Down with Teleportation

I believe that if teleportation were invented, the world would be reduced in size by 1038%, which is a lot, as you can see, because that number doesn’t even fit inside a hundred, “percent” coming from the Latin per centum, meaning “by the hundred”. As much as I, through the pain of someone’s absence, or the agony of extended travel in a seat by the bathroom on a cramped bus in Mexico, have longed for a teleportation device which could whisk my loved one to my side, or whisk me to an uncrowded beach in Mexico, which smells of a salt water breeze rather than a sloshing urine laden commode, upon more proximate consideration, I’ve seen the evil of this convenience to outweigh the convenience of this convenience.
No longer would the world be the oyster of the brave, the impetuous, the curious, the adventurous; it would then the $5.99 seafood buffet of the everyday, the fish stick of the fecund family of five, the Long John Silvers for the timid of heart who will not, under any circumstances, try sushi. There will be wheelchair ramps running rampant through wildest Africa, park benches on which day trippers can eat their sandwiches whilst viewing the cannibalistic rituals of a jungle tribe in Borneo, local insectival delicacies substituted with candy duplications for the feint of stomach who still want to “experience the culture.”
It is a bleak future I realize. Maybe I’m showing myself to be a bit of an elitist by espousing all of this, but goddammit, the world is small enough already.
Take for example the Earth’s size in relation to the sun and the other planets in the solar system. I didn’t feel like going to someplace with internet right now, but it can be assumed that about fifty bagillian earths can fit in one sun. Also, it is roughly the third smallest planet in our nine, no eight, no nine planet solar system, which isn’t saying a lot, regardless of how many planets we have. I mean, I’ve driven in one year, maybe two, the equivalent in miles of the entire planet’s circumference. I’m not sure exactly how many miles (kilometers if you’re in England) that is, but I am sure that I need internet so that in the future I don’t have to attempt to make persuasive arguments using only vague ideas of facts and no actual data.
As a quick aside, what’s up with Pluto? Is it a planet or not? I don’t really think it’s fair for the scientists to bestow a title, and then just renege because they changed their minds on the criteria of the qualifications. If I we’re Pluto, I would just hide out in shame and embarrassment at the farthest, darkest, coldest reaches of the solar system. I’ll bet that’s what he’s doing right now, the poor planet…or not. Globular asteroid or whatever.
Back to teleportation, another subject about which I am writing at length while knowing nothing of the physics, mechanics, or even theoretical basic workings of, except a philosophical dilemma or two (can you teleport a soul?).
In addition to the earth being unfathomably cosmologically miniscule, even solar systemically tiny, it has shrunk exponentially since the inception of air travel, and before that the locomotive engine. I’m not even going to get into the wheel, one of the worst inventions of man ever to plague the earth. Back in the day there were wagons and wheel barrows and boats, even ships powered by oars and the pure brute strength and sweat of slaves being beaten with whips. There is a certain purity to that. It took ages to get anywhere, each journey across the land a perilous adventure. One could be attacked by wolves because they hadn’t all been shot yet. Thrilling! Each voyage across the sea taking weeks, each traversal of great Oceana taking months, taking lives, causing scurvy and transforming legs into pointed wooden pegs. Not to mention, the striped shirts and single golden hoop earring. A fashion catastrophe! What I’m getting at is that back in the day, it took cojones to travel, because much of the world was uncharted and wild, and you had no idea what or who you might encounter. And since you were most likely to die as a result of your adventure, you earned every wonder you witnessed, every magical moment of knowing you discovered something. Now the only remaining discoveries to be made will likely be done through a microscope or a telescope. Or maybe a kaleidoscope. One can’t be sure.
Then came the steam engine. Then came the combustion engine. Maybe more types of engines came, but I don’t know what they are. Let me just say this: when engines came, they brought Wonkavision, stuck the world in front of the camera, and shrunk it. I’m not saying they’re innately terrible things; they are what they are. But their invention led to planes, trains, and automobiles. In the 1700s, can you imagine a Parisian saying to her husband, “I’m bored of all these bridges and sidewalk cafes. Let’s go to Athens for the weekend. That will be quaint”? First of all no because they would be speaking French, not English. And secondly, no because going to Athens would have meant eons of travel by wagon over land, involving the aforementioned wolves, bandits, mountain crossings, and uncouth villagers; or eons of travel by sea, involving white squalls, tsunamis, pirates, the aforementioned scurvy, and the Cracken*, who’s known to stomp in the Aegean area.
* “The Cracken” is a reference to the mildly obscure, but possible cult classic “The Clash of the Titans” which served as a ground breaking pioneer in clay-mation special effects. Not really, it’s uber cheesy, but good Greek Mythology 101 for the arm chair historian, although I’m not sure the Cracken made an appearance in any of Homer’s works.
So anyway. I’m beginning to lose my fervor, so I’m going to try and wrap this up like a tinselly little Christmas present. Teleportation sucks because it will take the adventure out of travel by eliminating the journey, and it will eliminate all mystery from the world by making accessible to any putz that has a credit card and a day off. These people don’t deserve it. They haven’t paid their dues. Down with teleportation! Fuck you Star Trek! Except for that machine that makes food from poop and pee. That’s a genius idea.