Comment by 29athrowaway
12 days ago
Seeing other countries from the reductionist lens of tourism is the McDonalization of humanity. Now the human condition has been reduced to a list of superficial and trivialized activities on Tripadvisor.
Take a selfie next to a statue, eat at a restaurant, buy some souvenir made in China... now you can check a country in your country list and say "I have been to n+1 countries". What was the cost? burning a massive amount of plane fuel to get you there that is equivalent to you burning your trash for a full year, something that in a planet governed by a rational species would be illegal to do.
The article talks about something much more profound. Long distance tourism is at our current technological level a planet-killing industry and should be outlawed.
Car dependent suburban sprawl necessitating 3 hours a day commutes by car 5 days a week,50 weeks a year is a much heavier load on the planet than an annual plane trip .
Yes, also don't do that if you can avoid it. You can always avoid tourism.
Good thing I don't have a car.
McDonalds flopped in Bolivia :)