For a few years every now and then I see stories doing rounds about Italian beaches and custom officers pushing harsh fines on tourists bottling up sand and pebbles to take home as souvenirs. Something that probably bewilders some of those caught unawares, for many it is not obvious that much harm has been done. Their punishment has less to do with their singular impact, and more with punishing them as representatives of the wider, destructive trend. There would be no need after all to enact any rules for the five or six who decide to take some sand home.
This might be obvious, but it raises an alarm: how many other situations like this exist that we have not considered? We can think the tourists stupid, self interested and lacking, but the two identified characteristics of their wrongdoing – small impact action that is ruinous when the same desire is shared by many – extend to more than just sand on a beach.
We live in unprecedented times (although which ones would be precedented?). It is in the recent decades that all of the billions of people’s tiny decisions have become more consequential than ever before. We can think back to any time in our history, even as early as XIX century (times that seem distant yet are only removed from me as far as 3 generations), and think of the impact some daft, malicious sand-stealing cartel could make on the world. Their task would be futile, there would not be enough time in their lives between travel and hauling their gains to make a dent.
It is now that we have to ask ourselves the same question whenever a need or a want appears: how many others share this desire and are willing or able to act on it? Moreover, if we all act on it, what would be the consequences that would be borne by nature, other people and the world at large? The whole of humanity is now closer to behaving like a hive mind than ever before, with its destructiveness increasing with technological progress. Technology has enabled logistics chains and industries that can, should a new need arise, put in motion diggers and cotton mills, tankers and trucks, factory workers and miners. All to satisfy some new craving that blinked into existence in the minds of millions. Simultaneously, if a need does not arise, some will put their minds to work, all to find a way to create out of thin air a new mass-itch for the market to scratch.
It is that moment of the desire coming into existence that is at the root of the issue. Once it would happen in the minds of hundreds of people, then thousands, millions, now a few billion. The paradox is that as our personal share decreases, the sum of all impacts increases. The less we can do the larger the force the hive operates with, and the easier for an individual to shed responsibility. With population trending towards infinity we reach a point when each participant’s responsibility is close to zero, and the summed up impact immeasurably high.
What is the hive mind’s impact though? It is the crushing over-tourism, where cities once wide open to visitors now cannot cope under their punishing stress, all so that travellers can come back feeling a bit more worldly. Ecosystems that took thousands of years to get where they are now are cast aside as resources and extracted to fill stores with items that will be discarded in days or weeks, or simply have been designed to amuse us briefly before we move on. Living back in London, the Camden Town shops full of cheap tourist souvenirs, shirts, glasses, hoodies were a sad sign of how much harm has already been done to fill them for this one day alone.
Our need to vary our fashion means countries that have been less lucky than us are overflowing with trash, and often their population is employed at near-to-slave wages to produce this very garbage in the first place. Worst of all, when we find new hungers to satisfy, the pressure on the cheap labour to produce them increases. As our affluence increases so does someone else’s misery. Ironically, as we want more, so do we cause more stress on the system and create more causes to fight for and feel good about.
Then there are the passing trends pushed on us by influencers of all sorts trying to make a quick buck, all designed for maximum reach and impact. Since we have now reached the point when we found a way to monetise attention, and therefore the transient emotions of the hive mind, social media is at the forefront of mass-baiting its users into anger, jealousy, sadness. Hundreds of creators on the so called content platforms spend time figuring out the next thing that will amuse, scare us, play into our preconceptions or make us uncomfortable. Their livelihood directly dependent on exploiting the simplest of instincts of the hive mind. While we, thanks to seeing how many views, comments, upvotes or other internet points a post has, can feel the weight of the hive behind each post or comment.
Search engines and centralised websites are further fuelling the crisis. They can direct and funnel our intents down the same path. We use TripAdvisor to figure out what to see in a city, algorithms decide what is seen and what is hidden and can amplify trends, first page of Google is where we get most of our information. Movies are watched based on IMDB review scores, which are only representative of what an “average” person thinks, or they are pushed straight in front of our eyes by algorithms.
If that was not anxiety inducing enough, it is even dangerous to have thoughts altogether. Products can be devised and dumped on the market in anticipation of our unconscious or unspoken needs. The moment a product advert appears on our screens it has already left destruction in its wake. Our thoughts, clicks and actions translate into market research, and market research wakes the cogs into motion yet again whether we want it or not.
We could satisfy ourselves with an easy verdict that late-stage capitalism is poisoning the planet, and only a sudden and abrupt change on a mass scale being a viable alternative. Would this conclusion achieve anything apart from letting us off the hook, absolving us of any guilt or responsibility and shifting it onto the system? Moreover, putting everything down at the feet of the system cynically lets us take advantage of the aforementioned, ever-shrinking responsibility we bear while putting responsibility on some force that would reshape the behaviour of billions of people.
Resigning ourselves to waiting for a global change only puts us in a lose-lose situation. It does not contribute to solving the problem, and it makes our lives stuck firmly inside the hive mind that dominates the world. What we can do, however, is turn this into a win-win situation, where we adopt a stance that both makes our lives richer, and, if applied en-masse, could contribute to the lessening of damage we would otherwise have caused.
Right now as we face the kaleidoscope of our needs we expect the market to satisfy them. The market will always do that in the most shallow fashion possible, after all it strives to maximise profit and it does that by reaching the largest number of people rather than deeply affecting a small group. We can fight back by adding depth that commercialisation has taken away. We can take control and put focus on developing our inner lives without needing the world at large to provide distractions and gimmicks. We make our activities more profound and thus put some brakes on the machine. As we enrich our inner lives we break away from the hive mind, our thoughts become more a result of our own story and decisions, adding complexity that the market cannot comprehend.
Considering the impact travel makes on the world, we can start off by treating the world as less of an amusement park, and reflecting on why we need to travel in the first place. What is the long-term gain we achieve, and the benefit we bring to the local population compared to the extra weight we pile on them or the environment. Maybe we should require ourselves to have a proper understanding of local history prior to a visit so that we can maximise our gain, therefore adding a reasonable limit to our travels while ensuring they are more fruitful than before? Putting effort into learning a new language to simply talk online or read foreign media could be much more valuable than simply standing in the middle of a foreign city, unable to comprehend much or communicate with anyone. It often seems that travelling has become the synonym for a form of magic where by simply being in a place we absorb knowledge and the ever elusive “culture”. Reality is a far cry from that, for most tourists being dropped on an alien world for a week would bring no paradigm shift in their minds, but would be great material for a few pictures to share on social media. The only value such travellers bring is the money left in locals’ pockets. The real way to understand culture, or what even culture is in the first place, is to put effort into understanding local mindsets, not seeing the sights.
Buying less stops the machine from turning. Over the last two centuries our relationship with objects has changed rapidly. Cities had been founded and built without any consideration for the then-preposterous idea that people might need trash cans to stuff them full of clothes, tools or even furniture. Each item has become fungible, its destiny to be thrown into trash the moment it stops serving its purpose or loses its appeal. The produce-bin loop makes it seem like anything that passes via our hands can be made to vanish without a trace, just like a passing thought can be brought to an end without harm to anyone. I would argue, however, that the things we surround ourselves with are an extension of our own inner worlds, they can bring up memories, be a source of comfort (or annoyance) or be signs of constancy and stability. If we treat physical objects as mere dots in our history, does that not imply our thoughts deserve even less attention? All the things that would end up in a bin can have new stories given to them by attempting to repair them when broken, donating them away when not needed or repurposing. This leaves a door open for learning new skills or exercising creativity that otherwise would have died as soon as we throw an item away.
Shifting the focus from expecting the world to bring depth to our life to instead doing it ourselves and keeping busy. The market thrives on our boredom, taking away the spare time it can attempt to fill is one of the easiest ways to regain personal control. Making music, performing arts, writing poetry, stories should all be something we practise on a whim. As the hive mind came into being those activities are being less and less local, and more and more outsourced to entertainers who push the boundaries of their fields leaving us scared of trying, feeling inadequate in comparison. After all, when hundreds of strangers can do something better on the Internet, why should we try? Instead we are relegated to “consuming art”. This relationship should be turned around, we should focus more on what we and those who surround us are impatient to express. It is metaphors of our friends and family, the tunes of our neighbours and morals of stories of classmates or colleagues that we should discover. No longer simply producers and consumers of art, but creators and the audience interchangeably instead. One could say it is a form of travel in itself, an intimate exploration of the immediate world we find ourselves in, bringing depth out of all who surround us.
Being more confident and audacious in changing social norms can force others to consider issues in greater depth. It does not mean aggressively breaking social norms, rather bending them by bringing out our own authenticity. I am often reminded of how social norms keep the wheels turning whenever I see positive responses to someone’s business success. Often in the form of the LinkedIn middle class congratulating each other on finding the product-market fit, or some peddler’s triumph in pushing out a new product or gizmo out. We can abstain from partaking, we can privately, in passing, ask all the various businessmen and businesswomen if they believe their product does any good, or how they feel about its negative impact. It does not take much, just one person in a sea of handshakes and good wishes unexpectedly voicing a concern. It can throw people off guard, sending a small shock wave and leaving a seed of doubt.
There are more ways, special to each person or a group, that this approach could be taken further. The end goal would be the same: it is to shape ourselves into people that the market cannot easily profile or profit from. We take responsibility for our impact, and let that responsibility shape us into better versions of ourselves. It detaches ourselves from the hive mind, makes us our own persons. It ensures that whatever our share of damage, at least it was done not only with best of intentions and outcomes in mind, but with real effort behind it. If enough people assume a similar mindset we might stop the machine from turning, leading to a greater outcome for us all. If not, even as everything crashes and burns, we would have lived lives better than we otherwise would have.