See also: the automobile, at least as experienced in the US and similar countries.
[EDIT] and in both cases, the problem is the effect the new thing had on the environment around it. When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that.
This is an enormously under-appreciated perspective here, thanks for pointing it out. What appears to be a foolish luddite is often someone with a thoughtful, long-term perspective based on hard-won experience.
Chesterton's Fence, yet again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
It's rare but I have had someone ask to use my phone and I let them without any question
You'll want at least a bicycle in rural Europe, but you don't normally need a whole lot more.
2 hours to bus to work or 15 minutes to drive.
I'm in Victoria and don't need a car (have one, though).
More to the point, most of those areas outside of Toronto and Montreal have middling-to-no usable public transport. For example, I was recently passing by Kingston, ON, which has buses in some parts of the city but they reach a fraction of the population in the Kingston metro area. The same goes for much of the Windsor-London corridor. The qualification I stated was "urban areas that don't require cars," not any urban area.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locat...
Plenty of places in the US you don’t need a car either by that definition.
The only bit of trouble I had throughout the entire trip was me trying to be a good Samaritan.
Someone approached me, lost, asking me for directions because they didn't have a phone. In my American naivete, I pulled out my phone and help them look for this fictitious restaurant they were supposedly looking for.
During the conversation, the person got close to me and before I knew it had pick pocketed 50 euros out of my pocket.
I'd still do my best to help in the future, but I can definitely understand why people are reluctant to help others in foreign countries.
Did some 11-year-old kid just get on the bus? Is he wearing a fluffy jacket? That little shit is gonna try to pickpocket you, guaranteed. He likely has a razor blade and will slice open the bottom of your backpack while people are jostling each other around on the bus. Have nothing in your pockets, keep your back to the wall, and hold your backpack in your hands in front of you. Did a well-dressed stranger smile and strike up a conversation? They're a Jehovah's Witness, and they're going to try to manipulate you into letting them come into your house and indoctrinate you. Don't acknowledge their existence. Don't smile back, don't make eye contact. Zero engagement. Is some friendly guy at the Trevi Fountain offer you a fun-looking squishy balloon? It's the cheapest possible thing you can imagine, and he's going to start demanding 50x the value of the thing once you were naive enough to actually grab it when he shoved it at you. Is there a transient woman in the train station with a young child lurching at you while shoving the kid into your arms? She's going to start screaming that you're a kidnapper and then demand 50 euros from you to make your new "problem" go away. Did the ticket checker claim that your bus ticket wasn't stamped correctly? Nothing a 20-euro "fine," paid in cash directly to the ticket-checker, won't fix.
By the way, any and all of the above happened to an American in my group at one point or another -- sometimes several times -- in our years there.
When travelling I might make out I am a hippy traveller type (low value target), or act like I’m from another country (e.g. Spanish tourists are known to be tight/tacaño in Morocco), and I try to avoid carrying or wearing anything that makes me stand out as a target (bumbag, camera, expensive accessories, high value branded clothes).
As a broad rule, you need to be most safety conscious in high density tourist areas. The only places I have been where I really knew I was unsafe were Rio (dangerous to locals too), and Nha Trang. In areas with very few tourists, I have usually been able to be fairly trusting, which leads to better experiences. Travelling as a hypersensitive victim is not fun: people sense your distrust and react poorly to it.
I am a New Zealander, and we tend to have a reputation for friendliness, which I try to project and maintain our reputation.
I have been obnoxiously drunk a few times when I have pretended to be Australian or American, sorry guys.
That would mean losing a hundred pounds. Easier said than done.
I got lost running in a not-fancy and exclusive but quite nice area in an outer borough of NYC a couple years ago. I didn't have my phone.
Dressed like I was going to run a marathon, I asked people who I saw had phones if they would be so kind as to look up the directions to where I had come from.
Several different people, including one in a city agency truck, refused to open Google Maps for me. One claimed their smart phone didn't have a maps app and the others said things about data or they were in a rush.
I couldn't believe it and I wound up getting help from an old man who gave me audible directions that included so many steps I only found my way back by going in the right direction and slowly getting less lost.
The first one would make me question if you are trying to steal my phone or something, but I might pull out my phone to help you with the second.
This works pretty reliably, at least in cities, by the way.
I went to the library, asked to use one of the computers they have for library patrons.
I was able to use Google Maps, but I couldn't get in touch with a friend who lived nearby, because -- I didn't have my phone. Everything set up with two-factor authentication, I couldn't get to email or send text message. Maybe just as well, on a public kiosk like that. But was distressing.
There's 2FA on my dreams.
How do they work in practice? Do they get vandalized a lot? Do people actually charge their devices with them?
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https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/News_events/2019/April_2019/...
Oh now I get *in*.
I'm in.
This also adds on an additional concern as places begin to forego say physical credit cards and IDs in favor of electronic ones that again live on your phone. If that phone is dead, you can't even buy a new one or get money from an ATM. Likely in such a future I'll need to have a redundant phone on me at all times just incase this happens.
My point is that in cities you evolve an attitude that pretty much anyone who walks up to you with a sob story is likely to be at best a beggar and at worst a thief/scammer. I think you could get someone to make a call on your behalf but actually handing you their phone (even for a moment) - that might be less common than you think.
As a result, I overheard her entire long desperate attempt to persuade her mother to give her another other other other last chance. :-( :-( :-(
Most people aren't using and can't afford the flagship models. I personnally have never bought a smartphone more than 180€ and I know a lot of people doing the same thing.
Most people I know have flagship phones and the ability to make many smaller payments may have something to do with that.
Also I've seen people do that drop/lose/get their expensive phone stolen and then pay for almost 2 years for a device they don't use. The replacement is usually a lot cheaper and they realize their life is not that different with a cheaper smartphone and don't repeat the experience unless they are social status show offs.
Access to all of my personal info, my password manager, etc. If someone turned and ran with my phone, it would give me days worth of hassle to replace and recover things like canceling my SIM card, buying a new one, changing 2FA, trying to remotely wipe it, maybe provide info to police.
I hate how dependent I am on this little rectangle but it’s kind of just reality these days to have so much of our lives closely tied to it
Last time I dropped my phone in the sea, I got a new sim card the next day from my operator, reactivating all the 2FA shit isn't too complicated as long as you keep the same number. It was annoying but 99% was taken care of as soon as I had the sim card.
The only thing that took several days was access to a bank account I have open in a remote country as I hadn't given them my latest address and they had to do back to back verifications, shipping me codes then calling me to verify the same person who was on the phone was living in the place he pretended to live, then sending me back 2 different letters one with a new password, one with a code to activate 2FA.
People have many, many biases. (For example, against homeless, and those who are often in most need of help.)
The reality of depending on other people is that you're dependent on their flaws. This works out for most people, but certainly does not for many of those who are marginalized.
Even if you didn't you would just call collect.
People think I’m crazy for it though.
If you're not aware, many people are assholes, and the story that you're reading is about an instance where someone was finding that everyone around them was being an asshole, that means it's less than likely that they would have stopped to give them directions.
Oh come on, most people are awesome. People LOVE to help, it empowers them, makes them feel good. When you look at books with advice about building relationships and friendships, you'll almost always find suggestions to ASK people you want to get closer to for help.
The world is full of many lovely, caring people, but that does little to help a person when they happen to run into a bunch of assholes.
It is very feasible that a person travelling to another country could have a negative experience with everyone they meet due to racism or xenophobia, or whatever and that this would lead to a situation where even people on the street show them nothing but scorn.
Imagine a Ukrainian asking for the nearest police station in Russia right now.
Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
> Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if in either case the person who is lost gets the help they need.
The world is full of assholes, but they are the minority compared to the majority of helpful people, especially when it comes to simple things such as direction. Speak the local language helps of course.
Every single time?
Like you're saying that there's absolutely no chance that this could happen in these situations, or in any situations, which makes no sense given that statistically this kind of shit happens every day to someone.
At almost any given moment someone is being told to fuck off because the asked a stranger for directions.
Have you never had this happen to you?
Not sure what you expect to happen. There won't be any way to tell the difference, and even if there was nobody would care. In Moscow on a busy street, you'll probably be ignored for some time until someone helps you, not just because they are assholes there, but simply because most people aren't locals; in most sub-1M cities, there will be plenty of people willing to help.
I happily help strangers when I can, but I'm not going to hand over the keys to my entire life, on the most fragile and expensive object I probably have on my person.
Not saying you didn't do this but I'm much more likely to help when someone comes up with a clear and concise statement of the problem and a minimally intrusive solution ("hey, my phone is dead and my wife has the charger, could you call the Hilton on speaker and ask for Room 123?" or even "could I log in to my Facebook for a second and send a message to my friend saying I don't have my phone but I'll be at Starbucks, you can hold the phone?")
Long story short, in 1970 you could get a phone call at the bar down the street and ring home if you were in trouble. People in the neighbourhoods were eager to help. In 2022, in Sicily, if you lose your mobile phone you're effectively _done_.