Travel while it is worth it

Travel before it is too late.  The world is changing.  It will become so uniform one day that it will no longer be a thrill to see another country or culture.

This seems to be the message of Ben Groundwater's article.  He thinks that "as the world changes, it's becoming the same".  His notion is that as people from all over the world have moved to live in other places around the world, there becomes elements of every culture in every culture.  There is Chinese food served in every country I can think of.  There is McDonalds in every major city I have been to, other than Ulaan Bator and Phnom Penh.  (Although, maybe, McDonalds could be in those places now as well.)

Unlike a few centuries ago, where Italy was more uniquely Italian, China was more uniquely Chinese, etc.  If the trend continues, multiculturalism will be everywhere.  Multiculturalism might also collapse to have less variety, and the whole world eventually lives with the same understanding of culture.

Do you think this might be possible?  Would this be a good thing or a bad thing, in your opinion, if it happens?

Can you imagine the world being gay and anti-gay at the same time?  Muslim, monotheistic, and Hindu, polytheistic, at the same time?  Or maybe atheistic instead?  Can India and Pakistan live with each other?

Or will we just blow each other up and the uniform culture is actually no culture at all?

As it is, we have city vs. rural cultures in every country.  I see that what Ben says is more true about cities around the world - they have enough similarities that traveling salesmen and other professionals have the same feel of hotels and airlines and food everywhere they go.  But out in the rural areas, things are less similar.  And out in the "real" world of the cities, things are also quite different.

As many migrate to the cities, things may be more similar in the future too.

As it is, we do not agree on how to use English, but we use English similarly enough to be understood by other English speakers.  How do we incorporate other languages?  And foods?  And dress-codes?  Etc?

Is it like the 3rd law of thermodynamics that says that unless energy from an external source lifts us up, we just plateau to a naturally uniform state?  How long do you think it might it be before the world collapses into a single culture?

What would you miss if the world collapses into the culture that is served to us in aeroplanes and hotels?