Why Do They Go?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Baron Max, Nov 19, 2007.

  1. whitewolf asleep under the juniper bush Registered Senior Member

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    It's not easy to work from home and devote as much time and concentration as you would in the office. Some people can do it, some people can't. From experience, I can tell you that when you "work from home" your relatives assume you're simply "at home" and load you with errands as if you weren't working at all. The ability of working from home allows you to do work for a company that is a few states away, but you will still need to be present at the office a few times a year for most employers.

    Tete-a-tete communication will never be replaced by the internet. It's simply not the same. Whoever says they've got true friends whom they've never seen are lying to themselves, lol. In order to keep relations you must be physically present a few times a year.

    Our country has how many people living in it? Add to that the thousands from abroad that are here as tourists/visiting relatives/business people. I went to Europe twice this year, so I was in one of those green dots four times. We are all raving about how the world got smaller, how distant places and people got closer to us, but we're forgetting that the most important factor in achieving this are cheap plane tickets and not the inet.

    Train can only carry you so far in a short amount of time. Sure, if you're going from NJ to California you're still in the same country, but you have to consider the distance. To compare, imagine our states are like the little countries of Europe. You can drive to the neighboring "country", and the "country" beyond that one, but anything further than that is strenuous and time-consuming even by train. Even for traveling inside cities, you have to consider the distance. Big cities have well-developed public transportation, but smaller ones don't. The nearest grocery store might be miles away even in Staten Island, NY; suburbs must be worse. You see, an average family living anywhere outside the very center of a big city can't function without at least two cars.

    Bigger airplanes are the way to solve the problem, along with alternative, less polluting fuel.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Obviously we have to develop new social customs. One of them is the ability to say "no" to people and mean it. After the second or third time they try to order you around and you say you won't do it because you're working and they assume you'll do it anyway and then to their horror it simply didn't get done, they'll figure it out. Nobody needs relatives like that anyway, good riddance.
    And why exactly do you make that assumption? Are you going to have a big sex party or something that simply can't be done over the internet?

    I've had entire consulting engagements for which I never saw my clients and they worked out just fine.

    Work is virtual! Get with the program dude. Why is the old guy having to lecture the young people about this? You're the ones who walk around with blueteeth pasted to your heads, holding meetings while you're on the toilet.
    Yeah right. They said the same thing about printed books, manufactured clothing, packaged food, carriages without horses, washing machines without wringers, dishwashers without scrubbers, guitars with electricity, theater on a CRT screen, typewriting without paper... Hell, here goes the old guy explaining the future to the young people again, what's wrong with you all?
    I haven't seen three of my dearest friends physically since 1973, 1974 and 1999. There are maybe two people whom I consider "truer" friends than they are.
    You're way behind the information curve. 300mph trains are popping up everywhere except in the USA, where the auto industry and petroleum industry lobbyists have convinced people to hate trains.
    Only if they both have to drive to work. If they only need to drive for shopping, socializing and entertainment, they might very well get along with just one. Even if they can't, they're not going to be logging 25,000 miles a year they way they do now.
    None of you has offered a convincing argument as to why those airplanes have to be full of people flying "on business." I'll grant you that most friends like to see each other in person more than once every thirty years. But as business travel and commuting becomes more expensive and inconvenient, while teleconferencing becomes easier and more pleasant, and a whole generation of kids grows up wired, the balance of travel is going to shift from business to personal and we can stop importing petroleum.

    You folks had better step out of these kids' way when their generation takes over. It's going to be a different world.
     
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  5. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Where do they go Max? What does it matter, they are exercising their constitutional right to travel freely. Do you think that the constitution should be torn up?
     
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  7. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not, Fraggle, I "picking on" the airplanes in the air ...and the enormous use of fuel. I don't believe that I've said a word about what type of traveler is a "bad guy" ...just wondering if most of it is necessary.

    Were those trips necessary? And remember, if you can argue that they're necessary, then probably everyone can argue the same ...thus all flying, the use of all that fuel, is "necessary". If we keep it up and use all of the fuel, then those trips won't even be possible, will they? So then, ....are they really necessary?

    I agree. And I don't know where you get that I was picking on vacationers or anyone else. I'm just mostly curious about all the planes in the air ...and the enormous use of jet fuel.

    Business trips? Oh, I agree. As an architect, I used to fly from Dallas to Minneapolis once a week to look at a big hole in the ground!! ...LOL! Yeah, it got bigger and deeper each week, but ...hey, it was still just a big hole in the ground. I bitched about it, but the developers wanted me to see the big hole in the ground and report to them ....the tell them that it was a big hole in the ground.

    But again, this thread isn't "picking on" anyone or any profession in particular, it's just like any other form of fuel usage ....is it necessary? I just wanted to limit this thread to air travel.

    Is it necessary for an American to fly to Spain to see and learn about Spain? Aren't there pictures and vital info on the Internet about Spain? If one can work from home on the computer, can't one visit Spain from the comforts of his home via the Internet?

    If y'all could see that map ..with all those little green dots... you'd probably be wondering about it, too. As far as I know, the map showing all the planes in the air, is on the/a NASA site ....but I don't know.

    Baron Max
     
  8. peta9 Registered Senior Member

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    I flew 8 times in one day. I had to pick up documents, then I had to go to a seminar, then I had to go back and pick up my someone's dry cleaning, then i had to meet someone for lunch and give them my documents, then i had to go back to my hotel, then i had to attend a conference in another city and then i had to attend a party in another city after that!
     
  9. whitewolf asleep under the juniper bush Registered Senior Member

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    Negotiations take a lot less time in person. Perhaps in your field it's not necessary, but in other fields it is. Do I have to wait for my art director to finish browsing Club Monaco before she decides to check my email? I'd rather get myself into her office and discuss the entire project in one sitting.

    Humans have evolved with the ability to judge people by a hunch. We watch a person and we are able to figure out what he is about in an instant. Internet does not give you that. You can pass years chatting online and when you meet the person you get a big surprise. This comes handy in interviews, business negotiations, precise explanations of upcoming projects, whatever.

    Perhaps, if you have thousands of years of work experience behind your back, employers trust you more. Those of us who don't have that are still required to be present from time to time. This I know from personal experience.

    I'm not a little kid, I know what I'm talking about here. I haven't seen people who were my best friends at some point for 10 years, but we kept in touch with fair consistency. When I saw them again, it turned out they got better friends. People can't simply tell you that they went out on Sat. and did crazy shit, you had to be there and do crazy shit with them. Same thing for family and business.

    Oh, haven't you heard, our corporations are trying to develop a human side. They're allowing employees to dress down for work, and there's lots of socialising. They want to know what you've been doing over the weekend and they want to see you in non-work environment, to befriend you sort-of. It's very important, they say it increases productivity and understanding between coworkers.

    Attendance of meetings is really the best way to start networking. People see you in conversation and they make a judgment on how innovative and outgoing you are. I've seen it so often: a bunch of workers from different companies get together for some social event and then pull people from company to company.

    Oh wait, hasn't there been a load of recent documentaries on how impersonal and cold corporations are? Well, you're in luck! Thousands of business managers and executives heard your plea.

    ...Yes, I am poorly informed about trains. But won't the rails disturb the wild life? But ok, you have a point.

    If one person is gone for the day with a car, everyone else in the household puts their affairs on hold to wait for his return. People don't leave for different places at the same time, and then they have to return somehow.

    Kids are wired, but they're still hanging out. You'd have a point if kids got wired and stopped chilling. We still like to go places. Really, ass hurts after sitting for over an hour.

    I heard planes go with dangerously low fuel lately due to prices. But plane tickets have become more and more affordable.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2007
  10. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    I love trains, they're my favourite mode of fast transport. They're big, safe and I love the sound of them going over the rails, very meditative.
     
  11. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    What do you suggest Baron? More people travel by air because it is now affordable to the massess, if they make it more expensive then we would live in a world where only those with money can afford air travel. Trains and ships are fine if someone has the time. Anyway I thought Americans weren't really travelling too much especially internationally.

    I don't agree that looking at a picture of Spain or reading about Spain is equivalent to having an experience of Spain.
     
  12. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I don't know, Lucy, but unless we're willing to do something about it, then perhaps we should quit bitching about burning fossil fuels. People complain all the time about auto emissions, but aircraft emissions are far greater ...and there's a helluva lot of 'em in the air at any one time.

    Don't get me wrong ...I'm an old fart and won't live much longer, so I don't give a big rat's ass about global warming or air pollution. I've had my ride and enjoyed it. It's the constant complaining without action that irks me, that's all. Is it really that we just like to bitch n' moan about things?

    Is the personal experiences gained in Spain worth the price of polluting the air and advancing global warming so that future generations will suffer the consequences? Most people live their entire lives without ever visiting Spain, and I daresay they do just fine.

    Baron Max
     
  13. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Baron: Is the personal experiences gained in Spain worth the price of polluting the air and advancing global warming so that future generations will suffer the consequences? Most people live their entire lives without ever visiting Spain, and I daresay they do just fine.

    True enough. A person doesn't have to visit Spain for their life to be meaningful but I am not sure if its fair to weigh ones personal experience against that of global warming. Or actually maybe it is fair but then we also have to ask 'Do we really need to drive to work or can we simply use public transportation?' 'Must we use air conditioning all summer long? What's wrong with having fans installed.' 'Is it really worth using fuel to travel into space when the earth is going down the tubes?'

    Maybe its cynicism but I agree most people just like to bitch and moan and go about doing what they do without change.

    On a personal note I think I would curl up and die if I didn't have the freedom of travel. Either that or I'd have to move to Europe where I'd have access to many other places, living in the States can feel really isolating. I guess one can always take the bus to Canada or south of the border into Central America but I still want acess to THE WORLD.
     
  14. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Well, sure. But if we don't ask those questions, then can we really complain about the air pollution and global warming?

    How interesting. Lucy, you're going to curl up and die anyway, whether you go to Spain or not.

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    Baron Max
     
  15. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Baron: How interesting. Lucy, you're going to curl up and die anyway, whether you go to Spain or not.

    Damn it Baron why the hell did you have to remind me of that? Think I will curl up now and in existential horror.

    I agree with you Baron, we are not really asking those questions of ourselves. We sit around waiting for government to do something, scientists, the U.N but we fail to see how our petty little lives contribute to the problem. You know the other day while listening to BBC worldwide service on the radio some English scientist pipes in and says that only 20% of the world population will make it through the 21st century because of global warming. Then of course they went on to discuss rugby. I was flabbergasted that there wasn't a deeper discussion about it, I mean they could have devoted the whole damn week towards the subject if what sir scientist said were true, but it was like 'Okey dokey let's move on'. I wonder which 20% it will be? Africa will finally become a desert, Asia will be flooded, Americans will just start eating each other out of existence, parts of Europe will survive because of some smart Dutchman. Oh well it was fun.
     
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Yet the amount of fuel per passenger-mile is roughly identical for air travel and surface travel. Perhaps what you're complaining about is people traveling long distances by any means. As I've tried to establish, most of those long distance trips are due to our archaic ways of doing business, that were developed hundreds of years ago. If we would learn to take advantage of the "information infrastructure," most travel would be only for educational and recreational purposes and the problem would vanish.
    Well you did specifically pick out vacation travelers intead of business travelers, which reinforces your carefully maintained curmudgeon persona.
    Some people right here on this thread insist that you can't do a decent job of conducting a business transaction without a face-to-face meeting, which I find utterly preposterous. Unless you're a con man, trying to find an angle and take advantage of the other person's weakness and insecurity, you simply don't need to read the body language, smell the pheromones, and make eye contact with somebody in order to establish a profitable business relationship. (Which probably explains why diplomats--the quintesential con-men--don't want to use e-mail.

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    ) But you do need all of those sensory inputs if you're trying to enrich your life by learning about a foreign country. You're not trying to buy their widgets or sell them you consulting skills, you're trying to understand what it's like to live there, how their civilization turned out so much different from yours. You can't do that from photos and e-mail.
    You're not adding in the time (and other resources) wasted by getting those people into the same room. It takes me a major part of a day to groom and dress myself for a one-hour meeting in D.C. and then suffer through the transit to get there and back--to relatively close suburban Maryland. Multiply that by the other ten people at that meeting, six of whom don't say a word. This is not a textbook illustration of the word "effective negotiation."
    If you haven't got some other important thing you can be doing while you're waiting for people to respond to your e-mail, then you simply have not yet learned the cadence of work in the Information Age. It's called "multi-tasking." People who can't easily switch from one task to another, and manage a complicated daily schedule with a lot of parallel workflows, are not going to last long in this era.
    Yatta yatta yatta. I'm sure the people in Babylonia said the same thing the first time someone sent them a letter instead of coming to speak in person. I'm sure the people in China said the same thing the first time they had to read a printed document instead of one lovingly painted by a calligrapher. I'm old enough to remember people grumbling about telephone conversations not having "that personal touch." Civilization advances. Adapt or get out of the way.

    We can't continue to schlep hundreds of millions of people back and forth across the landscape every day because old-timers don't think they can wrest the maximum profit out of a transaction without being able to smell the fear in the other person's sweat. Even if it's true, that extra profit hardly compensates for the colossal waste of petroleum and other resources. Nor for the damage that commuting, imprisonment in office buildings, crowded suburbs, convenience food, and paying nannies to raise one's children in front of a TV screen are doing to civilization.
    We've already developed new ways to build trust. Angie's List is a remarkable resource for finding trustworthy tradesmen, something that has been an almost unsolvable problem for decades. The internet provides solutions to its own problems.
    Yes and the same thing happens with people you see every day. We all change. The friends I haven't seen in decades may have better friends now and so may I, but that doesn't gainsay the fact that our friendships are still valuable to us.
    I spent Saturday watching crazy TV, listening to crazy music, playing go with people in foreign countries, corresponding with people in foreign countries, going through a round of editing and review on the manual I'm writing, and having some spirited discussions on SciForums. I've had no trouble describing any of that to anyone, and it was more fun than I had Friday night going to a bar and hanging out with flesh-and-blood friends, an experience that I don't feel the need to describe.
    I'll grant you that family has to have the pheromones and the body language. But when you put business in that category you're living in the 18th century.
    That's a sham, with the sole purpose of getting the employees to let their guard down and stop sending out resumes. The first corporation I joined after leaving the public sector took the whole staff out on a retreat with all kinds of touchy-feely counselors who even did that "trust-fall" rigmarole. A few months later they laid off our entire department.
    18th century. 18th century. 18th century.
    I'm a consultant. I work for a different company every six months. People hire me because they like the samples of my work that I send them, or because their peers in other companies recommend me. I don't have to go to social functions and pretend to tolerate their babbling about religion and politics.
    They're just trying to scare people so they'll hire more scientists. The Washington Post printed a report by scientists last week saying that sea level will only rise by two feet in the next hundred years--even if we don't do anything about global warming. Put ten scientists together and you'll get three different predictions. The other seven will be more honest and say, "We haven't really got enough information to make a good prediction."
     
  17. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I've heard that before, but then I read an article that considered all factors involved and air travel was far and away more fuel spent per passenger mile than other forms of surface travel. But I also haven't seen what I'd consider "reliable" data, so....?

    Well, that's true, actually. Because there are few people in the country who'd travel from Washington,DC to Los Angeles by car to visit the wife for a couple of days.

    So, yeah, it was really about long-distance travel. And worse, it's about long-distance travel at the expense of the ozone and CO2 in the air. And like the OP asked, ...is it really that important to travel those long distances? ...knowing that one is polluting the air and contributing to global warming?

    I still think that the airline trips could be cut in half, and there'd be very little affected ...other than people bitchin' n' moanin' a little.

    Baron Max
     
  18. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Where do they go Max? What does it matter, they are exercising their constitutional right to travel freely. Do you think that the constitution should be torn up?
     
  19. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    It is legal to just stand there and watch an old lady struggle to stand up for five minutes after she has fallen and not do a damn thing to help her. Nevertheless one can discuss the morality of not helping without it meaning that one wants to legislate at the problem.
     
  20. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Do we have a Constitutional right to burn up all the fossil fuels and fuck up the atmosphere, too?

    Baron Max
     
  21. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    A God given right, if you believe your president, ....
     
  22. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Well, you must admit ...that's a lot different to saying we have a "Constitutional" right to burn up the fossil fuels and pollute the air.

    Baron Max
     
  23. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    No difference, man writes about rights on one piece of paper, calls it a constitution. Another man writes about God conveying rights on a different bit of paper and calls it the Old Testament.

    It's all the opinions of men, not Gods, ror some inalienable rule written in cosmic ether.
     

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