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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

#211

Post by sillysaurusx »

ledauphin wrote: post #203
gbrown wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? In a word, sustainable. An advanced civilization should be able to develop in a coordinated and self sustaining way, rather than as a grand experiment in tragedy of the commons. Microbes don’t coordinate their growth, and therefore fall into boom-bust cycles that dominate and exhaust their local environment. Hu…

I agree that it's _possible_ we're headed for the boom-bust cycle that you're talking about, but unlike microbes that's a hypothesis, not a scientifically verifiable fact, as humans have never (to my knowledge) experienced the sort of planet-wide bust that you're implying.

One interesting counterexample is the Bronze Age collapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq4G-7v-_xI&ab_channel=Histo...

I'm not sure if it's technically a counterexample, but it's fascinating. Society seemed to collapse due to a series of causes, more or less unexplained to this day. (We have hypotheses, but it's still something of a mystery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples)

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

#212

Post by 7952 »

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…

I guess what makes humans different is that culture can let us go beyond our phenotype. And whilst it may look simplistically deterministic it really isnt. For example in the UK a lot of development clusters around old WWII airfields. The pattern of development is a result of aircraft needing flat places for runways. Runways that were needed because of a complex geopolitical conflict. And then selected for development due to politics. Slime molds don't do that.

To suggest we are somehow not different is another kind of arrogance. We absolutely are and that gives us a unique level of agency and control. That is brilliant and scary. We are able to turn down the thermostat of an entire planet (reduce co2). That kind of culturally motivated intervention is completely unprecedented and totally different to historic humans and other species.

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

#213

Post by FredPret »

7e wrote: post #208
FredPret wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

A substantial amount of Earth's resources would need to be eviscerated to accomplish that goal, the the space colonies are extremely likely to fail anyway, in the end.

You’re right, fuck it, let’s just all die without trying instead

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

#214

Post by scubbo »

globular-toast wrote: post #167
kortilla wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we’re the same if you ignore a bunch of important differences. Growing our own food, not reproducing rapidly during food excess, etc.

We don't grow our food. The chloroplast inside plants that we live around grow it. Fungi can do the same thing. See lichen, for example.

Did you honestly believe that the person you are replying to was under the mistaken impression that humans photosynthesize, or were you instead choosing to willfully misinterpret their shorthand phrase standing in for "engaging in agriculture"?

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

#215

Post by ajmurmann »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101
ajmurmann wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because individual motivation and macro-behavior aren't necessity aligned, individual understanding might not be enough to changes behavior of the system as a whole. Maybe individual bacteria understand the impact they might have on a host system and are concerned about outcomes as well. I sometimes think that it is a valid mental model to think of us as not much different from ants in a hive who think they possess m…

> I sometimes think that it is a valid mental model to think of us as not much different from ants in a hive who think they possess more control and freedom than they do I think it is the opposite. We are different from ants, and have a lot of control and freedom, so we know that if others will not make the sacrifice, why should we? In an ant colony, I imagine the orders are being given top down and they do not think…

As I understand it, ants and other similar it's like bees don't have a hierarchical structure that issues orders. Instead they follow quasi-baked in behavioral patterns and pheromone signals provided by peers.

I'm not a biologist though and also have no experience in what it's like to be a bee or ant

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

#216

Post by slacktide »

Pretty cool. Just the other day I was using timelapse to research the history of an aircraft radio navigation aid that used to be around the corner from my house. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-frequency_radio_range It had been part of the four-course radio range network, which was discontinued in the 1960s. The transmitter site was identifiable until 2006 when it was developed for housing.

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

#217

Post by pirocks »

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.

I believe this is actually a thing that Google implemented as part of a googling game. I don't have the link on me right now sorry.

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

#219

Post by stared »

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…

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure." - Agent Smith, The Matrix

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

#220

Post by joeberon »

jayd16 wrote: post #75
Impossible wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has bailed on VR apps (for the most part, Owlchemy is still there), so I imagine not. It'd be cool if Google Earth VR was opensource like Tiltbrush. Like Tiltbrush it was one of the foundational early VR apps that people demoed, it's fun to imagine a world where Google continued to put money into VR, but I'm actually not sure how that fits into their business outside of just another platform for Android.

>Google has bailed on VR apps Yeah, whats up with that? Unless its all under wraps, Google is letting what lead they had whither away. Its silly to think they had working inside out tracking (Tango) in 2014.

It's standard Google practise to abandon old projects and move onto fresh new ones. It's due to how the internal promotion system works. Everyone should be aware of this by now..
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