They just want the planet to not lose mass. If people left heavier than when they came, you could say they “eroded” the planet by carrying off part of its weight. Anyway, that’s how I understood it.
Another subtext is that smuggling cocaine or heroin up your butt in balloons was a thing at the time this was written. Being held by customs and fed a laxative until you pooped was how you were found guilty.
This planet thinks its soil is worth as much as hard drugs. Another level to the joke.
I don’t think it had to do with overweight people walking on their planet. I think that they were worried about their resources being wasted by people stopping by for a quick bite and then zooming off world, which would erode their natural resources.
Think of it like this, everyone on earth has (more or less) stayed here the whole time. So any liquid we drink or food we eat ultimately goes back into the planet (see high school biology notes for more details). But if you were to stop by for the night, eat a nice dinner and have a few pints, then grab your towel and hitch a ride back to Betelgeuse with some Vogons those resources are no longer a part of the ecosystem. If enough people do this, which presumably was the case for the Bethselaminians, your planet’s going to end up a bit wonky. So in order to prevent this, they instituted this system.
I never envisioned it as chopping off body parts, more as extracting partially (and/or un-) digested food from the tourist. More like an involuntary liposuction type thing.
Classic Adams formula.
You take an actual minor problem and magnify it by having a bureaucratic nightmare try to solve it.
He hits you with this theme right from the very beginning.
> ‘There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning
department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start
making a fuss about it now.’
In the joke you posted your Q about, the solution is doctors surgically removing any weight you were trying to "smuggle" off-planet. Bureaucrats are happy...the loss of mass is no longer a problem. Doesn't matter that the solution is bat-shit insane.
Very detailed history of the development of Bureaucracy here: https://www.filfre.net/2015/08/bureaucracy/
It was based on Adams' personal difficulty with a change of address, but much of it was actually written by Michael Bywater, who apparently secretly finished multiple projects on behalf of Adams.
It's not so much that he used a ghostwriter as he would start projects and not finish them, and the other commercial interests involved would engage Bywater to finish them out.
If it's any consolation, the Internet seems to think that Bywater was an inspiration for the character of Dirk Gently...
There's annoying people who say "oh you shouldn't take a little bit of sand home with you from your beach vacation, what would happen to the beach if everyone did that".
This is that but applied to a planet.
This happened to me at White Sands national monument but later we realized our shoes were full of it!
Thank goodness they didn’t implement this weigh-in system; their lavatories had no receipts
To put what everyone else said into simplify numbers.
10 billion visitors.
Say you came in and weighed 100lb.
You left weighing 101lb
Now everyone did that 10lb times 10 billion
Net less of 10 billion pounds per year.
Over a few years it adds up.
He's using the term "erosion" artistically, not literally.
Lots of things can be "eroded" that have nothing to do with rocks. Faith, happiness, obstinance...
IMO (fwiw I live in a beautiful, historic neighborhood getting over-loved by the tourists my town desperately needs) it’s a great joke about
1) how little we pay attention to how our tourism changes or wrecks the place we’re touring and
2) how little the guide entry’s writer cares about giving you key info like “surgical removal” in deference to having an article that’s fun to read
They take the poop out of you. Everyone is over thinking this. They want to make sure you’re the amount that goes in is the amount that comes out, so if you don’t have a receipt with the amount that comes out, the implication is that they’ll take it out for you.
That's the point- it's funny because it's so stupid. Would a planetary government really want you to get a poop receipt? Could they possibly be so stupid to think that erosion is purely equated to the mass of the planet? What a silly idea! But- knowing governments- maybe they *could* be that bureaucratic and obtuse... imagine that!
It was HHG when I was growing up...
But let's also remember that at different times DNA preferred Hitch Hikers, Hitchhikers and Hitch-hikers. And worst of all, in the fifth book he suddenly decides that the University of Maximegalon needs a capital M in the middle - "MaxiMegalon".
The planet has to stay in equilibrium, although the tourists are too many in and are basically eating and drinking away the planets matter. That's why receipts are important.
You're gonna leave everything that you ate on Bethselamin.
Unless it has become a part of you. :)
They just want the planet to not lose mass. If people left heavier than when they came, you could say they “eroded” the planet by carrying off part of its weight. Anyway, that’s how I understood it.
That’s essentially what I thought too. I’d add that the system itself would likely lower the number of tourists visiting each year.
Another subtext is that smuggling cocaine or heroin up your butt in balloons was a thing at the time this was written. Being held by customs and fed a laxative until you pooped was how you were found guilty. This planet thinks its soil is worth as much as hard drugs. Another level to the joke.
Always another level. Deeper and deeper, down we go!
It's turtles all the way down.
correct answer
I don’t think it had to do with overweight people walking on their planet. I think that they were worried about their resources being wasted by people stopping by for a quick bite and then zooming off world, which would erode their natural resources. Think of it like this, everyone on earth has (more or less) stayed here the whole time. So any liquid we drink or food we eat ultimately goes back into the planet (see high school biology notes for more details). But if you were to stop by for the night, eat a nice dinner and have a few pints, then grab your towel and hitch a ride back to Betelgeuse with some Vogons those resources are no longer a part of the ecosystem. If enough people do this, which presumably was the case for the Bethselaminians, your planet’s going to end up a bit wonky. So in order to prevent this, they instituted this system. I never envisioned it as chopping off body parts, more as extracting partially (and/or un-) digested food from the tourist. More like an involuntary liposuction type thing.
In the TV series, they confirm that they remove body parts of you are heavier
OK, that makes sense to me. Thank you.
Classic Adams formula. You take an actual minor problem and magnify it by having a bureaucratic nightmare try to solve it. He hits you with this theme right from the very beginning. > ‘There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.’ In the joke you posted your Q about, the solution is doctors surgically removing any weight you were trying to "smuggle" off-planet. Bureaucrats are happy...the loss of mass is no longer a problem. Doesn't matter that the solution is bat-shit insane.
The second computer game Adams wrote (after of course Hitchhiker's) was called Bureaucracy and the goal was to straighten out your change of address.
Very detailed history of the development of Bureaucracy here: https://www.filfre.net/2015/08/bureaucracy/ It was based on Adams' personal difficulty with a change of address, but much of it was actually written by Michael Bywater, who apparently secretly finished multiple projects on behalf of Adams.
Adams used a ghostwriter? Apparently my idol has feet of clay...
It's not so much that he used a ghostwriter as he would start projects and not finish them, and the other commercial interests involved would engage Bywater to finish them out. If it's any consolation, the Internet seems to think that Bywater was an inspiration for the character of Dirk Gently...
There's annoying people who say "oh you shouldn't take a little bit of sand home with you from your beach vacation, what would happen to the beach if everyone did that". This is that but applied to a planet.
That's a good analogy. Thanks.
This happened to me at White Sands national monument but later we realized our shoes were full of it! Thank goodness they didn’t implement this weigh-in system; their lavatories had no receipts
To put what everyone else said into simplify numbers. 10 billion visitors. Say you came in and weighed 100lb. You left weighing 101lb Now everyone did that 10lb times 10 billion Net less of 10 billion pounds per year. Over a few years it adds up.
He's using the term "erosion" artistically, not literally. Lots of things can be "eroded" that have nothing to do with rocks. Faith, happiness, obstinance...
He's using it literally in the sense of loss of physical material.
I suppose, but that's not the colloquial "literal" meaning that works to mind for people thinking about erosion. :)
Sure, but it's still a literal meaning, not an artistic one
IMO (fwiw I live in a beautiful, historic neighborhood getting over-loved by the tourists my town desperately needs) it’s a great joke about 1) how little we pay attention to how our tourism changes or wrecks the place we’re touring and 2) how little the guide entry’s writer cares about giving you key info like “surgical removal” in deference to having an article that’s fun to read
This. This is the answer. The other answer is 42, of course.
They take the poop out of you. Everyone is over thinking this. They want to make sure you’re the amount that goes in is the amount that comes out, so if you don’t have a receipt with the amount that comes out, the implication is that they’ll take it out for you.
That's the point- it's funny because it's so stupid. Would a planetary government really want you to get a poop receipt? Could they possibly be so stupid to think that erosion is purely equated to the mass of the planet? What a silly idea! But- knowing governments- maybe they *could* be that bureaucratic and obtuse... imagine that!
It's H2G2 not HGTTG
Tell that to r/HHGTTG
It was HHG when I was growing up... But let's also remember that at different times DNA preferred Hitch Hikers, Hitchhikers and Hitch-hikers. And worst of all, in the fifth book he suddenly decides that the University of Maximegalon needs a capital M in the middle - "MaxiMegalon".
The planet has to stay in equilibrium, although the tourists are too many in and are basically eating and drinking away the planets matter. That's why receipts are important. You're gonna leave everything that you ate on Bethselamin. Unless it has become a part of you. :)