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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

#321

Post by exporectomy »

gbrown wrote: post #288
Grimm1 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind providing me some of that research? I've heard this a few times but when I go looking for it nothing really pops up, it's mostly things saying we need to act now but can avoid the biggest issues.

Pick an area of science which intersects with human development and I'll find you something - the underlying truth is that we can't hope to disrupt such a huge percentage of our biosphere without nasty consequences, and we can't hope to have remediation efforts compete with the global engine of human development. We've essentially organized an entire global society around the injection of carbon into the atmosphere,…

How bad are "nasty consequences" and "the world burns"? Maybe it doesn't matter if those things happen.

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

#322

Post by jamiek88 »

xwolfi wrote: post #264
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…

But we know about it and we can't exchange on how unspecial we are, you maybe in the US and me here in China. Potentially, one of us could even decide to stop being a parasite and scale down, move to the forest and live naked as a result. My personal theory is that we're nature way of extending beyond earth. Yes we're a funghi, but a clever enough one we can be the earth's tentacle to go spread beyond.

Yes I like that! A little tentative fungi cell trying to get to Mars and from there, the galaxy.

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

#323

Post by jamiek88 »

Vrondi wrote: post #182
jfk13 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Humans are essentially a collective of symbiotic organisms which have been working together for so very long that some are no longer distinguishable as separate. We know that we have DNA that came from external sources. We know that we carry around a host of bacteria that are vital to our life and health. Somehow all of this (Scientifically speaking)results in an entity with a sense of "I". If you aren't thinking abo…

Even mitochondria were external beings originally.

In a real sense we are a joint venture.

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

#324

Post by gbrown »

exporectomy wrote: post #314
gbrown wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"way way behind" and "pretty bleak" are completely subjective and thus meaningless for trying to understand nature. If you can't quantify it, you're only able to think using feelings and feelings can't tell you important answers like what we should do. They can make you believe you know what we should do, but you'll be wrong because your feelings won't be accurately tuned to the reality.

Congratulations, you've discovered that I'm commenting on an internet forum rather than submitting something for publication. My assessment is based on my own reading, and on being involved in conservation efforts and trying to stay educated generally. Sorry I didn't prepare a set of bullet points for you, and instead went with an informal an easily intelligible lay summary.

To the best of my knowledge, my language (while imprecise) is completely and totally uncontroversial in the scientific community.

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

#325

Post by heartbeats »

gbrown wrote: post #319
exporectomy wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be sustainable on a longer time scale than you're thinking of. For instance, perhaps we use fossil fuels to provide the value needed to find new sustainable sources of energy. Could we really make nuclear fusion reactors without ever having first burnt a lot of coal and oil? Lots of things are unsustainable in the short term but sustainable in the long term. Hunter-gathering for instance. If you pick the berri…

That's some excellent wishful thinking, and I hope you're right. Meanwhile, I've read plenty of articles suggesting that we're likely in for unavoidable and hugely disruptive warming, at the very least, and I don't currently see us globally acting quickly enough. I've also taken an amateur interest in ecology and the natural sciences, and once you actually learn a bit about the species around you, the loss of habitat…

I've never understood why people wouldn't just figure something out as global warming gets worse.

There's lots of nuclear power plants out there, shut down for political reasons, that'd be ready to go in weeks if you didn't have all the anti-nuclear protests, for starters.

There's also geo-engineering and such - spraying black stuff in the atmosphere to reduce the amount of incoming sunlight.

The idea that humanity couldn't deal with this situation if it spent anywhere in the ballpark of 100% of its resources on it seems to me frankly laughable.

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

#326

Post by exporectomy »

gbrown wrote: post #319
exporectomy wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be sustainable on a longer time scale than you're thinking of. For instance, perhaps we use fossil fuels to provide the value needed to find new sustainable sources of energy. Could we really make nuclear fusion reactors without ever having first burnt a lot of coal and oil? Lots of things are unsustainable in the short term but sustainable in the long term. Hunter-gathering for instance. If you pick the berri…

That's some excellent wishful thinking, and I hope you're right. Meanwhile, I've read plenty of articles suggesting that we're likely in for unavoidable and hugely disruptive warming, at the very least, and I don't currently see us globally acting quickly enough. I've also taken an amateur interest in ecology and the natural sciences, and once you actually learn a bit about the species around you, the loss of habitat…

You're big on worrying about problems which you seem to only have subjective feelings about the severity of. How do you know "hugely disruptive warming" is bad enough to be worth all that worry or worth people paying a high price to try to prevent?

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

#327

Post by splonk »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #306
splonk wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two biggest "wow" reactions I ever heard at Google's company wide meetings were from the Keyhole/Google Earth demo right after they were acquired, and the first Google Maps demo with scrollable maps. IIRC the Keyhole demo started with the full planet view from space and then did a smooth continuous scroll into the Grand Canyon. Pretty mindblowing back in 2005 or thereabouts.

Interesting to think: What demos are happening now that elicit a similar response?

I don't believe this was the UI that was eventually released, but I got a demo of an Glass prototype where the way to interact was to focus your vision on the buttons in the corner of the virtual screen to click. When the guy told me that, at first I thought "you've got to be kidding me" and very shortly thereafter it was "holy shit this is awesome."

That reminds me, a couple years ago I ran into a guy working for a company that could wirelessly power displays in a contact lens. Not remotely practical and I think it was maybe a couple hundred pixels at most, but definitely more of that living in future vibe.

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

#328

Post by overboard2 »

pojzon wrote: post #242
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…

We have one extremely important trait that makes us a lil bit different than regular bacteria. We are mostly lead by greed and not a need of growth. This is ofcourse not the case for all individuals but good enough portion.

Greed seems like a slightly more individualistic version of a need for growth. The only reason that we don't call the behavior of bacteria greedy is that they're not sentient.

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

#330

Post by sellyme »

heartbeats wrote: post #325
gbrown wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some excellent wishful thinking, and I hope you're right. Meanwhile, I've read plenty of articles suggesting that we're likely in for unavoidable and hugely disruptive warming, at the very least, and I don't currently see us globally acting quickly enough. I've also taken an amateur interest in ecology and the natural sciences, and once you actually learn a bit about the species around you, the loss of habitat…

I've never understood why people wouldn't just figure something out as global warming gets worse. There's lots of nuclear power plants out there, shut down for political reasons, that'd be ready to go in weeks if you didn't have all the anti-nuclear protests, for starters. There's also geo-engineering and such - spraying black stuff in the atmosphere to reduce the amount of incoming sunlight. The idea that humanity c…

> I've never understood why people wouldn't just figure something out as global warming gets worse.

We've just seen first-hand evidence that millions of people could be dying and some would find it politically expedient to pretend that it wasn't actually occurring.

We absolutely have the resources and capability to solve these problems. We just don't have the will or the policy.

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