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As a seasoned traveler, both with and without purpose, I feel the author is erecting a straw man tourist that fits no real person. "No, I don't mean those who t
by probably_wrong 3y ago
As a seasoned traveler, both with and without purpose, I feel the author is erecting a straw man tourist that fits no real person. "No, I don't mean those who travel with purpose, nor those who actually appreciate the place, nor those who follow through with a life-changing experience, nor those whose year will now be more bearable thanks to the memories made during the trip, nor those who think they got something out of it. I mean the other ones".
I get the urge to dunk on those who are "doing it wrong" (hello Instagrammers blocking the way), but I'd need to have a long conversation with someone before labeling them "unworthy of traveling". And some of my fondest memories are of people and places I wouldn't have met at home - hard to enjoy a sunset next to a gorgeous cathedral on a cliff when your city is 100 years old and flat.
- loopdoend 3y agoNothing really matters due to the amount of coal being burned in places like China. Your vein efforts to reduce your personal footprint in North America are largely pointless. Edit: Lots of coal defenders in here. It is absolutely ridiculous to be burning coal in 2023. But hey, perhaps the US could focus on reducing its own coal usage. Go nuclear! My point is that your trip around the world is a drop in the bucket.
- natmaka 3y agoA non-negligible part of this coal is burnt in order to produce things exported to North America (among others), therefore by buying less...
- loopdoend 3y agoRight, non-negligible. And if those mass-consumers of electricity switch to clean energy it would be great. But a lot of dirty energy is used for heating homes in colder regions on an individual basis.
- pessimizer 3y agoChina manufactures things to send to North America.
- jjallen 3y agoThis is like saying “Nothing really matters due to the millions of people in our countries that also vote making our vote worthless so don’t bother voting”. If we all thought like this the world would be a worse off place.
- __m 3y agoSure, if you ignore population size and accumulated past emissions, it's easy to blame China and sleep peacfully.
- literalis 3y agoI think in the US at least, travel has an even deeper aspect of ritualized behavior or religiosity in the positive sense of those concepts. A pilgrimage for people who don't believe in anything. Even someone who takes a 20 hour flight to take photos for Instagram is having a unique life experience. They are going to have experiences worth telling stories about. Certainly more than the person who doesn't leave the house.
- brtkdotse 3y ago[flagged]
- xboxnolifes 3y agoSure there is. Do it once every 3 years. Simple math.
- brtkdotse 3y agoA sustainable level of CO2 emissions per person is 2.3 tonnes per year. This includes food, housing, clothing and transportation. A 20 hour flight produces ~3 tonnes of CO2. This is ON TOP of the CO2 used up for living.
- xboxnolifes 3y agoYou haven't given the number of how much CO2 people use to live, only what the sustainable number is, so there isn't enough information to make any conclusion.
- brtkdotse 3y agoThe current average in the US is ~16 tonnes per year, so around.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
- amelius 3y ago> hard to enjoy a sunset next to a gorgeous cathedral on a cliff when your city is 100 years old and flat Just get a pair of those Apple VR goggles. Is it the same? No. Is the difference worth destroying the planet? Hell no.
- spookie 3y agoIt's not the individual who should be blamed for the dire state of the planet.
- amelius 3y agoIronically, we can blame them more, the more we blame them.
- cableshaft 3y agoYou think that VR goggles aren’t destroying the planet as well with their manufacturing? Its also pretty bad. I say this as someone who owns and enjoys my Quest 2 VR headset, in part to watch 3D videos of nature scenes and walks in various places. I just also know it isn’t without an environmental cost of its own.
- ulfw 3y agoThankfully I am already old so I won't live in this world you propagate. The last thing I ever want is to live life dreaming of being somewhere rather than being able to go somewhere.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoYeah, I don't think Ive read anything as dismissive and cynical as this piece. I found myself trying to see their viewpoint, trying to be critical of my own experiences as a traveler and I kept failing to do so. What a horrible narrative they're embracing.
- steveBK123 3y agoDismissive and cynical writing in The New Yorker.. never!
- dabluecaboose 3y ago> I don't think Ive read anything as dismissive and cynical as this piece. About par for the course for the New Yorker, in my experience
- arp242 3y agoTravel/tourism is what I like to call "rudeness in aggregate". What I mean with that is that single individual people are doing nothing egregiously wrong as such, but above a certain number all combined create a strong negative ("rude") effect. The most obvious example of this in context of travel are these huge cruise ships. No one is really doing anything wrong with that, as such, but craptons of tourists descending on your comparatively little city or town can become quite disruptive (as I've experienced first-hand as a resident). There's quite a few problems like this, from small to large. Humans don't seem very good at taking "collective responsibility" for these sort of things, "because I'm doing nothing wrong", which is true, but also not.
- synetic 3y agoIt’s weird to see downvotes on this comment. I think it is without question that me traveling to, say, Yellowstone is just fine but not if too many people do so each year. The damage done would ruin the place. At a higher level I think the issue is overpopulation combined with ease of travel. We cause too much damage.
- Tagbert 3y agoQuestion: how do you see downvotes (or any votes) on a comment? I use news.ycombinator.com but all I see is when the downvotes are large enough to gray out the comment. I often see people talking about upvotes and downvotes as though they can see a number. I’m just wondering if I may be “doing it wrong”.