel' to 'sans airplanes'. They're the one that talked about using other means of transport. I had already mentioned immigration. If you greatly reduce it by making it harder/more expensive, that impacts immigrants.

the_gastropod 7y ago

Ticking off the number of countries you've visited is hardly a benevolent hobby. You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book, if that's really what you're interested in.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
> You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book Is this a serious assertion? You think I can learn the culture of, say, Japan, from a book as well as by actually living there for a short period and experiencing it? This strikes me as woefully naive. Learning things from books, from a distance is fine and good, but there's no true substitute for being there, for experiencing a thing in person.
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  I strongly suspect an average student who studied Japanese in college knows more about Japan than an average tourist who went to Japan for a week or two, yes.
  - katbyte 7y ago
    Im Canadian, I’ve read and researched a lot. I thought I knew my country but then I drove across it and realized how little I knew. Experiencing a place, people and culture is imho impossible without being there and present.
romwell 7y ago
Yeah right, because nobody who travels to a country reads up on the history, culture and traditions. Traveling and reading, after all, are mutually exclusive. /s Let me tell you of a night in Mardid. I headed out to see the night Madrid around midnight. Going along a crowded street, I heard someone singing. I was carrying a portable synthesizer, so I played along. Three people, carrying two guitars and a saxophone were walking in the opposite direction; they stopped, and joined in. Eventually, the girl who was singing left; and the trio asked me if I'd join them to hear a jazz jam. Something is still happening this late, I asked. Yeah, it starts at 2:30AM. I thought it was an open jam, but it was mostly the house/invited bands playing. Still, I managed to persuade the saxophone player to take the stage with a solo: he played it to me in the corner, where nobody could hear it, and I thought it was really good. When the jam was over, we resumed making music until sunrise, playing at a bus stop (no buses were running that late). Random people joined in at times. When the night was over, I left carrying with me something that I'd have trouble putting in words, much less so reading from a text written by someone else. It's an impossible task, after all, to convert a person or a memory into a string of characters losslessly. You can learn many things from books. And then there is so much more that you can't.

mehrdadn 7y ago

> A world with greatly reduced air travel is a more insular and less understanding world. That's dubious and far more benign than the consequences of a world with climate change.

DuskStar 7y ago
> That's dubious and far more benign than the consequences of a world with climate change. I'd rather have a connected world with climate change than a disconnected world with WW3... (and probably still climate change, because war is great for CO2 emissions) For that matter, how many people will care about the Great Barrier Reef (etc) if there's no possibility of them ever being able to travel there?
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  You're worried about CO2 emissions resulting from war? You do realize the role climate change itself can play in migration, refugees, wars, catastrophes..? You need to be worried about climate change resulting in war...
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    Climate change might also result in war! But I think cutting people off from other countries makes it a lot easier to categorize populations as 'other' and thus ok to go to war with. There's a lot of ways for the world to fail here.

ez9zpQyM 7y ago

The idea "travel == enlightenment and understanding" is sadly far from the reality. It once was true, insomuch as the privilege to travel was correlated with wealth which was correlated with education - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour It's hard to disambiguate the causality, but it is probably fair to say that prior to the global information economy it took literally seeing the world to learn certain things. Of course, it also was/is fun for many, and projects power, wealth, and status. But today with globally available information, truly frequent travelers (the ones with the most impact) arguably are really just doing it for status (and/or maybe trying to flee the inexorable inner void of the human psyche via endless novelty and distraction). More occasional travelers often pursue curated tourism experiences, and would gain more understanding from a book or even documentary. Is there something ineffable about "smelling the Sistine chapel"? Possibly - but no more ineffable than appreciating the beauty right in your neck of the woods. Do you need to experience diversity in culture, race, and history? Absolutely - and it can be done firsthand in plenty of major cities around the world. At least a bit of travel arguably is still good for education and appreciation. But the frequent travelers (who are oh-so-frequently tech employees), the ones who are constantly hopping on a plane to somewhere, are not really gaining anything intrinsic, and are exercising a huge footprint. And if anything, by devoting so much time and energy to travel, they tend to neglect their actual learning and education in other ways.