Spyke

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unpopularopinion·Unpopular OpinionbyMintyFresh

Tourism is bad.

10 of the last 10 years were the hottest on record. It's time. I know so many people that will give lip service to the environment and then think nothing of taking multiple flights per year on the flimsiest of pretexts.

And as all too often happens, people go to poorer countries where they get waited on hand and foot, and then act like they're doing some giant favor to the locals. All too often these tourist sights end up being an unmitigated natural disaster, not to mention locking the locals out of their own back yard.

And then they'll turn around and claim they're "helping the local economy" trying to justify it. It's colonialism by another name. If they paid fair wages to the workers these vacations would become much more expensive, perhaps prohibitively so.

And wtf is wrong with you, you can't relax in your own region? Gonna cook the planet because you can't be happy and relax in your own hemisphere. Y'all need to chill it with the air travel!

View original on lemmy.world
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askhistorians·AskHistoriansbyMintyFresh

Effect of the number zero in European economies

The wiki says it was transferred to Europe via the middle east. It seems obvious the Arabic numerals we use today are so much easier to work with than Roman numerals.

Was there a noticeable uptick in trade simply because bookkeeping became so much easier? Was there a noticeable uptick in the complexity and pervasiveness of monied, as opposed to in kind, daily trade in all levels of society?

It seems like the humble zero hit the scene and next thing you know the Renaissance is getting under way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0?wprov=sfla1Open linkView original on lemmy.world
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