I think common sense would suggest that spraying people with water who are minding their own business

I’m not advocating for that being ok when devoid of context. Just like pointing a megaphone at some institution devoid of context will get you detained (we don’t do “US’s” version of freedom here; a protest that is not properly communication beforehand is forbidden for public security reasons).

If we put up some context to it, we’re talking about targeting a demographic which does plenty of also-not-ok things. Does this mean that blind mobbism is ok? Nope. However, given that there’s zero enforcement on both sides, this mob attitude is in a way to balance things rather-harmlessly in this precarious sittuation.

If laws were to be thoroughly enforced, many tourists would also be in trouble (eg. for loud noise after dark) their prices would be substantially higher (as it is generally believed that there’s plenty of tax evasion and illegal properties in the sector). This means that the gov could definitely be doing things better and enforcing laws better. It is partially our fault because we’re used to live in a lax system (which was mostly ok until this…).

threat of acid attacks

Talking to you was literally the first time I’ve heard of those. For some reason I don’t get, London is unsafe. I hear about knifes and all kinds of shit in there but I don’t see why that’s the case. In the Iberian peninsula it is quite rare for anyone to assault you that way, even in proper robberies.

It’s not relevant to my point, which is that it’s not the fault of someone who goes to another country as a tourist.

As a tourist you are the one doing the decisions. The “let’s pick this 50€ Ryanair over that 300€ whatever to a place that’s not massified” was a decision.

I would equally criticise assaulting end consumers as a form of climate protest. Would you not?

I advocate for lesser evils. In climate matters I think that forcing costumers to pay for externalities would do the trick. Albeit, plenty of people would argue that to be worse than getting sprayed with water. Suddenly that 50€ flight becomes a 2500€ flight and then local tourism becomes much more enticing.

What’s YOUR suggestion?

If you put a flat tax, you harm business.
If you put a quota to it, you’d have the business of pretending that travelers are business people instead of tourists.
If you limit hosting to hotels, you’d get a tremendous market pressure for housing to go down to raise hotels (which is better than “local housing” for tourists as it is more efficient and doesn’t fuck up with neighbors).
If you limit the amount of properties that can do so, you guarantee that no local is ever able to go anywhere else in their own country without a friend lending a sofa.
If you simply spam enough properties such that everyone fits, whenever the economy goes bad (/Covid) the country goes snap bankrupt.

As you can probably imagine, living in a country that suffers from this, I’ve heard plenty of debate. There’s no perfect solution and the solutions that seem to be the closest to good are basically gentrification.

Showing tourists that they’re not welcome is probably one of the actions that causes the lesser amount of harm (both to locals, businesses and tourists) as basically most other measures ensure that the best thing most people would be able to afford would be a few towns away from home.

I assume your personal carbon footprint is 0 in that case.

It is negative. I was living a very modest job and fired myself to voluntarily work for the transportation sector (eg. find ways to make public transit more enticing). The things I started doing were good so I eventually got paid for them. The last time I touched a plane was in 2014, I don’t eat meat and I very rarely buy clothes. For some reason, society has this weird idea that following your conscience means living miserably.

“Oh, but then how will I visit Mars 3 times a year?” You do not. Traveling for leisure is not a god given right. I bet that most people have fairly nice towns not that far from home, and if they do not, why not vote locally to create nice towns locally? Architecture was a concept that was murdered in the 60’s but we can redo things with time.

The farthest I’ve went was literally Barcelona and my vacations start with the question “where can I get to by train in less than a day?”. No government is forcing me not to be an asshole, I can behave without hard rules. This way, If I ever need to go to… say… to Norway, for some researchers conference or whatever, I can take a plane, knowing that it pollutes a lot, yet without an heavy conscience because it is a one off, not the semestral dose of planes and poverty incentives.

And you can say “man, that’s just your opinion”, but the fact was that before massification people saw consideration for others as something important. They had different ideas of what was wrong or right, yet except for the odd asshat, people had the “I’m not going to overfish this lake because other people might also want to fish” attitude. That opinion that “not being considerate is not wrong” is just silly to my ears and is precisely what is fucking up the planet.

I did that because I enjoy Spanish culture

And yet that’s generally not the case. If I had to place a bet, a lot of people that come to Portugal don’t even know that it is not Spain. My parents work in the mail service and you have plenty of mail addressed like “Lisbon, Spain”. They couldn’t give less of a fuck about the place, simply figured that it was cheap and checked travel bingo card on it.

Are there considerate tourists that actually do care for the place and want to be behaved? Plenty. But the ratios are completely fucked. If you talk to people that work in the tourism sector they will point out that they are very VERY tired of dealing with the asses. What’s their percentage? I have zero clue and this is not something measurable, but I personally had plenty of encounters that didn’t quite go the way society should go.

Last year the pope came here and with him a lot of followers. The fuckers had free transportation passes and yet had to break transportation barriers and block off locals because they were all too busy chanting.

That was at the time of my last vacation. I got myself in a train to Spain to miss that and the majority of people I do know did equivalent trips. That’s how saturated the environment is. Every time a big wave comes (pope, sport’s event, Taylor Swift), we simply move away because the city is otherwise going to become unlivable.

Good thing I mentioned Taylor Swift because that’s a prime demo of tourism being an asshole factory. She came here a few months ago. She was mass attended by Americans. People figured tickets in Portugal to be cheaper than wherever they live so they just flew here. Fuck the environment or the Portuguese being able to attend anything where they live without having to pay a 300% premium, right?

That is a xenophobic attack. And you are currently advocating for it.

I advocate for whatever the utilitarian solution is and I do understand the concept of people having feelings when a loved one becomes homeless.

If sending a few hundred tourists to space makes live muuuuch more bearable for millions, then do it.
If having hundreds of locals annoyed makes the lives of millions of tourists great and that leaves the coffers full such that the locals can be compensated, then great.

It doesn’t always need to go against tourists. The problem with tourists is that the current balance is not utilitarian at all. Millions are being left without a country they call home in the name of some other millions being able to prop up their vacation ego. This is a big consequence in exchange for a small reward.

And I’m finding it a bit perplexing that you are simultaneously advocating for that while also talking about making decisions based on conscience.

As I stated, I’m an utilitarian. I advocate for whatever maximizes the global happiness, sustainability et all. Someone getting a miserable life requires a lot of people getting very very happy to balance.

A good part of my interference to “water attacks” is because I don’t see myself getting any more fired up over them than I would over people chanting “go away”. The water part, for me, a someone without any PTSD, it like “ehh, ok”. Might not be for other people, but that was not the way I guessed it. I did not imagine a world with acid attacks nor did imagine getting someone’s ass to my face in public transit to be any less “assault” than being sprayed with droplets of water. I reckon that is is simply my perception.