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SECONDARY_WANDERING

                                              May 01, 2006

                                  (Now for some of
              PRIME_DIRECTIVE     the usual
                                  hypocritical
A westerner traveling in a        backpeddling.)
third world country is a
worm-hole between economic
levels,

The gravitational
effects around the mouth
warp the situation horribly.


Stop for a moment,
and be descended on
by children selling
junk.                       It doesn't take much
                            of this treatment to
"only one dollar!".         turn nice liberals
                            into Ugly Americans.




Fair game for any minor con --
and perhaps some major ones? --
because ten bucks just doesn't
mean much to you, and to them
it's a week's wages.


A thought I've had: is
it *good* for these
people if you just
cave-in and fork over
the money to get them
out of your hair?

Doesn't it just
encourage this madness?

There must be something
better for them to do
with their lives than
beg from tourists.

What good is a charitable
impulse that just                    Dangerbaby points out that
encourages them to dive              buying a local handcraft
into a dead-end?                     encourages continued
                                     work on the handcraft.
   So: do I think that
   the locals need to
   be protected from
   Western economic
   influences?



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