Ego wrote:I like it. Is it fair to say part of the je ne sais quoi of ERE is purposeful de-touristification.
I dunno. I agree with you, and Taleb, that it should be the goal. From what I read in the journals however, it seems like a lot of people try and set up a similar structure, just one of their own design. I like having a little breathing room in my life, but it seems to make some people nervous.
While there are some domains where "touristification" might be unequivocally bad, there are others where IMO it is unequivocally good. I am very happy to live in a community that is "touristified" with regards to public outbreaks of communicable diseases, and violent crime. Reducing the uncertainty around these problems just seems like human progress.
In a lot of domains, I venture that this is a matter of preference rather than an objective ideal. Personally I find typical tourist traps abhorrent, but I'm also not going to go on vacation in an active war zone where uncertainty and randomness are maximized. I doubt Taleb would either. So this seems to be a matter of degree.
And, you could say that here on this forum, a lot of us seem to want to "touristify" our income sources and work arrangements, to eliminate uncertainty and randomness that originates from bosses and employers. Opportunistic careerists thrive on that. Again, different strokes for different folks.
He does have a point that society's default stance seems to be "always touristify everything" and that should be challenged. But "never touristify anything" doesn't seem to work either.