Returned home recently, saw a local park / nature preserve. There are signs everywhere telling people to stay on the trail. I have never seen so many people disregard them in my life.
When I was a kid, you would go to the educational programs at the park and they teach you about the history of the area, the ecosystem, and the amount of damage that people can do to the ecosystem. Lots of locals will go through this kind of thing. But now there are so many tourists, people stomping through meadows that grow back very slowly. Feeding wildlife. Etc. How do you educate people if they’re only visiting for three days out of their entire life?
> There are signs everywhere telling people to stay on the trail. I have never seen so many people disregard them in my life.
When I went to the Falkland Islands the trails have clearly marked signs telling tourists not to leave the path under any circumstances because the area is covered in land mines. The signs had skull & crossbones on them and everything. It was very clear that leaving the path would risk life and limb.
And in the hour or so I was on the trail I saw several people leave the path to take a closer picture of the penguins. The things people will do for the perfect Instagram photo are unbelievable.
A friend of mine went to an African safari guided tour, lead by a professional, on a truck. It was extremely clear that everyone had to stay on the truck because wild lions don't give a fuck about the whole "murder is illegal" thing. From what they told me, halfway through someone on the tour noticed a rhino, and without telling anyone jumped off and started running toward it with a file to try to get some rhino horn powder (they had missed the memo that rhinos are not exactly gentle creatures) and almost got themselves killed as the guide screamed for them to get the hell back. Supposedly when they finally listened, they came back explaining they just wanted to file down a little bit of the horns without hurting the rhino.
I've seen people get far too comfy with bears before in Yosemite and with Elk in rut at Rocky Mountain National Park, but this takes the cake! Having your babys pose with a black bear is one thing (yes, really, I wasn't the only one rushing for the kids). But actually going up to an adult rhino and then molesting it's horn with a file?! I'm actually speechless, I've not idea what to make of that type of idiot. To me, that is clearly a suicide attempt.
I'm a little confused. Are theses landmines to keep people on the trail or are they left over from the war in the 80's? And if the latter, why the hell haven't they removed them yet? If it's the former, I'm impressed with their dedication to keeping the tourists on the marked path.
> And if the latter, why the hell haven't they removed them yet?
Apparently Argentina used plastic land mines (I believe they were new at the time) which are difficult to detect. After the war Argentina gave the British military a map of where they had placed the mines but because the mines had mostly been placed in sandy or swampy terrain many of them had shifted so they’re difficult to locate safely even with a map.
This was maybe the most interesting part of visiting the Islands for me because it’s a very contentious topic among locals. Some want the mines removed (and I was told they are working on that with a specialized company from Africa but it’s apparently a slow, expensive and of course dangerous process). There has been at least one death in the removal process so a lot of the locals feel its better/safer to just leave the mines were they are and things are fine with the clearly marked signs that show which areas of the islands are off limits.
Also, in case you were concerned for the safety of the penguins like me, they don’t weigh enough to trigger the mines so they walk over them all the time without issue.
> Also, in case you were concerned for the safety of the penguins like me, they don’t weigh enough to trigger the mines so they walk over them all the time without issue.
Sounds like the perfect setup for penguins then - hard(er) for humans to destroy your nests if they can't safely walk over to them. Sort of like Chernobyl.
I actually asked if they could drop a bunch of bowling balls from planes... like WW2 planes that dropped cannon balls instead of bombs. I was told those types solutions aren’t possible because one explosion could set off several others which then interferes with their carefully plotted (but evidently not particularly useful) map of where the mines are thought to be located.
Supposedly the only way to know with 100% certainty that an area is free of land mines is to remove them individually without detonating them. I guess I understand the logic but I also can’t help but think there has to be a better way that’s both cheaper and doesn’t involve humans risking their lives.
Seems as though robots would do a much better job. I'm imagining a giant spider that walks into a minefield with its armored body fairly high above the ground. The body very methodically scans, probes, digs, ...whatever works. Its probes sometimes get blown off and are replaced from a quiver. A leg is occasionally blown off, but a spider can keep working without a leg or two. At the end of its shift, it walks out and has its legs fixed. A big hook on its back can be snagged to helicopter it out in case it is immobilized by an uncaught exception.
I did some volunteer trail maintenance over the weekend, and we deployed logs and brush along the side of the trails to provide visual cues to stay on the path and block off “social trails”. The mental image of volunteers/rangers laying mines for this purpose is...quite hilarious.
Um... "just remove the landmines" isn't exactly that simple. It's difficult, slow, dangerous, and expensive work and resources aren't exactly unlimited.
>As of 2017, antipersonnel mines are known to contaminate 61 states and suspected in another 10. The most heavily contaminated (with more than 100 square kilometres of minefield each) are Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Iraq, Thailand and Turkey.
>A 2003 RAND Corporation report estimated that there are 45–50 million mines and 100,000 are cleared each year, so at present rates it would take about 500 years to clear them all. Another 1.9 million (19 more years of clearance) are added each year.
>Demining is a dangerous occupation. If a mine is prodded too hard or it is not detected, the deminer can suffer injury or death. The large number of false positives from metal detectors can make deminers tired and careless. According to one report, there is one such incident for every 1000–2000 mines cleared. 35 percent of the accidents occur during mine excavation and 24 percent result from missed mines.
People these days have very little regard for anything outside their headspace. People don't care about others anymore. I kinda feel like schools need to literally start teaching the golden rule - because they're not getting it from mommy and daddy.
"very little regard for anything outside their headspace"
thank you for articulating the behavior I continually see in my day-to-day. It's the little things: walking slowly 3 and 4 abreast on a sidewalk at a snail pace; suddenly stopping to take a selfie in the middle of a busy place; parking a bike/scooter/etc in the middle of a path; parents prioritizing their kid's experience like everyone else isn't even present (blocking / taking inordinately long time / hogging use)... It really seems like a lot of people fail to recognize they actually take up physical space in the world, and in doing so affect everyone around them. I really try to be aware of the impact my personal physical behaviors have on the greater world.
I think most people continue to learn to be considerate as they age. I have also seen large changes once someone becomes a parent. I certainly remember some anti-social things I did after my teens that make me cringe now!
Perhaps it could be measured if we can find an activity that affects others, and that doesn't change too drastically over time - maybe driving behaviour?
Which was inevitable. Rule enforcement (all kinds, not just the police) works on the premise that most people will be reasonable and follow the rules, or social pressure will handle it.
But then you throw in "no one likes a snitch!", "This rule isn't enforced so why should I follow it?", "They're trying to enforce this rule I don't like, they have better things to do!", and you end up with a perfect storm: We shouldn't care about anything that won't get you in trouble, and you shouldn't get in trouble for anything. Push that to its limit and you get some extreme case of individualism.
You mention schools, but schools are basically no longer allowed to enforce anything else they get sued by some entitled parent.
It doesn’t help when those rules result in you getting a ticket for going through a red light 0.1s after it turned red.
And not because you were driving, but because you let someone else borrow your car.
Or you end up in some bureaucratic black hole where the law says you can go to either of these 2 agencies for a service, and both agencies (in)directly tell you to go to the other.
Essentially we're in a world where we have rules, but how they are enforced, used, interpreted, is a huge judgement call. I mean, there's always going to need some level of interpretation, because those who author the rules aren't perfect. But the rules are frequently written with a heavy disconnect when it comes to said enforcement. So each and everyone of us is taught to start interpreting them in our own individual ways (and "us" includes the cops). That doesn't scale so hot at several hundreds million people+
In the former case, the law was written so it’s impossible to fight it (can’t even compel the officer that signed it to attend).
And in the latter, the agencies investigate themselves, so unless it’s big enough to sue them in court, you won’t create change. And they know that: create lots of little problems for the public, and you can get away with it.
People respond to incentives. Currently there are no negative consequences for bad behavior, so people behave badly. It’s pointless to put up a “keep off the grass” or “clean up your dog’s poo” sign if nobody enforces it. I used to live in kind of a touristy spot and there were signs everywhere telling people what not to do, but nobody cared. Police have more important work to do, and regular citizens are too timid and confrontation-averse to correct people’s behavior, so everything just gets disregarded.
At the point when people were too poor to travel, too poor to communicate to a large audience, and too poor to buy trinkets that would harm the environment, such that the same lack of empathy had less impact.
I think I saw an article here a couple months ago comparing the relative wealth of Jane Austen's 1813 bachelor "Mr. Darcy" with a modern millionaire, call him Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith can afford to hire contractors and laborers to work on his house for a home improvement project, or hire a caterer, DJ, and event planner to host a big party. But these are relatively significant events; each one of these companies he's hiring cost on the order of 1/10th his income. Mr. Darcy, on the other hand, makes 10,000 pounds a year from guaranteed investments, and can be expected to have dozens live-in servants on staff in his home, each earning just 25 pounds a year. Mr. Darcy can afford to travel, but the other 95% of his household cannot.
Conversely, even Mr. Smith's son, working a minimum wage job, can (assuming he lives under Dad's roof) buy an old car and drive it on a big road trip on a teenage whim. Smith's mileage card means that he and his family can fly to another continent for a weekend for a quick vacation for a friend's wedding. Darcy can hire his carriage to take him to London, but an expedition to California or China would likely be a year-long endeavor; to go around the world in 80 days could not be done for any amount of money. His servants could maybe make a transatlantic trip in steerage of a sailing vessel, but they'd be buying one-way tickets with a significant fraction of their savings.
Mr. Smith has a smartphone which contains communication and entertainment from as many sources as a human can possibly consume. He can tweet a message to millions before his morning coffee. Mr. Darcy may receive handwritten letters, or a newspaper, and has the money to publish a circular if he desires, but among his servants information travels mostly by word of mouth, even if most are able to read and write.
Finally, Mr. Smith's trash service takes away a 96-gallon-rollaway cart full of plastic packaging each week. A tourist trap contains souvenirs at 500% markup that cost him pocket change. Mr. Darcy can buy handmade wooden, brass, or fabric trinkets to his heart's content, but each of his servants likely have a single chest of treasured belongings. Mr Darcy is described to have a fabulous array of beautiful clothing which represents incredible wealth, though Mr. Smith's wife made a donation of some old totes of clothes to Goodwill that would give the same wardrobe a run for its money.
Technology and progress means that people have a much larger impact on each other and on the environment. Technology that makes travel, information sharing, or affecting one's environment easier and cheaper has an exponential effect that speeds the development of future tech for the same purposes, and we're rapidly climbing that curve. However, discernment and empathy need to climb in lock step, and while education is improving those cultural and societal improvements are happening through different processes at a different rate.
Even if the phrase dates back that far. Don't you think it's possible that if each generation has to say that, that it is simply getting worse and worse and worse? I'm also sure there have been generations where the phrase disappears - things get better. We're definitely in the getting worse territory.
> Don't you think it's possible that if each generation has to say that, that it is simply getting worse and worse and worse?
No. Every generation says "babies are small"; it's not evidence that babies are getting smaller.
We've got plenty of scientific evidence that brains continue to mature well into the 20s, and that things like good decision making are part of that development.
> We're definitely in the getting worse territory.
By what quantifiable metric are you able to make that claim?
They're not making a comment about "kids these days," though. They're making a comment about the kids who grew into being self-centered assholish adults.
> “We defy anyone who goes about with his eyes open to deny that there is, as never before, an attitude on the part of young folk which is best described as grossly thoughtless, rude, and utterly selfish.” - 1925
> “Parents themselves were often the cause of many difficulties. They frequently failed in their obvious duty to teach self-control and discipline to their own children.” - 1938
> “They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” - 4th Century BC
The "golden rule" is definitely "taught" in elementary schools. How do you think teachers solve disputes among students? Our schools even had "social contracts" in the upper-elementary.
All this is a metaphor for all of human civilization on earth at our time. The problem is much much bigger than these little anecdotes show. Corporations don't follow signs either, they are very much like incorporeal tourists on the planet.
You close the attractions down and or throw up a lengthy permit process.
Here in PA too many stupid selfie drones were falling off the waterfalls of Glen Onko (straining/exhausting rescuers). It’s A great place to hike up alongside fairly huge waterfalls. It’s now shut down unfortunately. It was the 1st to 2nd most popular hike in PA.
Oh goddammit, I went there when I was a young child and always wanted to go back but didn't know the name (and my parents forgot.) Now I finally learn the name and find out I can't go back..
Its in Jim Thorpe, PA which is a cool town named after an Olympic athlete who never stepped foot in the town. His 2nd ex-wife snatched/sold and moved his cadaver to the town formerly known as East Manchauk (sp?). His sons who were in their 80s a few years ago tried to get the PA Supreme Court to move his body back to the rightful burial place (Oklahoma).
Though without Glen Onko being open I won't be visiting Thorpe.
It's probably a good idea to evaluate the consequences. By all means, do not take the popular narrative at face-value, but it would probably be informative to investigate the details behind implementing the barriers. The full moon offers opportunities to minimize risk.
Walking on the Franz Joseph glacier at night under a full moon is one of the most visually stunning things I have ever seen - very other-worldly.
I definitely ignored the barrier and the signs, and it was definitely wildly unsafe to do it alone. It was well worth it even so e.g. glacial blue ice looks very different from snow.
> How do you educate people if they’re only visiting for three days out of their entire life?
Make them site through a brief permit course before they are allowed to hike. The Georgia state parks system requires this before one can hike certain trails, Tallulah Gorge[0] for instance.
Not just tourists, I've seen people who are very clean in their own homes, but absolutely terrible the moment they step outside (littering everywhere). At least some part of the population does it intentionally, since it is not "my home".
Heavy fines might be a good start, since asking them politely doesn't seem to be working, as mentioned by other comments here
I know it can create a bad vibe, but calling people out directly can work. I always do this when i see people throwing rocks off cliffs (people die from this all the time), and no one has openly opposed me. I made a kid cry once by scolding him a bout this. I hope he remembers.
Writing tickets and issuing fines for such things is part of park ranger duties. Improving enforcement and visibility of enforcement nationwide might be able to shift the culture. Something you can do: call these people out. Calmly and deliberately explain that people around them are watching and judging them negatively, take pictures of them. Social enforcement of this kind is the most scalable.
When I was a kid, you would go to the educational programs at the park and they teach you about the history of the area, the ecosystem, and the amount of damage that people can do to the ecosystem. Lots of locals will go through this kind of thing. But now there are so many tourists, people stomping through meadows that grow back very slowly. Feeding wildlife. Etc. How do you educate people if they’re only visiting for three days out of their entire life?