For those saying this is only possible with a good passport and a full bank account: I see people doing similar with crappy passports and nearly no money. Sure, they don't have a computer program telling them what to do, but I've heard standard dice are more random than PRNGs anyway.
As far as expenses go, most people do Couchsurfing or something similar. With housing taken care of, you can feed yourself on a couple bucks a day, and hitchhiking is free.
Sure, with a crappy passport you can't go absolutely everywhere, but with a South American or African passport you can travel your entire home continent visa free, with a Russian passport you can travel the CIS countries, etc.
If anyone here (rich or poor, good passport or bad) would like to try their hand at this kind of random, see-where-life-takes-you kind of living, feel free to come stay at my boat home (currently sailing from the Netherlands to France.) I take tons of Couchsurfers of all kinds, many of which live the low budget version of this guy's life :) My email's in my profile.
actually, for tourist visa, you at least need a somewhat filled bankaccount. the south american or russian nomad might not be a multi-millionaire in the US, but he'll be quite rich in his/her homecountry.
And no, average "3rd world remote work" lined up likely won't cut it, because I think most countries want you to be able to support yourself for the duration of the visa (and I think "I'm a nomad, the internet pays me, here's my Indian LLC" isn't what officials want to hear).
Then, even just the fees for one VISA are likely a months income for most people from countries with a bad passport...
Given that: with careful planning and a good passport you can certainly do things like this on a budget, given that most countries of this world only cost you a tiny fraction of living in population centers of Europe or North American coasts.
Did you mean to reply to me, or someone else? I didn't even mention tourist visas - just the vast areas that many people with crappy passports can travel with no visas involved whatsoever.
I also didn't mention remote work at all.
Now, your comment is also completely wrong.
"Visa fees are likely a month's income" is ridiculous, unless you're going to cherry pick the most extreme examples. Russian average salary is around 50k rub/mo, Schengen visa fees around 3k rub for Russians. You wanna pick an expensive country, like the US? OK, a 3 year multi entry visa costs 12k rub.
Saying you need a "filled bankaccount" and to be "quite rich" in your home country is also ridiculous, the guideline on Schengen visas to France is min. 32 euros a day, so you can stay for around 20 days by having about one month's average Russian salary in your bank account.
Finally, self employed people that meet the requirements do just fine in getting Schengen visas. I've had many stay with me and they all said it wasn't too tough. Unfortunately many people just don't prepare for the application properly, don't do their research, and are denied. While I agree that the process is unnecessarily opaque and confusing (and does deny people randomly at times), most people who prepare properly and fill out the application correctly will get their visa.
> just the vast areas that many people with crappy passports can travel with no visas involved whatsoever.
Yeah, they can, but somehow they don't which might be related that most of these vast areas are empty (especially Russia) or lack any infrastructure making the digital nomad-lifestyle so "nice" (or even basic personal security for large parts of Africa).
Also I'm not sure, how they intend to travel to e.g. Europe: a remote-work "I'm a digital nomad"-setup won't cut it, so they have to have cash for their stay (and a plan, where to stay?!).
> "Visa fees are likely a month's income" is ridiculous, unless you're going to cherry pick the most extreme examples. Russian average salary is around 50k rub/mo,
> so you can stay for around 20 days by having about one month's average Russian salary in your bank account.
I don't know how many people in the US/... have about a month of the average US/... salary in their bank account. My guess: not so many and the ones (like the sw-eng. HN-crowd) can be considered "quite rich" by all means. Also I thought that digital nomadism/this sort of traveling entailed doing it more than half a month at a time. While this is certainly possible, having a filled bankaccount (with some multiples of your month gross income) seems to be a general requirement. I doubt you get a visa for France having "no job" and 600€s. Paying a human trafficker is easily thrice this amount and seems to be in high-demand for a lot of the "bad passport"-kind of countries...
So no, this is not something anybody can do, but just a rich kid's hobby.
... They don't? What on earth do you mean? Enormous amounts of people travel their own regions. What planet do you live on? Go hang out in a CIS platzkart, a budget Asian bus... You will encounter them - no joke - by the millions.
And if you think Russia or the CIS countries are "empty", you're dreaming. As someone who has traveled to tons of places, I consider that region to have some of the coolest travel destinations no matter what you're interested in. From Moscow to Kamchatka to the shores of Georgia, there's really something for everyone.
> and a plan, where to stay?
... What? How would that prevent someone from going somewhere? So many options, from cancellable hotel reservations to Couchsurfing hosts to hostels... If you can't figure that out you really should not be going to a foreign country.
I am not sure what to make of your Wikipedia link. If you meant to imply that Russia is a richer-than-average country, well, the numbers simply do not bear that out (Russia sits about a third lower than the global median income.)
> I don't know how many people in the US have about a month of the average US salary in their bank account
Thankfully that's easy to look up! The average American family has around $40,000 in liquid checking and savings according to the latest US Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, so no prob to that one. (If you're wondering how that works with the terrible Twitter statistic of most Americans not having $400, well, turns out that's a bastardization of a question asking the payment method for a $400 expense. The number that actually can't afford a surprise $400 is 14%; furthermore, keep in mind the survey includes teenagers, people on disability etc.
Regarding your human trafficking comment, those fleeing conflict are in an unusual situation globally. Yes, someone applying for a visa with a Yemeni passport will have to meet stronger requirements than someone with an Indian, Chinese or Russian passport. That's the unfortunate reality of the situation. For most people, that's not a consideration. If you have never applied for a visa, you may also find it useful to know that many things are taken into account. Your bank balance is more of a box to check and a fairly small part of the equation, all things considered.
>So no, this is not something anybody can do, but just a rich kid's hobby.
I like how this is an opinion you've formed by writing weird and incorrect comments on HN. I have had tens of Couchsurfing guests from very poor places. I have had guests who hitchhiked from Turkey to Amsterdam, eating donated bread and peanut butter. I have had guests that flew from Russia on a $30 flight, and that was their largest expense. It is extremely possible to travel in this way if you are poor, and even if your passport sucks. More difficult? Sure. Possible? Absolutely. If you would like to meet some of this army of hyper-budget travelers, go spend some time where they hang out. Budget hostels, Flixbuses, the 24hr McDonald's when they need a spot to charge their phone. They exist, and they exist in fairly large numbers. You'd be surprised.
Finally, I'm not sure if not reading the comment you're replying to is just something you do, but I would recommend replying appropriately. Again, I'm not talking about any sort of "digital nomadism". What I'm talking about is distinctly different and separate.
> Enormous amounts of people travel their own regions. What planet do you live on? Go hang out in a CIS platzkart, a budget Asian bus... You will encounter them - no joke - by the millions.
Ahm, yes they travel for recreation and for the spirit while working. Just like your typical digital nomad. I know, you've asked the millions. I'm also acquainted with a fair share of international students who travel a lot and study in "the west". None of those comes from a remotely disenfranchised background, which in most "developing" countries is the majority of people...
> And if you think Russia or the CIS countries are "empty", you're dreaming. As someone who has traveled to tons of places, I consider that region to have some of the coolest travel destinations no matter what you're interested in. From Moscow to Kamchatka to the shores of Georgia, there's really something for everyone.
Kamchatka is cool for sure. Georgia as well. I just don't know how you do your digital nomadism in the former (you need to speak Russian, probably be used to crappy internet et al.). Just a simple question: you've been there, alone, without knowing Russian and have worked there?
And Georgia is probably Sochi in disguise? Does the average Russian do cross-country flights there? Not from what I've heard...
> ... What? How would that prevent someone from going somewhere? So many options, from cancellable hotel reservations to Couchsurfing hosts to hostels... If you can't figure that out you really should not be going to a foreign country.
If you want to have a visa from most countries you need to add a schedule. And I'm quite sure couchsurfing isn't going to cut it. And for most hotels/hostels in the West you need a credit card. So: how many Russians/Indians/... own a credit card usable with your standard western european hostel? A tiny fraction of the population, because they don't need it at all except for (quite expensive) travel.
> I am not sure what to make of your Wikipedia link. If you meant to imply that Russia is a richer-than-average country, well, the numbers simply do not bear that out (Russia sits about a third lower than the global median income.)
Well, it's richer than any African country, most of South-America and most of Asia (except for Japan and SK). So yeah, it's rich compared to all these "bad passport" countries producing so many leisure-travelers. What is the global "median" income btw. and where did you get it?
> Thankfully that's easy to look up! The average American family has around $40,000 in liquid checking and savings according to the latest US Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, so no prob to that one. (If you're wondering how that works with the terrible Twitter statistic of most Americans not having $400)
Oh, is it. I just scrolled through the Excel-sheet linked by Business Insider. Didn't find that number. But, guess what! – I've found another number: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/27/heres-how-much-money-america... - just looks like there's a lot of Americans who can't just travel for 3 months with an average amount of many available. So I doubt that any average guy from "poorer" countries can do that...
> Regarding your human trafficking comment, those fleeing conflict are in an unusual situation globally.
Ah yes, the people fleeing conflict from Nigeria, Sambia, Ivory Coast. Yes, they are all paying a lot more than they had to for the privilege of dying in a boat in the mediterranean.
> If you have never applied for a visa, you may also find it useful to know that many things are taken into account. Your bank balance is more of a box to check and a fairly small part of the equation, all things considered.
Ah. And so what is a bigger part of the equation if the box is unchecked?
> I like how this is an opinion you've formed by writing weird and incorrect comments on HN. I have had tens of Couchsurfing guests from very poor places. I have had guests who hitchhiked from Turkey to Amsterdam, eating donated bread and peanut butter.
Turkey is not really poor either?! Also you need a visa and a travel insurance for round about 100€. So he had at least some savings before leaving. Also, if you're invited by a resident, getting a visa is quite easy for the EU I guess.
> I have had guests that flew from Russia on a $30 flight, and that was their largest expense. It is extremely possible to travel in this way if you are poor, and even if your passport sucks.
Oneway flight to Europe from Russia, without money, without a visa (costs 30-60€) and without health insurance. Stop telling bullshit.
> Budget hostels, Flixbuses, the 24hr McDonald's when they need a spot to charge their phone. They exist, and they exist in fairly large numbers. You'd be surprised.
Did you ever go with one of these flixbuses and experience the nice and friendly policemen ;)? What kind of visa do these non-Schengen-travellers you know have that they can apparently travel as long as they want through Europe?
> Finally, I'm not sure if not reading the comment you're replying to is just something you do, but I would recommend replying appropriately. Again, I'm not talking about any sort of "digital nomadism". What I'm talking about is distinctly different and separate.
well, this seems to be a misunderstanding, the blog post (from 2017 btw) talks about digital nomadism I think. What are you talking about?
You don't really seem to get the idea of staying on topic whatsoever, do you?
My comment was very clear: if you are willing to live a low-budget existence, then this type of randomized living is possible for most people worldwide, even those with crappy circumstances. All you need is a smile and a thumb to stick out.
I have no idea where you even got half the things in your comment from. I did not ever mention international students, the quality of the internet, visa invitations or most of the things you're talking about.
To briefly respond: yes, I've traveled extensively with Flixbuses; it's very possible get multiple Schengen visas (the next ones are not as had as the first); €100 is absolutely excessive for Schengen health insurance; I have indeed traveled and worked simultaneously in those regions - with no Russian skills; and no, I explicitly mentioned why refugees cannot usually get tourist visas.
>bullshit
Again, if you actually went outside and met any of these people, you would realize the ways in which many of them actually travel. Ever heard of a multi entry visa?
Ultimately, the proof is out there, in the hordes of hyper budget travelers worldwide. Discussing whether or not they exist is pointless. If I'm standing in front of a tree, and you keep making confusingly worded arguments about how trees can't possibly exist, then we're not going to end up agreeing.
If you would like to meet some of these hyper-budget travelers, choosing destinations near-randomly, then I implore you to go try Couchsurfing; it's a fascinating way to meet people of all walks of life. If you'd rather keep thinking these people are mythical creatures, well, then, you can do that too :)
> You don't really seem to get the idea of staying on topic whatsoever, do you?
First I responded with the fact that tourist visa require cash (a point, which you haven't invalidated), then you responded that you never talked of tourist visa – so: on what visa do people enter then, if they're not working (e.g. the digital nomads)?
> My comment was very clear: if you are willing to live a low-budget existence, then this type of randomized living is possible for most people worldwide, even those with crappy circumstances. All you need is a smile and a thumb to stick out.
Yes. However I fear that randomized travel through Africa might end up with you dead as an human sooner than later. (at least that's the outlook of a Nigerian acquaintance (priest though) who went by plane everywhere, "streets are not safe").
> €100 is absolutely excessive for Schengen health insurance
yeah. But you need that. At some point. So you need to have quite a bit of cash.
> I have indeed traveled and worked simultaneously in those regions - with no Russian skills; and no, I explicitly mentioned why refugees cannot usually get tourist visas.
well, I have been to Bulgaria and the experience of buying train tickets was "interesting" as well as trying to pay with cards... But probably Kamchatka is a lot more tourist friendly, who knows.
To the refugee tourist visa: why are there stricter requirements and can you provide a source for your claim? At least for all the "non-refugee-status-eligible"-people, getting a visa is certainly possible (and they include countries as Nigeria, Ivorycoast, Sambia, Ghana...) and should be very easy if your claims are true.
> Again, if you actually went outside and met any of these people, you would realize the ways in which many of them actually travel. Ever heard of a multi entry visa?
Uhm yes https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-defines-rules-for-g...
so you've been to Schengen 3 times (at at least 40€ apiece) while _not working_ (remember, these are no digital nomads and their visa forbids work...) for no longer than 90 days, traveled back, worked in your home-country, made enough there to fill up your bank account (you'll have used a bit of money in Europe and I doubt you can survive on the move below 3€ a day – and that's quite a bit of money everywhere).
That's a very interesting biography for sure. There has to be some journalism or twitter-thread on that?
> Ultimately, the proof is out there, in the hordes of hyper budget travelers worldwide. Discussing whether or not they exist is pointless. If I'm standing in front of a tree, and you keep making confusingly worded arguments about how trees can't possibly exist, then we're not going to end up agreeing
Well, I've frequented hostels and flixbuses and eastern european trains alike. And nowhere, I've encountered hordes of (globally poor) Africans, Russians, Indians, South-Americans or South-East-Asians on their hyper-budget-travels. Maybe I was not budgety enough. Maybe these people don't do touristy things. I don't think they exist. What I know of are (a) relatively rich students from developing nations doing low budget travel on their convenient Schengen student visa and (b) definitely rich (in a global context) first-world-people doing low-budget-travels. It works, but a) you need cash (which in the west is easy to come by) and b) you need a visa, which is kind of interdependent, unless c) you get a visa to work, which is relatively rare.
I guess we are mostly misunderstanding each other, for an example: India.
I don't think that any of those "subsumed" at the 20% level here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India#/media/File:I...] travel Europe (or India) on a hyper budget at all with modalities anyone here would consider "travel". I also highly doubt that anyone below the 20000 rupees mark (250€ monthly household income) can set this up, because frankly, 50€ for a visa, 50€ for a flight (more like 500 from India to Schengen, I don't know, how you hitchhike by land - through Pakistan and Iran...) are just not possible that easy. So this leaves the upper 12% [https://www.statista.com/statistics/653897/average-monthly-h...] for this endeavours, which are a large absolute number, but frankly just a very well off elite in India _and_ similar countries. Clearly, they are a lot "poorer" than any European or North-American, but the original statement "he/she'll be quite rich in his/her homecountry" stands unabated. And while Russians are richer, you won't go fart either with the at max. 600€ monthly per capita income, 75% of the country enjoy [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1017901/russia-populatio...].
So to bring an end to this discussion: I don't think there are ex subsistence-farmers from Africa/India or migrant laborers/non-college educated from China/Russia doing "hyper budget", random travels (your statement: "with crappy passports and nearly no money"). All the people doing this, have a quite comfortable financial and social cushion in their home-country. So doing this _is a privilege_, which people from the North American or European population centers can enjoy a lot easier, because they earn a lot more money ($PPP) than _a majority_ of the remaining population on this planet.
And lastly: with Corona going around, I really don't see a point of travelling, but generally I'm not too aversed to the idea. Maybe we should just talk in person.
Right, and the fact that tourist visas require some cash has zero to do with my original comment. I specifically mentioned that vast swathes of the world are accessible to people even with crappy passports. Citizens of Africa and South America can generally travel extensively within their own continent with no visas, for example.
Yes, a priest that travels exclusively by plane is not a representative sample of Africans or how they travel...
> But you need that [€100 for Schengen health insurance]
Again, no, you can get Schengen health insurance for some 15 euros a month long term.
> well, I have been to Bulgaria and the experience of buying train tickets was "interesting"
In every country I've ever taken a train in, I have been able to buy a train ticket by finding an employee, translating the simple words "buy", "ticket", and the names of two cities.
> why are there stricter requirements and can you provide a source for your claim?
Because everyone knows what the majority of applicants are coming for, and first world countries' governments don't like that. As for a source, look up "B visa refusal rate" and you will get a handy PDF showing that while less than 2/10 Yemenis will get approved for a US B-visa, most Ghanaians get in, 66% of those from the Ivory Coast etc.
>you'll have used a bit of money in Europe and I doubt you can survive on the move below 3€ a day
Now, if you were actually reading any of my comments, you'd have seen where exactly I noted how that's not only very possible, but I've had many guests do it. But to spare you the effort, Couchsurfing and hitchhiking.
And an open secret anno 2020 is that basically nobody is enforcing the "no remote work while traveling" thing, just FYI.
To your comment about not finding the hordes in Eastern Europe, well, not sure what part of Eastern Europe you were in but I certainly saw a ton of Eastern Europeans traveling their region, and I've been to several countries there. Furthermore, no, you're not going to see massive amounts of Africans on a bus in Kyiv, I explicitly mentioned this was about their own regions.
Poor Russians are kind of like mountain goats: you see them somewhere ridiculous and think "how on Earth did they get there". Trust me, if we discover a new planet the first person there will be an enthusiastic Russian hitchhiking and traveling on 3 euros a day. So as far as they go, I have no doubts of their ability to travel with limited income.
Yes, the Corona factor goes without saying.
The poorest 20% of a poor country is certainly a lovely example of cherry picking, but for what is perhaps the 20th time, I never claimed everyone would be able to travel Schengen, I _explicitly_ mentioned people traveling their own region. That's why I'm still not sure if you're trolling me, because I keep saying "people can and do travel in interesting ways in their own region" and then you just talk over that with something ridiculous like "but this Yemeni subsistence farmer could NEVER afford a hotel in Paris! Checkmate!"
Poor people with bad passports do travel in interesting ways. Most of them won't end up visiting Switzerland, but trust me, there are cooler parts of the world in many impoverished people's backyards, and they do go see them.
Almost two decades ago, while I was in a bit of a funk about the not-very-interesting, heavily corporatized thing the software industry has become [2] I read the book "Vagabounding" [1].
It talks about doing exactly what you're describing and it sounds great, but then, if you're like me, you start worrying about your long term, and, for example, eventual medical costs and so on. Like many things, it sounds great until you consider downside risk.
[2] Essentially, I was very, very familiar with the 1970s and especially the 1980s Valley since parts of my extended family were directly involved, and I'd been looking forward to it and all of the excitement around it. The 2000s+ experience of the valley is far, far from that era for people who love technology, building things, excitement, etc.
For sure. I've been living a nomadic life for three years now, not randomized because I prefer picking my locations myself but I could do that. Good passport, so this problem doesn't apply to me. But I've also met plenty enough Indian or Filipino nomads in Asia. If you got the remote income stream then you can solve the visa problems.
I basically quit my job without income and got freelance clients after traveling for a while. That might be not everyone's cup of tea so probably better to get that sorted before leaving. There are quite a lot of fully remote jobs now but tons of competition and mostly "US only". Freelancing is probably the fastest way to get remote income. Best is to have some kind of retainer deal for x/month in my opinion, instead of always hunting new projects. SaaS or any kind of online business is more of a long term play.
Agree here. I live this lifestyle day-to-day, and I'm doing it as a fregan (largely no currency).
I basically have some goals like my software project and gravitate towards accomplishing them, but otherwise leave my schedule up to "chance".
I sleep as much as I want to, whenever I want to. I eat only food which arrives to me and meets my standards. I travel largely on "tailwinds".
After less than 5 years of this practice, I have become much more deeply spiritual and a believer in things like synchronicity, precognition, quantum reality, alternative-dimension beings, and conscious navigation of such.
I believe our universe "wants" to create as much "good feelings" and the minimum necessary amount of "bad feelings", and everything you do to help this endeavor will guide you into synchronous luck and success.
As a funny side effect, because animals also feel good and bad feelings, even little things like feeding hungry animals or doing small things reducing industrial impact on wildlife can "pump your karma", which will in turn fuel your other pursuits, which are also hopefully towards good means.
This has also given me a "large-scale natural process" view of history and social currents, which has given me a feeling of peace, contentment, and acceptance of macro things like politics an war.
I now think that trying to influence mainstream politics is akin to one blood cell trying to bend a human's decision matrix to suit itself.
Well, the P is what does you in, really :) PRNGs use a few bytes of entropy to make a ton of bytes of /dev/urandom. With
dice, the entropy is directly in your hands. Also, apparently dice are quite good sources of entropy, enough that people use them for actual crypto from time to time. I imagine most people would just be concerned with the distribution of 1-6 but I suppose if you're using them for actual crypto you'd care about other things (do you start to throw in a specific way after a while? Maybe getting into a sort of rhythm that affects the output?)
It's an interesting approach, could take away some of the "stress of choice" (first world problem?), but might perhaps run the risk of disengagement into irresponsibility.
For those that don’t know, this website and lifestyle were actually heavily inspired by CS/Machine Learning work done by Ken Stanley and Joel Lehman.
They co-authored a book, Why Greatness Cannot be Planned, about the philosophy and results behind an algorithm they developed for evolutionary computation with no explicit objective other than finding new artifacts: Novelty Search. You can see a review of the book here: https://medium.com/@John_Saunders/what-ive-been-reading-why-...
As I understand, the author of this site took the work quite literally!
If you’re into the intersection of CS and philosophical topics, I’d highly recommend reading the book.
Interesting, but definitely a life of privilege. Only a good passport and a full bank account or investments will allow you to roll the dice and move anywhere.
Given that, it's an interesting experiment I guess. But as an analogy, consider the privilege to run this experiment as being like having a million dollars in a bank account. If someone said to you, yeah, I've got a million dollars to invest but putting the effort into to deciding where is too stressful, so I roll the dice and invest it in random companies 50k at a time, what would you think?
That's an interesting perspective. If I think about it this way, it seems obvious that doing random bullshit when you can do anything is like... quintessence of stupid.
On the other hand, if this is obviously stupid, there must be something obviously correct. But it's actually a rare individual who knows exactly what he wants to do in life. Talking about investment you implicitly assumed that it's a given that the only meaningful thing to do with spare money is looking for how to multiply it, one just needs to think about how to do it effectively. But there's no such assumption about what you should do with your life. I guess almost nobody actually makes such decisions, they just... live? This way, it's all good and there's no real difference between copying your parents' life, killing yourself immediately, becoming a doctor to find a way to cure cancer, or throwing a dice to chose where do you spend the next month. There isn't any universally accepted answer to "what's the purpose of life". That is, most people probably will be able to answer something, but it doesn't mean much.
I'm going to guess that random here doesn't quite mean random. The Republic of the Congo probably wasn't on his list of possible places to live... Realistically, probably half of the countries in the world or more I wouldn't want to live in. I'm going to assume he probably pre-selected a number of places that he was okay with, and then randomly selected among those.
Given his 2 years as a "creative" at Google listed as the only work experience except for internships (which probably don't make you net-rich), this guy seems to have some pretty great inheritance fund... While he certainly does art, the website and the project he's working on don't look like they could support a AirBnB and jet-based lifestyle (add ~USD1000/month for getting your random connection to the next place) but in todays VC-fueled world, you never know.
If you have remote work, you could re-roll the dice until the constraints hold up in terms of passport and living costs. Although, people manage to travel the world with very low amounts of money, so the real deciding factor would be your tolerance of "bad" living conditions.
Well I'm also from a country where many countries require a visa, so not having to obtain a visa to travel was never my expectation. Being able to have that expectation might be your privilege instead.
My friend is Vietnamese. Even though she's fairly wealthy, owns two houses and has her own business, she's been turned down for a European tourist visa twice, presumably because she applied at a single female and they don't want sex workers. Each application costs her a few hundred dollars. It's not just a matter of applying for a visa.
Meanwhile, I have an EU passport. I've traveled to around 30 countries. The only time I was even briefly questioned by immigration was coming in to Australia. Every other time it was just an immediate stamp and wave through.
As an American, your process of getting a visa is basically assured. That's not the case for many nationalities where there's a good chance your application will be rejected multiple times before to get a visa.
The reason I mentioned this was because for me it's actually not.
I am persona non grata with UKVI apparently (I've been turned away at the border when I didn't have a visa), so I always apply for a visa in advance now.
It's annoying but it's not the deal-breaker people in this thread seem to think it is.
Very very cool, but at the same time it feels like we are so privileged sometimes that we are able to do this kind of stuff... Made me feel a bit melancholy and grateful at the same time.
Quite similar to the antifragility[1] principle - but not all areas benefit from randomness. The key is to understand which is which and apply randomisation there.
As with kalman filtering, one wants to take the strength of a ranking and make the "best" choice under that noise: so arbitrary decisions get made completely randomly, and perfect information decisions get made completely deterministically, but all others make an arbitrary choice from a larger or smaller pool of highly-ranked choices.
"Be just," I once heard a judge advise, "and if you can't be just, be arbitrary."
How dare you call one of the most influential novels of my life "a cult"! :)
No, it wasn't the explicit sex and violence that was influential (though who knows!). It was the notion that the concept of "the real you" is broken, and that we all contain multitudes.
As a joke at the last office job I had, I would roll dice on an app to make decisions. More often than not the dice would have had the same or better outcome than humans bikeshedding.
I think we have to accept that this is how the next gen will live. Not random living but unrooting and rerooting frequently. There were a few million nomads pre-covid, now almost everyone is realizing they could be one. Not everyone wants an unrooted life but most people would be positive to a few re-rootings per lifetime. This is hindered by borders and immigrations control at the moment, but at some not too distant point the majority opinion on them will shift.
I've uprooted once and found it very difficult. When you move to a new city, you basically have to build a new circle of friends from scratch. Making close friends takes time, years, and you face a bootstrapping problem: it's much harder to make new friends when you have no friends. I honestly don't get why some people want to do that multiple times within their life.
Call me cynical, but nomadism like this just seems like another form of consumerism to me. You're consuming living experiences I guess, but you're never really building anything long-term anywhere. As soon as you get close to people, after a few years, you leave it all behind, move on to the next thing? I'd just be afraid of waking up at 50 and realizing I have no close friends anywhere.
And also in most cases, anything remotely similar to a social fabric just vanishes. While I guess that the old tight-knit village is not something we should go back to, it both provided social stability and fulfilled needs.
I think this is still something people will need and while you can supplant relationships with long-distance jet-setting and intimacy with tinder-driven hookups neither of that is really contributing to a stable society but just eroding it currently (people who are just moving away from problems are not solving them and the ecological perspective of GP is just insane!)...
You don't need "friends" (which often are not really friends anyway), just have at least one scene where you find yourself at ease and go to public places or gatherings about it.
For instance, one could go to programming meetups, or conscious dance events, or gay sex clubs, etc.
I anticipate things will go the other way - Less power in passports, stronger border controls for many nations. Climate refugees will prompt this response from nations. IMO we've been living in a golden age for anyone that wants to see the world for the past half a century or so.
Passports and borders are not the only restriction to travel, though. I would wager that the distance traveled now-a-days for the average person is higher than in most if not all of history.
Just heard something on the radio saying mass tourism in my country started only during the 1930s. Almost a century later, (before the virus) the blue-collar working class was taking at least a week or two of their vacations in places such as Bali or the Maldives. So you're probably right: Zweig was probably speaking from an upper middle-class perspective, not far removed from the roughly 2% of the then-upper class.
"Climate refugees" keeps being repeated ad-cliche as if it were a guaranteed near future event, but I'd love to see the concrete scientific evidence backing up its inevitability. Also, please, show me one single movement of climate refugees to have occurred so far who moved place specifically because of human-caused climate change.
By example: I live in the tropics, and while many people leave this country for assorted reasons of economic opportunity and bad local/national government, nobody has yet left because of global warming.
If you look at the big picture one things that stands out is regional rural to urban migrations. I put a lot of immigration in that context. 90% of rural to urban migration is internal and 10% spills over.
There are currently huge internal migrations inside of Africa, but some percentage heads to Europe usually following expat family members.
So in a way we already have refugees not from climate change but from industrialized agriculture.
I can't point you to a single study that encompasses everything that forms the basis of my opinion. If you already acknowledge the existence of human-caused climate change to at least the extent accepted by the IPCC (which by all accounts represents a low bar, because of the political reality of the panel's makeup and process), then there should be enough of a basis for a few additional pieces of information to illustrate my line of thinking. I also assume you understand that individual weather events, while caused by climate, cannot be linked with 'concrete scientific evidence' to climate change. Yet when it comes to human displacement, individual weather events are more than enough to trigger mass migrations.
>show me one single movement of climate refugees to have occurred so far who moved place specifically because of human-related climate change.
Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought - CP Kelley (2015)
"worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centers"
"Century-long observed trends in precipitation, temperature, and sea-level pressure, supported by climate model results, strongly suggest that anthropogenic forcing has increased the probability of severe and persistent droughts in this region, and made the occurrence of a 3-year drought as severe as that of 2007−2010 2 to 3 times more likely than by natural variability alone."
Regarding future climate migrations, the chain of events that looks set to play out in many places is quite clear. The Maldives, for example. Islanders (~300k) depend heavily (70% of GDP) on the coral reef for their sustenance and livelihood. Ocean warming is destroying the coral, and the life that goes with it. If that's not enough, sea-level rise will swamp the islands; the highest point is only two meters above sea level (100cm of base sea-level rise is anticipated by 2100, and that excludes storm surges). On top of that, intensificiation of extreme weather events will destroy homes, boats, and land infrastructure (what little even exists). Inhabitants will be displaced as their livelihood dies off and their land dissapears under the ocean, assuming they have the means to go anywhere else and that those places will allow them to relocate.
This scenario or very similar repeats for most small island nations across the pacific (~2M), the carribean (44M), and elsewhere (~17M). Note that it's a distinct scenario from the historical example I linked above, which is a representation of the kind of climate-related displacements to be expected closer to the equater and on major land masses. Those are more representative of the shift expected to the 'habitable zone' of our planet, as it moves further away from the equator.
Examining these and thank you for the elaborate reply. I don't actually deny human-caused climate change mainly because the evidence for its occurrence seems more than overwhelming, but I do mistrust hyperbole and fear ful speculation of possible things that haven't actually occurred, aren't in the process of happening and haven't been backed (to my knowledge) by the same kind of concrete science that demonstrates how temperatures have been rising at an exceptional rate. This does not necessarily equal certain other things, unless a solid connection between them can be made,
And also the other way -- most nomads are actually immigrating TO the warmer countries. Ultimately i don't see this ending up being gatekeeped at the national level but rather at the city-level.
Of course not. But humans tend to follow the least action principle, and if it's easier to escape a problem, they will. At some point, trying to force them stay in place en masse will become authoritarian.
My concern is that if you randomize uniformly based on geography or event, you'll get a very uneven distribution of place types.
E.g. if you go to a random public place, you are very likely to go to a uninteresting bar or restaurant or shop and very unlikely to find yourself in a very unique place.
And I'm not sure how you could automatically randomize in a a way that doesn't have this issue.
> if you go to a random public place, you are very likely to go to a uninteresting bar or restaurant or shop and very unlikely to find yourself in a very unique place.
That's kind of the point. Does every experience have to be rated 4.9999 stars on Yelp?
I usually narrow it down to 2–5 items I know I'll enjoy, and them choose randomly using the minutes of the current time modulo the amount of options.
The system works great: it's chaotic enough so I can't estimate in advance the answer, yet stable enough so I can't "cheat" by re-throwing the dice. It also sometimes helps me find out what I _really_ wanted when I realise that going randomly was a bad idea.
I’ve discussed this with colleagues over lunch several times. The idea wouldn’t exactly be random, we’ve discussed a hash of the current date modulo some number of choices.
So for any frequent choices, come up with n options and then take the hash of the date or weekday, or just pick a random number. Then do modulo n to determine the choice for the day.
The nice thing about a hash is that the result feels random but could exhibit a recognisable pattern over time.
Sometimes I ask to get whatever they feel like making. Or if someone else got something and didn't want it, I'll take that. Helps fight food waste and makes your waiter's/chef's day a bit easier, which is nice.
Wouldn't defining those things be both more difficult and more important than the decision-making process itself? For example-- if you choose the list of options by intuition, how do you know it's not full of aliases? To borrow from the old joke: flipping a coin to decide whether to listen to "country or western?"
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As far as expenses go, most people do Couchsurfing or something similar. With housing taken care of, you can feed yourself on a couple bucks a day, and hitchhiking is free.
Sure, with a crappy passport you can't go absolutely everywhere, but with a South American or African passport you can travel your entire home continent visa free, with a Russian passport you can travel the CIS countries, etc.
If anyone here (rich or poor, good passport or bad) would like to try their hand at this kind of random, see-where-life-takes-you kind of living, feel free to come stay at my boat home (currently sailing from the Netherlands to France.) I take tons of Couchsurfers of all kinds, many of which live the low budget version of this guy's life :) My email's in my profile.