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Comment by Drumlin | Hacker News Reader

> How can you sell travel writing to a Brexit market?

I think you misunderstand Brexit and other similar movements. People are pushing back at the technical homogenisation caused by that full force of globalisation. These movements are, in my opinion, a subconscious fight against the harshness of technical progress.

If countries focus on their local and national communities once more, they can rediscover culture and the uniqueness of their existence - the sort of authentic experience that tourists crave when they travel thousands of miles. In a way, it's a possible solution to point number three.

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>These movements are, in my opinion, a subconscious fight against the harshness of technical progress.

I don't think the enemy is "technical progress" per se, though you might be on to something with the "harshness" part.

People are against when political decisions that favor elites and corporations, and the upper middle classes (not in the British sense, in the US one) are being presented as inevitable forces of nature and economy, where they don't have a say.

There's no rule that says we should move jobs to China, or that automation must mean unemployed people with no income and devastated cities (e.g. we could use something like UBI to prevent the latter).

But because they help pad the profits of large businesses (to the long term destruction of the prospects of their own customers, the middle classes, about which corporate leaders don't care about, like they don't care about other long term concerns, like the environment -- they have their golden parachutes anyway), all the negative effects of technical progress and globalization are let loose.

For some odd reason, 90% of the population seems offended that elite policy for their social class has been "hurry up and die out" for a couple decades.

Then people are surprised that bread and circuses which worked for a few decades, seems to be wearing off.

> People are pushing back at the technical homogenisation caused by that full force of globalisation.

No, it's even more basic. They're pushing back against the erosion of working class jobs caused by globalisation. If a Brit doesn't have a posh background to get into a top school/job, what do they do with their life? How do they support themselves and a family?

Could you elaborate on "technical homogenisation" please?

It's not just technical - it's cultural.

The world is becoming culturally globalized and less diverse.

There were about 50 languages spoken in France 100 years ago.

In Nice, many people used to speak 'Nicoise'. In Nice, the old street signs are bilingual: French and Nicoise.

In Monaco they used to speak 'Monegasque'.

Breton in Brittany.

But most of it has given way to French.

The same thing all over the world.

The 'Starbucksization' of the world is happening quickly.

I was in Tunisia a couple of years ago, my father was there in the 1970's. In 1970, people wore those long white 'robe-like' shirts, i.e. North African garb. Today - nobody under 40 wears that, it's all jeans and t-shirts (cheap Chinese knock-offs of popular brands), crazy haircuts (copying footballers). You could take a young Tunisian out of Tunis and plop him down in NYC and he would not stand out. 40 years ago, they would have stood right out.

Yeah - this is something I have noticed too: if someone blindfolded me, took me on a plane and removed the blindfold after depositing me in a random capital, in the heart of the main shopping area... it will be almost impossible for me to guess where I am. It will have: Benetton, Starbucks, Lego, an Apple store, Muji, Zara, Nike...

At best I could guess if I am in Europe (Tiger?) or in Asia (Kanji/Hanzi interspersed with the main logos).

When I say 'technical' - I mean everything from: politics, law, technology/tools, economics, education, medicine, infrastructure, employment etc. All these areas are being homogenised (or standardised) for progress and it's on a global scale. If you want to read more, there's an old book called "The Technological Society" by Jacques Ellul - it's a sociology book, there are many similar ones but that one sort-of covers the topic the best.

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