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Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

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Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#71

Post by ixtli »

seattle_spring wrote: post #62
ixtli wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that the root issue is individualism. There are immaculately clean cities in east asia whos parent societies would definitely qualify as highly "consumerist." It's not consumption that's the problem but the parameters within which that consumption is allowed to proceed. As well, in individualist societies we seem far more comfortable to discard our trash wherever and just forget about it. A more collectivist a…

East Asian national parks are also completely paved over and devoid of almost any remnant of a natural experience. And please don't tell me it's only westerners breaking all of the rules in US national parks.

Can you explain why this seems so to you? Totally not my experience with visiting national parks in Korea and Japan. For one thing, much of Japans un-developed nature is such because its largely as impassable now as it was in the 1600s when Basho wrote Ooku no hosomichi. I dunno why you'd bother paving anything.

EDIT: It's also certainly not just westerners, but again, my experience has shown me that there are societies that do better at training citizens not to litter.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#73

Post by jschwartzi »

randogogogo wrote: post #14

I was just there a couple weeks ago. The only incident I saw of this was a recently married couple taking photo's on a cliff, they went out over the ropes, a misstep probably would have killed them. Also when you rent a car there, they inform you that going off road is prohibited. I guess some people choose not to listen.

Yeah, people die taking selfies pretty much every year on one of our local hikes here in Washington. It's the easiest trail with a spectacular view(~1200ft of gain) in the entire metro area, so people flock to it in droves. It's a hike out to a cliff that looks down on a valley floor.

Every single "outdoorsy" girl on Tinder has a picture of themselves there, standing in front of the precipice.

There's also the easiest snowy mountain in the state, which everyone hikes up every year in tennis shoes as soon as the trailhead opens. One year Search & Rescue was called 4 times in one week because some hikers got stranded in the snow because they chose not to do any basic research about the conditions and assumed that since they wear tennis shoes during the winter, hiking through foot-deep snow in them is definitely okay. That week the county sheriff went on the news and asked people to please stop hiking that mountain for a couple of months.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#74

Post by jcadam »

sillyquiet wrote: post #30
castis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it snobbery to think that maybe those unwashed masses should get their shit together and not trample on the places they've just landed?

Well it depends on the 'place'. Complaining about the common folk using USENET? yes, that's snobbery. Complaining about too many people messing up a natural space? No, that's not snobbery.

Snobbery? Those "common folk" destroyed (as in, made completely unusable for its intended purpose) USENET.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#75

Post by seattle_spring »

ixtli wrote: post #71
seattle_spring wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

East Asian national parks are also completely paved over and devoid of almost any remnant of a natural experience. And please don't tell me it's only westerners breaking all of the rules in US national parks.

Can you explain why this seems so to you? Totally not my experience with visiting national parks in Korea and Japan. For one thing, much of Japans un-developed nature is such because its largely as impassable now as it was in the 1600s when Basho wrote Ooku no hosomichi. I dunno why you'd bother paving anything. EDIT: It's also certainly not just westerners, but again, my experience has shown me that there are societ…

Never been to Korea or Japan, but I spent several months exploring the parks of China. I never want to go back.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#76

Post by CaptainZapp »

close04 wrote: post #47
ajmurmann wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the idea. One improvement: let's make this an international effort and ban them from travel to any other participating country as well.

That escalated quickly. In law there is a principle of proportionality [0]. It's the reason why jaywalking isn't punished by 60 days in prison or by getting sent back to your country and banned from ever travelling to any country that has pedestrian crossings. Also laws should apply equally to everybody. How would such a law apply to locals? Withdraw citizenship? I think hitting them with fines or paying damages is a…

You will probably be surprised when I state that I agree with you in general.

Nobody wants a dictatorial state, which puts you under constant surveillance and jumps on you for the smallest of infractions (Singapore being again a great example).

I do feel, however, that this Instagram self promotion shit has gotten so badly out of hand, that drastic measures may really be justified.

As the article explains Iceland's nature is very fragile. Hell! They even employ speicalists to determine if any elfs or trolls are impacted by roads construction[1].

Now, you may think of this what you want, but to the people of Iceland this is important. And assholes, which metaphorically shit on their living room carpet for fun, profit and self promotion really don't deserve lenient treatment.

So. no! I would't recommend such treatment for a couple youngsters that got a little loud after a few drinks, or for a tourist who makes an innocent mistake.

But self entilted scum, who feel they have a god given right to abuse anything and anybody, destroy fragile nature intentionally for that "great shot" (which was taken hundreds of times anyway) despite being fully informed that their action is illegal, well, yeah. I wouldn't have a problem with that and actually think it would make everybody's life better. As a matter of fact: There's a level of assholery where I would deem my suggestion absolutely proportional.

YMMV, of course.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/25/iceland...

Edited to add : You added the second link (three strikes law) later and I think you should have added an edit tag, since it's an actual change to the whole semantics of your comment.

I think that introducing a trait, which only can be found in the American justice system and is mostly (if not entirely) geared towards minorities and is actually outright racist as an answer to my comment is pretty much a strawman.

Adding it later without tagging that fact makes it intelectually dishonest too.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#77

Post by justaguyhere »

icebraining wrote: post #12
justaguyhere wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same everywhere. I still remember going to the NY ball drop new year's eve - all I could see was camera flashes, hundreds of them every second. It was disgusting. I was one of the very few people who wanted to see stuff with naked eye :( Do these super talented artistic photographers see the photos they take, even once, after they have taken it?

Why was it disgusting? Were they thrashing something, like those in the article?

Because I couldn't see anything, all I could see were flashes every direction around me.

And yeah, trashing is a never ending issue. You should see the early morning clean up at Times Square, on new year's day - it is quite a sight

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#78

Post by mijamo »

CptFribble wrote: post #67

After the volcano erupted in 2010, the government launched a PR campaign in winter 2011 to counter the projected tourism drop. It specifically targeted "inspired" and "enlightened" travelers to come see the "unique" landscape. Also in 2011, WOWair debuted with it's $99 flights to Iceland. Instagram launched in 2010. Maybe it's less "people are garbage" and more "we should make it more expensive to come here."

Iceland is pretty damn expensive, probably one of the most expensive nature destination you can find, together with Norway (although Switzerland probably still wins the prize).

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#79

Post by brokenkebab »

ixtli wrote: post #46
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #33

“The relatively new trouble with mass society is perhaps even more serious, but not because of the masses themselves, but because this society is essentially a consumers’ society where leisure time is used no longer for self-perfection or acquisition of more social status, but for more and more consumption and more and more entertainment… To believe that such a society will become more “cultured” as time goes on and…

I find that the root issue is individualism. There are immaculately clean cities in east asia whos parent societies would definitely qualify as highly "consumerist." It's not consumption that's the problem but the parameters within which that consumption is allowed to proceed. As well, in individualist societies we seem far more comfortable to discard our trash wherever and just forget about it. A more collectivist a…

It's like saying that USA is mostly taiga, and tundra, because there's Alaska. Most of those collectivist societies have very dirty cities (both in terms of ecology, and esthetics). And nobody seems to care. Singapore, and Japan (and Korea, but only in south) stand as exceptions.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#80

Post by rb808 »

Its largely a scale thing too. When I was growing up I used to go on weekends away and camp overnight in rest areas, side of the road or private places. It worked great. A few decades later those areas are really popular with tourists but there is no room for hundreds of people to do the same. Meanwhile the new generation of locals can't do it any more and have to stay in hotels now - which they can't afford. Just another reason to leave the region and move to a big city.
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