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Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

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Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#131

Post by hycaria »

daemoens wrote: post #13
nullifidian wrote: post #4

>unfold and witness nearly four decades of planetary change. four decades of meaningless uncontrolled overpopulation, destruction of pristine nature and its ecosystems, a march of techno-globalism across the planet. Every time I see these timelapses it depresses me quite a bit.

Overpopulation isn't really a problem currently.

With our western ressource and energy consumption, and nuclear family lifestyle, it kinda is. I wish there were less people and that we could keep using cars and the internet, and eating meat. Instead we have more people, accelerating the rush for resources (water in third world, or for us developed countries, housing).

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#132

Post by ehsankia »

saurik wrote: post #83
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #40

I kinda wish that there was a timelapse for Google search. Search seems to be heavily biased towards stuff popular right now. It seems older things disappear fairly quickly. I've been in a position where I wanted to search for a website that was popular in 2012 without having the exact name, and having to find an old forum post that linked to it to find it.

Google Search does let you limit the results to old sites (though I realize this isn't quite equivalent).

At the very least, I wish they would update the UI for that. Every time I want to use it, it's like 4-5 clicks and very hard to use. I wish they could just give a nice timeline and let you slide across a given range, and maybe also see a graph of the activity (basically like Google Trends)

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#133

Post by fooker »

ehsankia wrote: post #118
jdkee wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the growth of humanity contains much more complexity than that of a slime mold to be honest. Uncountably so.

Right, obviously as scale goes up, much more complexity is needed to maintain the same level of behavior. A bit like how unicellular organisms can replicate simply, but humans need to go through a whole process to make an offspring. This Game of Life video shows what I mean perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 Yes, there's a ton of complexity in there, but when you zoom out enough, it looks and acts…

Wow this is awesome! Thanks.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#134

Post by matthewcanty »

keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

It'z funny that I often compare the way things are to spots|zits. Something I do quietly to myself, in my own mind :-)

Too much/little X causes outbursts of Y.

The question is, has Earth got a few spots lurking behind the earlobes. Or is there a feature-length episode of Dr Pimple Popper taking place?

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#135

Post by FredPret »

Grimm1 wrote: post #100
keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

You can say the same thing about ant colonies. I think it's probably just what anything that groups and branches around resource deposits looks like. If I recall slime molds are optimal planners regarding surrounding resources so it just sounds like a natural optimality to me. I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? Looking at it is disparagingly is we…

I couldn’t agree more regarding misanthropy.

I would like to note though that if we start mining and settling space, our growth would in fact be essentially unbounded.

Combined with the fact that some types of stars are expected to continue radiating energy for trillions of years...

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#136

Post by jfk13 »

ModernMech wrote: post #123
keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

Makes me think about this recent thread: "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9905847 The bacteria within us certainly don't know anything about our consciousness. Yet somehow the sum total of their activity results in a conscious being. If we as humans look and act like bacteria when we zoom out, do we suffer the same myopia of our bacteria friends, u…

> Yet somehow the sum total of their activity results in a conscious being

That seems like a slightly peculiar idea of what a conscious being is.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#137

Post by matthewcanty »

ModernMech wrote: post #123
keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

Makes me think about this recent thread: "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9905847 The bacteria within us certainly don't know anything about our consciousness. Yet somehow the sum total of their activity results in a conscious being. If we as humans look and act like bacteria when we zoom out, do we suffer the same myopia of our bacteria friends, u…

I think you could be right. At least, we know but choose or are too lazy to do anything about it.

Recently I've found myself too stressed to even think about it. Too many stresses in life and I can do without the planet for now.

Totally selfish I know, but I'll get back to it when other things have died down.

I think what we need is something which helps us recognise the issues. Not only that but show us what we can do to help! We have to understand at a micro-level, how we can make an impact in aggregate.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#139

Post by StavrosK »

saurik wrote: post #78
StavrosK wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the GP, but I use a Quest 2.

Via Link? (I hadn't ever gotten around to verifying that would work. I partly ask, as the Google Earth VR experience was particularly epic in a way the Google Street View app--which was available on Quest--was not, even if the latter still causes a feeling of wonder in me... and the GP is talking about street view and people surrounding their position and the such.)

Wirelessly, actually, via ALVR.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#140

Post by seppin »

mmaunder wrote: post #128
keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

And,technically speaking, cities are an infestation of humans.

Pretty dirty ones, at that.
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