Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Evils of Travel

I am persuaded that human travel and communication are amongst the greatest of evils this world has ever known... I mean right up there with farming and antibiotics...

Just as antibiotics tragically lead to less human death... and therefore greater human population... and farming fed the world... but creates a life of backbreaking work in the place of the hunter gatherer's life of relative leisure... communication and travel seem good on the surface... but their cost is terrible indeed.

And what is the cost?

The world has become one big homogeneous bore.

Look at the architecture around the world. 1000 years ago... it varied widely. You knew where you were based on the shapes of human structures. Greece looked nothing like China which looked nothing like England.

The templars started all this with their loathsome pilgrimages and international banking. Middle eastern architecture started showing up in Europe... and the world has been diluting itself ever since.

Go to the big cities of China... ya know what you'll find? McDonalds.

Paris? McDonalds.

Oh sure.... here and there you can find one or two items that distinguish one society from the next... but in general... you find the same crap everywhere you go.

America is the worst. Our interstate system... which by the way should be considered the 51st state... has reduced travel to an illusion. State after state... nothing changes... same exits... same truck stops... same fat slob selling cheetos at the BP station.

Its one big bloody bore... and most of you are to stupid to be pissed off about it.

But but but!!!! Its diversification!!!

Horse shit.

Its not diversification. When everything that's different is being watered down to some sludge of sess-like sameness... its not diversification... its the exact opposite of diversification.

Look around the world... Tell me what you see... Oh sure... out in the rural areas you find that individual cultures still exist... its only the cities that are devoid of soul or personality. But where the cities go... the country folk will one day follow... perhaps.

Perhaps not.

Communication and Travel advancements have sped up life itself. The thoughtful among us will agree that these advancements have not been universally positive. That shouldn't be to hard to grasp though... since the universally positive doesn't come along very often.

But I'm a Philistine then right? I'd rather live in a world with exotic lands and strange cultures... I'd rather live in a world where mystery still exists.. and I'd rather spend my days lazing in the sun... chewing on some freshly killed beast.. and enjoying the occasional berry picked by the girls.

Consider what life was actually like for the Cherokee before modern man showed up... and then consider your cubical...

You call this progress?

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