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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

#271

Post by smt1 »

ishjoh wrote: post #266
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…

Are you suggesting government mandated population control?

Sustainable development eans more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy to me.

Information systems are very important in this regard IMHO. For most of human history information was a weapon.

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

#272

Post by jcrites »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #211
ledauphin wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

Wasn't it hypothesized that the collapse was due to an Ice Age? I thought there was strong geological evidence for that, and the challenges it put on human population, but I don't know enough about history to place the last Ice Age on a timeline relative to the Bronze Age without doing research.

Update: Upon some brief research, the last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago, whereas the Bronze Age Collapse was around 1200 BCE. So totally unrelated.

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

#273

Post by throwaway3699 »

tkinom wrote: post #265
drivebycomment wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think humanity is, and has been going through a collective learning experience over thousands of years, and any "advanced" civilization will necessarily have to go through a similar phase to get to that "advanced" stage. So while it's true humanity can do better, I think this - the global coordination challenge - is fundamental and irremovable in any collection of self-interested individuals.

Google needs to start the "Google Mars" time-lapse database now.

http://mars.google.com/

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

#274

Post by selimthegrim »

jcrites wrote: post #272
sillysaurusx wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

Wasn't it hypothesized that the collapse was due to an Ice Age? I thought there was strong geological evidence for that, and the challenges it put on human population, but I don't know enough about history to place the last Ice Age on a timeline relative to the Bronze Age without doing research. Update: Upon some brief research, the last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago, whereas the Bronze Age Collapse was around…

You might want to look up the Younger Dryas

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

#275

Post by D-Coder »

stared wrote: post #219
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 c…

Agent Smith is wrong. Every organism does this — that's how life works. Population crashes are common among many species, rabbits to rats. Trees produce a million seeds. Grasses expand into areas that juuuust barely support them. The "natural equilibrium" is not at all steady.

And let's remember that Agent Smith is itself attempting to take over the world.

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

#276

Post by selimthegrim »

yesenadam wrote: post #202
frereubu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always been fond of Bill Hicks’ description of humanity as “a virus with shoes.”

I raise you HL Mencken's "since the first 'advanced' gorilla put on underwear, cultivated a frown and began his first lecture tour"! Here's the paragraph, from a much longer piece: Man’s natural instinct, in fact, is never toward what is sound and true; it is toward what is specious and false. Let any great nation of modern times be confronted by two conflicting propositions, the one grounded upon the utmost probabil…

Wait until you discover Ambrose Bierce

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

#277

Post by yesenadam »

selimthegrim wrote: post #276
yesenadam wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I raise you HL Mencken's "since the first 'advanced' gorilla put on underwear, cultivated a frown and began his first lecture tour"! Here's the paragraph, from a much longer piece: Man’s natural instinct, in fact, is never toward what is sound and true; it is toward what is specious and false. Let any great nation of modern times be confronted by two conflicting propositions, the one grounded upon the utmost probabil…

Wait until you discover Ambrose Bierce

The Devil's Dictionary[0] has long been one of my favourites—did he write anything else as good?

[0] e.g. "OCCIDENT: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient."

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/972/972-h/972-h.htm

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

#278

Post by gbrown »

Grimm1 wrote: post #255
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…

But we're moving towards sustainability. Whether it's fast enough is up to interpretation but the push for green tech, sustainable farming etc etc it's not like this is an unknown, it's just always been the case that it must be sufficiently cheap and easy for the average person to latch onto it. Unfortunately in a lot of areas we're getting there but not there yet.

The near universal consensus of people who study natural systems is that we’re way, way, way behind. Unfortunately the science is pretty bleak.

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

#279

Post by momirlan »

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…

Agent Smith : "humans are just another virus"

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

#280

Post by siculars »

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 don't think it is possible for humans to be optimal vs, say, slime. Slime, presumably, does not have incentive structure that individual humans collude in at their benefit to the detriment of others. For example, why did the US build roads at the expense of rail? The incentive structure of the auto industry.
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