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Comment by noworriesnate | Hacker News Reader

> A trip to Albania ended his blind affection for socialism.

Traveling the world is probably the best way of educating people about human issues. I wonder if we replaced the first two years of college in America (general education stuff) with a trip around the world, what would happen?

I was talking to a friend from a third world country about this and I mentioned that VR has the potential to open people's eyes about human conditions around the world. And he said, "Nope. That's a terrible idea." I asked why and he said, "VR can't convey suffering."

Let's say, for sake of argument, that it costs $50,000 to send one student around the world. That's within an order of magnitude for most colleges for the first two years. Plus, it would drop due to economies of scale (also since we're talking about huge numbers of students, we could use boats instead).

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Yup, this is a very sensible guy. Another important point from the OP:

> His school is not part of efforts to “decolonise” the African academy. Any student of politics must read Rousseau and Madison, he argues. The aim is to add to the sum of human knowledge, not subtract from it.

Efforts to "decolonise" academia, particularly in the humanities and social sciences where the "decolonisation" meme is most relevant, have backfired horribly. And here we have a sensible scholar from Africa telling it like it is and not mincing his words.

Decolonization seems to be a Trojan horse for a different type of Western colonization. It’s one thing to take western ideas and make them your own (Botswana). It’s another thing entirely when western influences try to attach themselves to peoples history and culture in order to change them into faithful subjects without a voice of their own.

Well, historically this whole "decolonisation" meme was pushed by non-Western influences from the socialist and "non-aligned" bloc. But you're right that nowadays it mostly survives in some parts of the West, such as elite academia. A zombie revenant of dead influencers' propaganda from decades past.

Decolonization is really just blind nationalism and xenophobia combined with special pleading essentially to dress it up as something intrinsically noble.

The smart thing to do in terms of decolonization in the literal "no longer a colony, time to reform" is to go through the imposed institutions and sort through what has value and what should be thrown out.

There's the Erasmus Programme within the EU[1]. I think it's one of the greatest ideas the EU has ever had.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Programme

Meta: I don't know why you're getting downvoted. You're clearly thinking out loud; just because an idea may not be 100% "practical" doesn't mean it's not worth discussing, and it should not be downvoted. It's impoverishing discussion on HN.

I moved from Brazil to Canada 2 years ago. It was kind of interesting to see what their perception of 'dangerous place', and other stuff was.

Not saying that we should send students to bad places. But going to any other country would teach them that the world is bigger than the place they were born, and different cultures are... well... different. Even if someone travels to a place that's more developed than where they live, that could also help, teaching them what they can do better.

Airplanes are cheaper than boats.

To go on a freighter from the US to mainland Europe takes about 18 days and costs $100/day including meals. $3600 two-way. To make the same trip in an airplane if booked in advance is around $600 (can be just $300 at times, though).

Now factor in environmental costs, and add benefits of the journey?

Yup. If your boat is powered by fossil fuels, airplane still beats it because you need to haul around a miniature apartment instead of just a lightweight seat for each person. Folks under-estimate how efficient airplanes are and how inefficient humans are when you need to keep them sane for several weeks at sea. (At efficient speed, around 45 mpg per passenger for an ocean liner and 100mpg for a modern airliner.)

Sailing ships may be another matter.

Airplanes are actually fairly efficient, the “problem” is that it makes long distance travel convenient and affordable.

If airplanes were completely zero emissions, it wouldn’t be a problem. Here’s hoping...

Yes and no. It's definitely beneficial to travel, and the more different the place you're going to is and the more "embedded" you are there the better (e.g. staying with a host family). But you can only lead the horse to water, you can't make them drink. If you're not careful they'll just produce a little "expat" cluster of Westerners passing through without really looking at the unfamiliar.

This often shows up as "voluntourism", or things like the Peace Corps.

I agree that a trip to Eastern Europe would be hugely valuable for any actual communists, especially actual "tankies", but for fairness you should also include a western european "social democrat" country which is not at all the same thing.

> If you're not careful they'll just produce a little "expat" cluster of Westerners passing through without really looking at the unfamiliar.

I think stage managing the environments is the rule for overseas escapades for young adults rather than the exception, and for good reason. That doesn't mean people with deep preconceptions about absolute poverty can't see them shattered or that the trivia shared by tour guides is without interest, but people are probably still going to need to pick up university-type books to understand why a country is the way it is and achieve fluency in the local language to have real conversations with the average local.

> I agree that a trip to Eastern Europe would be hugely valuable for any actual communists, especially actual "tankies"

Would it though? Some Eastern European cities are rather nice, don't seem nearly as poor as GDP figures might suggest, and "tankies" aren't going to have any problems writing off any evidence of social problems as the product of three decades of capitalism. By all accounts Transnistria with its hammer and sickle flag is a fun day trip involving posing with Lenin statues and tanks rather than a shocking expose, and you'll probably get to speak with more critics of the government in Poland or Czechia! The cracks in 1980s Albania are likely to have been easier to spot, especially for someone whose cynicism was hardened by campaigning against autocracy and despotism in his own country. But also as you said before, people have to be willing to look.

Why Eastern Europe, is there any country operating communism there?

Surely a Kibbutz, other intentional community, or maybe take work experience in a cooperative - actual communist things?

This seems to assume there is no suffering in the US, so we have to import our suffering from elsewhere by going on a fancy suffering safaris. How decadent and gaudy.

Where exactly would they go that would dissuade them of socialist ideals? Maybe some sweatshops run by multinationals? Some cobalt mines? Non-fair-trade coffee farms? Countries harassed by aerial drones?

I think your comment just proves the parent's point

That we need to spend 50k per student so they can gawk at human suffering in another country?

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