[HN Gopher] Time flies in Google Earth's biggest update in years
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Time flies in Google Earth's biggest update in years
Author : braymundo
Score : 757 points
Date : 2021-04-15 15:05 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| r34 wrote:
| I predict ML models predicting how will the Earth look like in
| the future:) loads of fun!
| Nition wrote:
| Wasn't this exact feature already at
| https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse ?
|
| Previous discussion from eight months ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24005047
|
| There's also the "Historical Imagery" feature in the downloaded
| version of Google Earth ("Google Earth Pro") which has even more
| detail. I get that there's some benefit to making it more visible
| as a feature in the browser version of Google Earth though.
| neither_color wrote:
| _With Timelapse in Google Earth, 24 million satellite photos from
| the past 37 years have been compiled into an interactive 4D
| experience. Now anyone can watch time unfold and witness nearly
| four decades of planetary change._
|
| This is amazing, will this be included in the VR versions of
| google earth? For those who haven't tried it yet Google Earth is
| the first thing I show friends who've never tried VR before by
| giving them a Godzilla's eye view of Tokyo. I've yet to find
| someone who doesn't ":o"
| Impossible wrote:
| 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.
| gpspake wrote:
| It's a shame. Google Earth on VR is probably the most amazing
| and practical use for VR for normal people at the moment. I
| like to street-view in to other countries and stand in the
| middle of crowded places with people around me imagining that
| it's a thousand years from now and humanity is gone and it's
| the documentation of life on earth.
|
| I've had good times passing the headset around in a room full
| of people to share places we've been.
|
| It's also cool to look down, as a giant, at paths you've
| taken irl and get a sense of scale.
|
| I love google earth in VR
| ourcat wrote:
| Google Earth VR is fantastic. Especially during the
| lockdowns. It felt like going out! ;)
|
| I'm wondering if the Timelapse will get added to it.
|
| (Used on a Quest 1 and 2 over Virtual Desktop to a PC)
| lwhi wrote:
| I also love it in VR. Will this be rolled out as a VR
| update?
| derekdahmer wrote:
| I've lost literal hours zooming along railway lines from
| the city the suburbs to the country then back to the city.
| ngokevin wrote:
| It's an absolutely amazing experience especially for first
| timers (once they figure out the controls). But like most
| things with VR, you use it a few times and forget it about
| (besides giving demos here and there).
| vidar wrote:
| What headset did you use?
| StavrosK wrote:
| I don't know about the GP, but I use a Quest 2.
| saurik wrote:
| 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.)
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| I have yet to run into anything on Steam VR that won't
| work on the Quest 2 with a link cable
| crazygringo wrote:
| Of course the kicker is that you need Steam VR.
|
| Which is PC-only, no Macs.
| [deleted]
| StavrosK wrote:
| Wirelessly, actually, via ALVR.
| jayd16 wrote:
| >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.
| ehsankia wrote:
| "Bailed" is a bit over the top. I would characterize it
| more as being at a stand still.
|
| Earth VR and Tilt Brush are still around, and as mentioned
| about, Tilt Brush is even open sourced. They just haven't
| had as much interest making new stuff. VR didn't pick up
| the way most hoped it would, and at this point there isn't
| really much to do until we get another wave of innovation
| that pushes the boundary forward.
|
| Also Tango was more AR than VR. I don't think they ever had
| any lead in VR. Cardboard was neat but just that.
| Impossible wrote:
| Tiltbrush is opensource, but not actively being
| maintained by Google and hasn't been for a long time.
| Some of the original team is involved in maintaining an
| opensource fork, however, but this is not a Google
| product. Daydream was sunset a while ago and cardboard
| support has stopped also. VR is an interesting category
| for Google because there are often no services to
| maintain in VR apps. So, like an indie developer with a
| failed game, they can leave their VR apps on the Steam
| store with zero maintainence as long as SteamVR works.
| There are zero employees working on Google's VR apps
| except for Owlchemy, which I suspect is still around
| because they cost very little or they're profitable.
| Google Poly, which is a service related to VR, is getting
| shutdown.
|
| As for VR not picking up, it didn't pick up on startup
| folks timeline but there has been steady growth in the
| market and it's close to sustainable for many developers.
| Facebook, Valve, Sony, Microsoft and Apple have been more
| persistent and came in with realistic expectations. I
| think this is a case where Google was premature entering
| the market and also premature exiting. If they re-enter
| they'll probably look like Microsoft trying to re-enter
| the mobile or tablet market in the 2010s after not
| succeeding in the 90s and 2000s. That's not to say that
| VR will "take over the world" like smartphones, but its
| on its way to evolving into a sustainable category with a
| variety of compelling use cases.
| joeberon wrote:
| 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..
| 101008 wrote:
| I have a Play Station VR headset and it's awesome but I always
| felt sad that I coudln't experience this. How is the
| experience? I know a lot of friends felt sick when we play a
| space videogame or some game where the environment isn't clear
| and they can't see where they are standing, I guess having a
| view from outer space can trigger same feelings.
| andybak wrote:
| It's got the usual "comfort controls" (i.e. vignetting while
| moving). If you leave those switched on then it's OK for
| people that haven't got their VR legs yet.
|
| But - yeah - with everything switched off it can be at the
| "intense" end of the spectrum.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| It's amazing.
|
| The motion sickness factor isn't zero, but its' small.
| hawk_ wrote:
| Are there headsets other than HTC Vive and Oculus Rift that
| work with it?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| It works on all the usual suspects (anything that supports
| SteamVR). Valve Index, HP Reverb G2, WMR headsets, Oculus
| Quest (via link cable or wifi streaming) etc
| crazygringo wrote:
| I can't find any way to get it to work with the Quest on my
| Mac. (Short of installing Bootcamp that is.)
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Unfortunately SteamVR dropped Mac support last year
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Any headset that can use SteamVR, so like, damn near all of
| them
| pow_pp_-1_v wrote:
| That's pretty cool!
|
| Like it or not Google does all this with the ad money they bring
| in. Imagine if all Google service were subscription based. Will
| they even have 25% of the capabilities they have now?
| dmos62 wrote:
| Ads are ok. Subscription would be too. It's the monopoly that's
| generating all this throw-around cash.
| andrew_v4 wrote:
| I agree with you, its something only possible because they are
| throwing off cash. But is it worth them having turned much of
| the internet into a cesspit?
|
| I'm conflicted. On one hand you could argue it's like some
| dictatorship putting on lavish parades while conditions in
| their regime are generally terrible (I'm not trying to compare
| the magnitude of the problem, just the idea that having
| something fancy to show doesn't necessarily cancel out all the
| harm done)
|
| Or is it a natural positive byproduct of capitalism that the
| internet has garbage strewn corners filled with listicles and
| "content" alongside genuinely cool stuff. And trying to clamp
| down on this would just make everything mediocre.
|
| Anyway, there are definitely lots of good things Google had
| done, in research, in public availability of tech, and in cool
| stuff like this. Are we making the right tradeoff against all
| the bad they have done, I don't know.
| pow_pp_-1_v wrote:
| FWIW, I was not trying to pass a value judgement on whether
| Google, on net, is good or bad. It was just a thought I had
| when I saw the time lapse thing.
|
| But I don't think Google turned internet into a cesspit. Yes,
| Youtube's recommendation algorithms are pretty bad. But there
| other actors who deserver a bigger share of the blame.
| dharmaturtle wrote:
| Are we blaming listicles on Google now?
|
| There's plenty of shit to throw at Google (Timnit Gebru).
| Let's not dilute concrete criticisms with bland whatevers
| like "turned much of the internet into a cesspit".
| npteljes wrote:
| I appreciate the cool stuff, but I could also accept a reality
| where there's much less tracking going on, and Google Earth and
| smartphones are less impressive.
| nullifidian wrote:
| >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.
| system16 wrote:
| While I don't disagree, you're not exactly a spectator. If
| you're on a computer in a western country, you are in the top
| percentage of the world contributing not so insignificantly to
| this problem.
|
| People sitting in traffic complaining about traffic or cancer
| cells complaining about the devastation caused by cancer sounds
| a bit silly.
| OrbitRock wrote:
| A problem like a traffic jam needs systemic coordinated
| action though to be able to solve. Complaining about the lack
| of perceived ability to get everyone acting is legitimate.
| indymike wrote:
| Something to get excited about: we now have a tool that will be
| used by the world to see the changes. Sometimes a picture can
| be a much more powerful argument than a billion data points.
|
| p.s. username checks out.
| alex_anglin wrote:
| Have a look at mortality and poverty rates globally. There is
| good news, as well as bad.
| lm28469 wrote:
| One could argue a cancer spreading faster is bad news
| alex_anglin wrote:
| I would respectfully suggest that referring to people as 'a
| cancer' says more about the person than whatever point
| they're trying to make.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Humanity as a whole, not individual beings. Our boundless
| quest for growth is clearly getting out of hand on many
| levels. What else exponentially grows until the death of
| its eco system ?
| daemoens wrote:
| Overpopulation isn't really a problem currently.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If you assume total consumption is a problem, and you assume
| that total consumption will not go down because consumption
| per capita will not go down, then the conclusion you end up
| with is overpopulation.
| Rompect wrote:
| Underpopulation is actually the problem in most Western
| countries.
| SamBam wrote:
| Not really sure how you can call it underpopulation. Was
| underpopulation also a problem in the preceding 30,000
| years or so of human civilization in Europe leading up to
| today, when the population has always been always smaller?
|
| The population in Europe is larger than it has ever been in
| any point in history.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Not under-population, per se, but low rates of growth.
| cromwellian wrote:
| Low rates of growth lead to a population collapse in 2
| generations or so and an inverted demographic pyramid
| where mostly old people exist with few youngsters. Not a
| good recipe for the species or a civilization.
|
| Look at predicted population numbers in Japan for
| example.
| SamBam wrote:
| I'm unsure how low rates of growth in Europe will lead to
| a collapse of the species.
| hycaria wrote:
| 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).
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I agree that we're doing things that harm the planet, but I
| downvoted you because it's more complicated than just "there
| are too many people", and "We're cutting down forests".
|
| If you look at the advanced countries, they are often the ones
| who exploited their resources and grew in size early. Britain,
| for instance, slashed their forests generations ago to get
| ahead. The US used to shoot herds of bison from trains. Now
| Britain and the US wag a finger at less developed countries for
| consuming the forests and ecosystems in their countries.
|
| Similar with population growth and the concept of
| 'overpopulation'. If you assert we have overpopulation, you
| _have_ to assert how you 'll address it, and there's no way to
| do that without saying, "Some group of people doesn't get to
| have kids." That seems like a really bad thing to say.
|
| I'm incredibly lefty, a self described socialist and eco-
| socialist, but I believe that we need to think differently than
| just "those people over there are destroying their environments
| and having too many babies!" We could start at home,
| transforming our own economy and society to live less
| exploitatively. We could reduce our own use of meat and dairy,
| for instance. We could ensure we had adequate housing for
| everyone, and medical care for everyone, both of which would
| lead to less waste. We could strictly limit single use
| plastics, remove older dams to improve fish stocks, set aside
| more land for forests, etc.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The overpopulation crowd is like a meta-NIMBY. People with
| high income, "concern" for various problems, and who are
| amused by their toys and aren't family oriented usually fall
| into that position.
|
| Of course, like all NIMBY types, _their_ consumption of air
| and Brazilian hardwoods is just fine.
| dint wrote:
| This is a straw man. There are absolutely people who are
| concerned about both overpopulation, and individual
| overconsumption.
|
| I am one. I limit my personal carbon footprint. I do not
| own a car (and hopefully never will). I rarely eat meat. I
| live in a cheap, inefficient apartment because I'm living
| on a student income, but I keep the heat low to try to
| limit my energy consumption.
|
| I probably won't have kids, because it wouldn't be
| consistent with my concerns about climate change to bring
| another high-consuming American into the world.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Just for the sake of fun and clashing some worldviews, I
| _am_ quite concerned that the population size will be
| shrinking.
|
| As soon as some nation makes contraceptives economically
| available, the native population growth goes negative. Do
| you know many families with three children? Because that
| seems like a minimal number, no?
|
| Immigrants who (1) come when younger, and further (2)
| have more children mask this problem a bit, but their
| supply is limited. (Sorry for my insensitivity, I'm not
| from The West myself.) The easy contraceptives will get
| to even poorest countries in a generation or two. There
| will be a Big Shrink before the narrative of fertility
| takes hold again.
| [deleted]
| rexreed wrote:
| I'd love to see a timelapse over the past 20 years showing
| Google's energy usage / consumption across all their data centers
| and offices.
| bosswipe wrote:
| Google has invested quite a bit into decarbonizing their data
| centers. They do a lot better than AWS for example.
| lanevorockz wrote:
| Propaganda only goes one way. More power to those on the top.
| meowkit wrote:
| Me too.
|
| And then normalize it against the benefit Google provides with
| its services and I bet it would be super clear that they are a
| great use of energy.
| voldemort1968 wrote:
| Is it just me or is this feature not showing up? When I put in my
| address, the little place card on the side doesn't show any
| controls to move through time.
| 2ion wrote:
| You can get there through the "voyager" menu.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| It's a little unintuitive, but seems like you need to search in
| the search box in the timelapse side card panel thing, rather
| than the main search box
| q_andrew wrote:
| The growth of Dubai is crazy, as well as most major Chinese
| cities. What are some interesting, less obvious things to look at
| with this feature?
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Filling of the three gorges dam?
| samstave wrote:
| Or find some of the ghost cities in China as well
|
| Rainforest everything.
|
| Singapore
| q_andrew wrote:
| Also, it's too bad this doesn't go before 1980, because I'd
| love to see how the Mt St Helens eruption affected the
| landscape around it (I know there are pictures, but google maps
| makes it feel more hands-on)
| sbehlasp wrote:
| Outstanding!! now we can have a look at how we all were blessed
| with our planet (history) and what we have had done to it.
| Hopefully we all contribute to restore it for better future...
| neolog wrote:
| It would be much more useful for learning about climate change if
| the timestamp included the month instead of just the year.
| Nition wrote:
| The original, downloaded version of Google Earth shows the
| month (and has already had a historical imagery feature for the
| long time). Get "Google Earth Pro" (it's still free, that's
| just what they call it now), go to View->Historical Imagery,
| and you can scrub left and right on the slider.
| halfeatenpie wrote:
| This is very fascinating and great. I mean this dataset has been
| available for a while know (from what I recall), but re-packaged
| and organized in this manner would be very useful.
|
| One thing that really stands out to me is the change in our land
| use/environmental changes over time. You can even see the
| different reservoir levels for various years and can
| "guesstimate" what year certain droughts were.
|
| I'm sure there's some amazing ideas to use this tool, I'm just
| excited about it.
| amelius wrote:
| Nice, but it would be even nicer with emissions data, e.g. from
| ESA's Sentinel-5P satellite:
|
| https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni...
| nynx wrote:
| Looking at Google earth always gives me a feeling that I suspect
| is similar--though lesser--to what astronauts feel when they look
| down at earth.
| lanevorockz wrote:
| Already had this tool for over a decade. Why did google took so
| long to implement it ? Anyways, better late than never.
| thrower123 wrote:
| For most places, this looks to be incredibly low-resolution at
| present. It's still kind of interesting to watch chunks of forest
| that my dad clearcut twenty years ago regenerate though.
| log101 wrote:
| I found the video unneccesserialy dramatic.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Quite bearable without sound. Nowadays I default to watching
| Youtube muted, unless it's music.
| slacktide wrote:
| 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.
| macando wrote:
| Google Earth often is the most mind-blowing thing for the people
| who never used the Internet in their lives.
|
| I don't use it often but I have to say that it's one of the
| delivered promises of the Internet. It's tech done right.
|
| What an outstanding video.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| It makes the loss of the Amazon rain forest actually tangible
| instead of some vague conception of 10% gone.
|
| This is outstanding.
| OrbitRock wrote:
| There's lots of great tools to explore such things as well.
|
| https://www.globalforestwatch.org/
|
| https://earthenginepartners.appspot.com/science-2013-global-...
|
| I built an app which visualizes global fire history per year
| from 2001 to 2020, still working out some kinks but maybe will
| share here.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| I'm no fan of the deforestation that is being shown here, but for
| a Westerner to tell people in the Global South to not deforest is
| hypocritical and economically deceitful. Look at pretty much all
| of Europe and the Eastern United States. It has almost been all
| deforested and replaced with farmland at some point. Agriculture
| is an important step in a county's economic stability and
| progress. Some trees need to be cut down and that land be turned
| into farmland to help that developing county's citizens. Imagine
| being a poor framer supporting a growing family with an
| opportunity to grow more of your crop by cutting down some trees
| and having rich white people in a post scarcity society telling
| you you're a bad person.
| bricemo wrote:
| Bill Gates covers this extensively in his recent excellent
| book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Even if all the rich
| world countries went to emissions zero, that wouldn't be
| enough, because the developing world needs to continue to
| develop. This is a good thing but it is a problem of progress,
| and underscores how complicated the solution is
| varispeed wrote:
| He is one of those do as I say, not as I do type of toxic
| people (e.g. tells everyone to cut emissions while himself
| enjoying private jet flights). I don't feel that he is
| genuine, but for entertainment value could be worth a try.
| GcVmvNhBsU wrote:
| He also does a lot to offset his private jets.
|
| > I have a higher-than-average carbon footprint, so I'm
| taking extra steps to do my part. In the book I briefly
| mention how I'm offsetting my own emissions. I spend about
| $5 million every year to offset my family's carbon
| footprint. As of now, the standard calculation for carbon
| footprints is based on an estimate of $400 per ton of
| emissions. But since the way we calculate carbon footprints
| is still in its infancy, I take our family's carbon
| footprint and double it to make sure we are fully covering
| our footprint and then some.
|
| > I also like to think of my investments in zero-carbon
| technologies as another kind of offset for my emissions.
| Investing in companies doesn't make my carbon footprint
| smaller. But if I've picked any winners, they'll be
| responsible for removing much more carbon than I am
| responsible for creating. I have given more than $1 billion
| toward innovations and ideas that I hope will help the
| world get to zero--including affordable and reliable clean
| energy, low-emissions cement, steel, meat, and more.
|
| https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/What-you-can-do-to-
| fight-c...
| varispeed wrote:
| > I spend about $5 million every year to offset my
| family's carbon footprint.
|
| It's not like this money magically got created. In order
| for him to have $5 million, someone had to pay it, maybe
| by creating even more pollution. At least he is aware
| that he is doing bad thing, but the attitude "I am rich,
| so I can" is narcissistic and wrong.
| otterley wrote:
| You're treating economics as a zero-sum game, which is
| false. The world as a whole is _significantly_ better off
| than it was before, and we cannot attribute all of our
| productivity and qualify-of-life gains solely to the
| exploitation of natural resources and oppressing people.
|
| Does terrible things happen as a result of moral hazard?
| Sure. But does anyone who earns a dollar take a dollar
| from someone else, or the world, to obtain it? No.
| FourthProtocol wrote:
| He's done more than most -ref. Polio eradication, his
| (foundations') work on malaria... What have you done in
| this space? I know I've done shamefully little, but ride an
| electric scooter and take my son to school and back in a
| Bakfiets, trips I used to make in the car.
| SamBam wrote:
| Are the 200,000 acres of rainforest being cut down each day
| being cut down by "poor framers supporting growing families" or
| by mega-corporations?
| varispeed wrote:
| > and having rich white people telling you you're a bad person.
|
| While their predecessors done exactly the same.
|
| Rich people become gatekeepers. If everyone could be rich, then
| they wouldn't be so special anymore. That's why they lobby for
| high taxes (with appropriate loopholes, so they don't pay them,
| but anyone who starts from 0 won't get rich), excessive
| regulation (so that poor man's company will never be able to
| compete) and other measures to keep population "in check".
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is why we need a plan to build enough cities in the United
| States for a billion citizens and swap land in the "global
| south" for a free home and prompt citizenship. We can't just
| let the world's lungs be cut down by the logic that we made the
| same mistake 200 years ago.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Look at pretty much all of Europe ...
|
| Europe is actually reforesting, and not by a little bit either:
|
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/...
|
| http://coffeespoons.me/2014/12/the-reforestation-of-europe/
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Google Earth may be one of the most wondrous things ever created.
| When else in human history can you zoom in on the entire
| geography of the Earth, and now the timelapsed geography of the
| Earth? Can you imagine what someone like Socrates, Newton,
| Galileo, or Darwin would say using this tool?
| khazhoux wrote:
| > Can you imagine what someone like Socrates, Newton, Galileo,
| or Darwin would say using this tool?
|
| "Does it run on Linux?"
| paxys wrote:
| Agreed. I remember Google Earth's initial release (called
| Keyhole at the time I think) as one of the times my mind was
| genuinely blown by technology. "Holy shit I can zoom in to my
| front yard!!"
|
| Funny enough I also remember thinking that it was only a matter
| of time before they changed it to a live feed and we would all
| have to be more careful about drawing our curtains a little
| better.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Visualising the Earth at planet scale is incredible. I was
| blown away when the first wind map [1] made it's way onto HN
| almost a decade ago. I always thought of wind being localised
| but to see all the currents flow across the USA was soooo cool.
| It's inspired me to work on my own map of live mountain shadows
| across the Earth (link in my user profile if you're interested)
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3767889
| OrbitRock wrote:
| Woah, your shade map is awesome! I was playing around with it
| for a long time there, lol.
| splonk wrote:
| 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.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Many years ago I visited the International Spy Museum in DC,
| and one of the last exhibits was a terminal with this brand new
| amazing thing by a little company called Keyhole, and somehow
| it was more amazing than any number of hidden bugs or weapons.
|
| Later, seeing Google Earth, I was like "Wait I've used this
| before."
| mschuetz wrote:
| I consider Google Earth something like a modern digital world
| wonder. These things are absolutely amazing, especially in VR.
| doersino wrote:
| I've built a Twitter bot around these timelapses a while ago -
| just updated to use the newly released data set:
| https://twitter.com/earthacrosstime
|
| You can take a look at the source code here if you're interested:
| https://github.com/doersino/earthacrosstime
| swyx wrote:
| feedback - the bot might be a bit more compelling if it
| reported the city it is focusing on. hard to tell.
| theknocker wrote:
| Eat shit, corporation so evil and dystopian that it's like
| satire.
| cozzyd wrote:
| ok, but what about reaching parity with the desktop version?
| [deleted]
| faldore wrote:
| why they have to make it political. why not just show information
| without spinning it.
| izolate wrote:
| Most striking to me is that Google registered a custom TLD (.gle)
| just to use as a URL shortener. Impressive use of funds.
| jamespwilliams wrote:
| In theory Google could serve their URL shortening service on
| the root of their .google TLD (links like
| https://google/xyz123).
|
| Would probably break some apps which don't correctly handle
| TLD-only domain names though, I suppose.
| hobofan wrote:
| IIRC, once you've proven that you can reliably run a registry
| (which Google does anyway for their other TLDs), the
| application and fees for an additional TLD is much cheaper than
| you would expect (5-low 6 figures/year)
| detritus wrote:
| I want to love this, but the interface is too opaque.
|
| How on GoogleEarth do I get back the timeline option that I've
| somehow closed?
|
| I'm probably being an idiot, but I'm not a total idiot, and it's
| not at all clear to me how I access the timeline now.
|
| The "I'm feeling lucky" icon is WAY too prominent. A misclick
| there quickly screws whatever it was I was just looking at.
| lastgeniusua wrote:
| anyone still believing global warming could be stopped, and more
| than that, stopped with capitalism?
| simias wrote:
| This is really cool. However I'm going to bring you the
| Traditional HN Nitpick: it's very odd to see Google use these
| horribly over-compressed gifs over proper videos:
| https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/ori...
| judge2020 wrote:
| Ya, it seems like someone really wanted a gif and threw it in a
| free video -> gif converter. Gifs can have over 256 colors
| (with some tricks) or they could have used `video autoplay loop
| muted` and achieved the same effect.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I don't think the surprise is they made a bad gif as much as
| they used gif at all considering this is the company that
| literally made vp9 and webm for this exact use case.
| krm01 wrote:
| This is the stuff I'd like to see Google do more of. Build things
| that are true to their mission of Collecting and organising the
| world's information. Truly remarkable.
| [deleted]
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| 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.
| thrower123 wrote:
| I miss the ability to get the cached version of a page easily,
| without having to jump into the advanced search settings - if
| it is even possible to do that anymore, they may have pulled it
| completely.
| pirocks wrote:
| 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.
| saurik wrote:
| Google Search does let you limit the results to old sites
| (though I realize this isn't quite equivalent).
| ehsankia wrote:
| 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)
| Black101 wrote:
| A time-lapse of the search algorithm is what I would like to
| see
| gipp wrote:
| Given that the set of possible searches is unbounded, first
| instinct is that the whole system would have had to be
| designed around that use case from the bottom up for the
| problem to be remotely tractable
| Black101 wrote:
| a git history of Google's code would suit me
| dweekly wrote:
| I hear you - it would probably need to be cross integrated with
| web.archive.org in order to actually vend most results given
| how rapidly we are seeing bit rot.
| xnx wrote:
| I think I read somewhere that behind-the-scenes the Google
| crawler is in-effect a super-archive.org, keeping a copy of
| every page it has crawled. This sounds outrageous, but I
| believe it's feasible with compression.
| fudged71 wrote:
| Many of the timelapses uses images from different time of year
| etc so you see different hues across frames. Would it be possible
| to apply something like neural style transfer across the frames
| (from a representative frame) to smooth the colors out without
| changing the features in the frames?
| OrbitRock wrote:
| There's a tool called landtrendr that sort of does this, but
| it's less for visualization than for analysis of trends
|
| https://emapr.github.io/LT-GEE/index.html
| adelarsq wrote:
| Its like to watch the Earth to be destroyed. Afraid from the
| coming years.
| aimor wrote:
| Is this different than the historical imagery feature that was
| introduced in 2009?
|
| I played around with it a bit. Timelapse seems to only exist at
| large scales. I can't seem to resolve anything more detailed than
| a highway. Previously Google had higher resolution historical
| data. I used this to see how my house, neighborhood, and city
| changed over decades. There was black and white photography at
| the far end of the data. This was in the desktop version of
| Google Earth.
|
| I just downloaded the desktop version of Google Earth and was
| happy to find out the historical data is still available there.
| :) Hope that makes it to the web version.
| PEJOE wrote:
| AFAIK the imagery you want has been relegated to the desktop
| app (now called google earth pro), and is still available.
|
| There is a little clock icon above the imagery area with a
| counter clockwise green arrow you must click to access
| historical imagery.
|
| Luckily they do release a version of the desktop app that works
| on linux.
|
| [Download page]
| https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#download-pro
| devenblake wrote:
| Google Earth pro (I think) used to be a paid product. I
| remember downloading it and using GETPFREE as my activation
| key thinking it was so cool that benevolent Internet leader
| Google would give that out for free. 2013 was a different
| time.
| Finnucane wrote:
| It's like watching mold spores growing.
| dsaavy wrote:
| This is an incredible tool. I know there are other ways to look
| at timelapses of aerial views but this is just so easy and
| useable.
|
| Watching the change of specific suburban areas in the US brings a
| lot of negative emotions for me. Seeing what used to be green
| areas slowly transform into more suburban sprawl, I can't help
| but think of the number of species who experienced their
| ecosystem's walls closing in on them.
|
| As someone who builds a lot of data visualizations, this would be
| in my top experiences for the category. It's in a way... an art
| piece.
| dekerta wrote:
| Hasn't this tool been available at
| https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/ for several years
| now?
| OrbitRock wrote:
| Yep, but now it's on Google Earth instead of Google Earth
| Engine
| OrbitRock wrote:
| I'm into geospatial science, and I get so much aesthetic
| appreciation out of it. It is super artistic. The earth is
| beautiful!
| samstave wrote:
| Agreed, and great username.
|
| I cant wait to see what everyone, including myself can create
| with this!
|
| EDIT; This should be one of the most important augmenting
| data tools for Environmental Impact studies.
|
| Take a site that was built at the beginning of this dataset -
| which had an EIS done, compare the results seen in this tool
| to the predictions in the EIS... and use that for MANY EIS
| which had some of the same impact or variables and see how
| the surroundings compare etc...
| skybrian wrote:
| What's an example that you particularly like?
| ttty wrote:
| Growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different
| than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes,
| says keithwhor. 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 a sufficiently robust slime mold simply using
| available resources to continue growing, he says. If we start
| mining and settling space, our growth would in fact be
| essentially unbounded, he adds.
|
| We're another level of the fractal of life, replicating patterns
| seen in bacterial biofilms, slime molds, circulatory systems,
| nervous systems, leaves, all manner of multicellular
| architectures. It's certainly a bad thing that we are growing in
| a sort of zero-sum manner against many original ecosystems
| though. We need to learn to restrain our own growth (a tough one
| that we're in the process of trying to beat into all of our heads
| it seems) It'd be cool to see 30% of the planet's surface as
| protected areas by 2030.
|
| This week's episode of Dr Pimple Popper is the first episode in a
| series on the growth of the universe. The first episode is
| entitled "Growth" and is available on YouTube. The second episode
| is titled "Theory of Growth" and runs for over two hours. This
| week's show is hosted by ThalesX, the leader in the field of
| artificial intelligence and machine learning. The show is
| sponsored by Google, and can be watched on YouTube at
| www.YouTube.com/DrPimplePopper.
|
| Idea has been around for a long time. Most versions compare our
| civilizations progress to a cancer or virus, because of the way
| we treat our environment. Joe Rogan talks about the idea in an
| old clip: I think human beings are just a very complicated form
| of bacteria. There are vast number of parallels in the behavior
| of systems from the microscopic to the macroscopic. You are a
| plague, and we are the cure, says the Matrix. "We do precisely
| what bacteria does, albeit at a much more more complicated
| level," says slver.
|
| Human history is a function with material conditions as an input.
| 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, unable to recognize the consciousness our
| collective activity creates? It's fun to think about. At least,
| we know but choose or are too lazy to do anything about it. We
| have to understand at a micro-level, how we can make an impact in
| aggregate.
|
| Yes, there's a ton of complexity in there, but when you zoom out
| enough, it looks and acts very similar to the lower level. 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. What the rational one
| wants isn't necessarily what we do, says OrbitRock. To a
| Brazilian cattle rancher or Indonesian logger at the frontlines
| of the biodiversity crisis, things look different. For a consumer
| of those goods and materials, they likely don't realize the
| connection.
|
| With Timelapse in Google Earth, 24 million satellite photos from
| the past 37 years have been compiled into an interactive 4D
| experience. 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. 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 Earth VR is "fantastic" during lockdowns, "felt like going
| out!" "Bailed" is a bit over the top, I would characterize it
| more as being at a stand still. VR didn't pick up the way most
| hoped it would, and at this point there isn't really much to do
| until we get another wave of innovation that pushes the boundary
| forward. I don't think they ever had any lead in VR. Cardboard
| was neat but just that. Google is letting what lead they had
| whither away. Its silly to think they had working inside out
| tracking (Tango) in 2014.
|
| HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets work with Google Earth. Works
| on anything that supports SteamVR. Works with any headset that
| can use SteamVR, so like, damn near all of them. Motion sickness
| factor isn't zero, but its' small. Google Earth may be one of the
| most wondrous things ever created. Can you imagine what someone
| like Socrates, Newton, Galileo, or Darwin would say using this
| tool? . It's inspired me to work on my own map of live mountain
| shadows across the Earth (link in my user profile if you're
| interested) Timelapse timelapse tool allows users to watch aerial
| views of urban sprawl at a glance. Can be used to see how the
| environment is changing over time. Could be used in environmental
| impact studies to look at the effect of climate change on the
| environment. Can also be used for environmental impact data
| visualizations to help scientists better understand the impact of
| natural disasters. Google Search does let you limit the results
| to old sites. I miss the ability to get the cached version of a
| page easily. A time-lapse of the search algorithm is what I would
| like to see reply gipp to do.
| fudged71 wrote:
| What's exciting to me is that children/students will be able to
| see an incredibly local and objective history of their area. As a
| sort of "how did I get here" perspective.
| shortlived wrote:
| Is the data open source and available without using google earth?
| OrbitRock wrote:
| Pretty sure it's just Landsat data, which is freely available.
| As is Sentinel, MODIS, and a number of other satellite
| platforms.
|
| Google has been a pretty great pioneer on geospatial data
| science and visualization platforms, especially with Earth
| Engine (also free to use and allows you to access vast
| repositories of free geospatial data and use Googles computing
| resources to do data science with them).
| devrand wrote:
| Almost certainly not. I'm fairly certain Google is licensing
| the imagery.
| ketanhwr wrote:
| Incase anyone is having trouble finding this feature, visit this
| link: goo.gle/timelapse
| gallegojaime wrote:
| Something cool and kinda sad to behold - the plastic greenhouses
| in El Ejido grow as a white blob.
| intrasight wrote:
| Is this only in the web version? I don't see a new version of the
| desktop.
| dognotdog wrote:
| There's also https://earthtime.org/explore which is based off the
| same satellite imagery, but in the browser. And, it has a lot
| more available data layers with social, economic, and
| environmental data on a global scale.
| briffle wrote:
| Google earth also works in the browser. A few years back, they
| made that the default way of accessing it.
| dognotdog wrote:
| Geez, I'll just go and blame the pandemic for a complete loss
| of sense of time on that! I could've sworn I saw a beta of
| that just not so recently, but I had no idea it's been
| mainstream for that long.
| calylex wrote:
| What's this whole guilt shaming all about? And must the voice in
| the video be British and the sound of a girl on the verge of
| crying? Finally I don't think there is anything wrong with more
| farmlands in poor countries in South America. That's extremely
| hypocritical when the West did the same thing only a couple of
| hundred years ago and continues to do to this day, but oh if the
| poor South Americans learn how to farm on their own, the world
| will end.
|
| The answer to side-effects of human progress is not stopping it,
| it's to accelerating the growth of technology so we can mitigate
| the issues we create and fix the harms the cause. F*ck Google!
| keithwhor wrote:
| 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 a
| sufficiently robust slime mold simply using available resources
| to continue growing.
| devenvdev wrote:
| Apple tree "apples"(v) Earth "peoples" Alan Watts
| marc__1 wrote:
| in this case you should definitely read Vaclav Smil book
| _Growth_.
|
| It covers how similar growth patterns can be identified, from
| cities, vegetation, motors and human life.
|
| It is a long book, but recommended by none other than gates [1]
|
| [1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Growth
| remir wrote:
| I agree that from a certain distance, we look like simple
| bacterias doing their thing.
|
| But to me the fascinating part is that we're _aware_ of looking
| like bacterias. We are matter that became conscious of itself.
|
| Isn't that the weirdest thing?
| amelius wrote:
| Who says bacteria don't have a (simple) form of
| consciousness?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| that would seem to follow from a historical materialist
| perspective (which makes sense to me, if you consider cultures
| to optimise their ideals to fit their environment). Human
| history is a function with material conditions as an input.
| detritus wrote:
| The only difference being that we can understand the impact
| we're having. And yet...
| ditegashi wrote:
| If we REALLY understood it then maybe we would stop doing it.
| My bet is that we don't really get it.
| OrbitRock wrote:
| We understand it but humans are composed of a variety of
| minds and what the rational one wants isn't necessarily
| what we do.
|
| Although conservation probably has more to do with reality
| looking different depending on your own local observations,
| to a Brazilian cattle rancher or Indonesian logger at the
| frontlines of the biodiversity crisis, things look
| different. For a consumer of those goods and materials,
| they likely don't realize the connection.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I think "we" do, but we don't quite care as much about
| future generations as we like to think we do. Especially
| not when others today are disproportionately benefiting.
| hackflip wrote:
| If you tell me to deprive myself of some conveniences
| because some people in another part of the world in
| another decade/century will suffer as a consequence of my
| actions... I agree with the selfless option in theory,
| but in practice I will usually choose the selfish option.
| RankingMember wrote:
| I think humans have a hard time with sustaining
| independent action. If you knew that everyone around you
| was going to be deprived of some convenience, say a
| restriction on driving to every other day (like they do
| in some countries based on the last digit of your license
| plate), I think it'd be easier to accept and adhere to
| for a long duration. I think this is both because you
| know the burden is shared, but also because the impact of
| a large adherence will tend to be more measurable.
|
| If, on the other hand, you independently decide to stop
| driving your car because you know the world is getting
| smothered with carbon dioxide, but see people daily
| driving modified diesel pickups belching smoke into the
| sky, you're going to feel a bit like you're pissing in
| the wind even trying.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| We do. Problem is, while individually, we're much smarter
| than bacteria, as a large group, we're just as dumb as
| groups of them.
|
| Take our main coordination mechanism - the market. For all
| that's been said and written about it, it's still basically
| gradient descent. As greedy as it gets - in the technical
| sense. It's what's been driving the development of humanity
| ever since we formed societies. It's what controls the
| behavior of everyone.
|
| We may think we're smart and have principles - and we do.
| But the reality still is, everyone is spending most of
| their lives trying to align themselves to exploit the local
| economic gradient - because that's how individuals get more
| of what they want, and less of what they don't want. Nobody
| is strong enough to single-handedly reshape the larger
| economic gradient. So while individually, we play complex
| games, at macro scale, we're not all that different from
| slime molds or fungal growths.
|
| Maybe one day our economy grows so sophisticated it'll gain
| sentience. But that doesn't necessarily mean things will
| get better - much like an individual human being sentient
| doesn't mean their cells are happy.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| 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 more control and freedom than they do
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > 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 about what others are or
| are not sacrificing.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| 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
| Engineering-MD wrote:
| My question is what would not look like microorganisms
| colonising? There is a range of manners that they expand from
| growing from a core, spores, milliary, fronds. I imagine most
| simple growth patterns possible are taken advantage of by
| microorganisms.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| 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 weird to me, when the
| conclusion is maybe humans in aggregate are optimal with
| regards to finding and using resources to grow.
|
| Not that we're growing unbounded either because that would be
| bad, we're in population decline across many major nations
| right now and are working towards a greener future in multiple
| industries to avoid resource collapse.
|
| The level of doom and gloom and misanthropy is generally
| unwarranted if you look around at the steps we're taking to
| better ourselves as a species and every time I read things like
| this I can't help but think people revel in the supposed
| helplessness of our potential destruction and inability as some
| perverted pleasure.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Speaking of ant and slime simulation, this recent video
| Coding Adventures video was pretty mind blowing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-iSQQgOd1A
|
| (Especially part 2 starting around 10m in).
| enchiridion wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! Great channel!
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _The level of doom and gloom and misanthropy_
|
| I's not misanthropy to note that we're not so different from
| other species and that our growth/behavior is in many
| respects similar to other natural phenomena involving complex
| systems. Our long term success is correlated with our ability
| to shift resources away from negative-sum behaviors so as not
| to exceed the carrying capacity of our environment.
| gbrown wrote:
| > 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. Humans can reason about these issues, but we see
| insufficient ability to collectively coordinate in response
| to them.
| ledauphin wrote:
| 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.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| 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)
| drivebycomment wrote:
| 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.
| prox wrote:
| You probably described my complete complaint of humans in a
| perfect paragraph. We keep choosing this laissez-faire
| attitude (also conservative) attitude.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| 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.
| FabiansMustDie wrote:
| I think deferring to reason is a nouveau fad among men of
| letters -- as if it's some truth machine; wherein one
| inputs one's observations and, by the grace of reason, out
| pops "what should be done." This ignores the very basest of
| truths that all men's* reason is self-centered, generating
| only courses of action that benefit him -- no matter how
| indirectly (ex. donating to a charity does help others, but
| it also helps the donator on some emotional (see:
| moral/spiritual/conditioned) level; otherwise, the donator
| wouldn't have done it).
|
| Every man* has his own temperament, value system, -- and so
| on -- that reason alone begets wildly different what-
| should-be-dones. That is, unless the achievement of a
| narrow aim would benefit the many---and therefore all those
| different reason machines come together to collectively
| strive towards some end---then we have all sorts of
| different, many times conflicting, what-should-be-dones
| (politics is a prime example here).
|
| Perhaps then an authority should be appointed?; someone or
| some group whose sole purpose is to reason all day and all
| night, until they come up with a what-should-be-done that
| benefits their constituency (of course, this assumes they
| didn't ascend by force, coercion, or some other
| deviousness).
|
| But now, we get into this dreadful stalemate: the more
| constituents there are, the more the means and the ends
| have to be tailored to them, and the more the whole venture
| becomes watered down, in order to suit some muddied
| "average." Or perhaps the authority decides to "draw a line
| in the ground," to create some abstract "core" of
| acceptable means and ends (as well as people to enlist),
| and shun out the rest---in order to maintain some semblance
| of identity and individualism.
|
| Yet, now we have two very inefficient differentiations. On
| one hand, we have the all-inclusive reasoning-body, that is
| so held back by trying to please all, that it pleases none.
| On the other hand, we have the some-exclusive reasoning-
| body, that -- fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on
| one's own reasoning -- shuts out the "others," and does
| nothing to support the advancement of their ends (many
| times, quite the opposite).
|
| I think it is self-evident that both are inefficient
| towards the coordination of all humanity. So are there any
| alternatives?
|
| Perhaps we could simply do away with collective
| coordination -- or atleast some less rigid approach?
|
| What about some type of individualism?; where each man*
| decides his own fate. Therein, each member is responsible
| for his own fate, and therefore---collectively---the fate
| of all man? Each soul going in his own direction, serving
| his interests foremost, and pushing the fate of humanity,
| in his own image, little by little -- like some plant,
| slowly rooting itself into the most impenetrable places,
| and overcoming the, otherwise apparent, impossible odds.
|
| On a local level, humanity is ever unsustainable, "booming-
| and-busting," but on the world level we have survived, and
| will continue until we lose our survival instincts
| (impossible, collectively). Each member of the human race
| will do what he must to survive and improve his own
| circumstances, even if it leaves others worse off; then,
| those worse-offs must now improve their circumstances
| further, and strive for a better life. In the end, each man
| guarantees the survival (but not thrival) of the human
| race, by the virtue of his selfishness.
|
| *Are we still doing the "man" is not synonymous with
| "human" fad? It's more of a stylistic choice, rather than
| an "only men can use reason." I.e, it flows better than
| "hu-man."
| Seanambers wrote:
| An advanced civilization..
|
| Like where do you think we are?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
|
| Seems to me like you are expecting too much. Worst part is,
| if that kind of thinking - do not exploit nature wins out -
| we might not even get there. Exploitation is key for
| scientific advancement in capitalism.
| FredPret wrote:
| 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...
| pfarrell wrote:
| This discussion reminds me of Isaac Asimov's favorite
| story, The Last Question
|
| https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
| falcor84 wrote:
| Sorry to nitpick, but is it your favorite story of
| Asimov's or has he actually said it was his own favorite?
| tomcam wrote:
| It was Asimov's favorite
| pfarrell wrote:
| I guess to be more precise, it was Asimov's favorite
| story among those that he had written.
|
| https://www.openculture.com/2015/06/isaac-asimovs-
| favorite-s...
| 7e wrote:
| 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.
| FredPret wrote:
| You're right, fuck it, let's just all die without trying
| instead
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Your sarcastic point is kind of valid, IMHO.
|
| Humans establishing self-sufficient communities beyond
| Earth would _prove_ that humans have the capability to
| thrive _sustainably_ on Earth. It would silence forever
| any technological objections to the possibility of human
| sustainability on Earth.
|
| And a firm idea that humans can never establish self-
| sustaining communities in space is not that far from the
| idea that we probably cannot do so on Earth, either.
|
| It really is not a huge step from pessimism about human
| future (ie in space) to nihilism about sustainability on
| Earth, and I do wish people would acknowledge this more:
| people enthusiastic about permanent settlements in space
| are, in fact, more certain about the possibility of
| sustainable thriving on Earth than the space-pessimists
| are.
| FredPret wrote:
| I don't think there's anything more important than being
| an outward-looking, striving species.
|
| Once we get depressed and nihilistic and give up, the
| universe will be forever deprived of the colour and drama
| human civilization can add to all those bare rocks up
| there.
|
| I never considered that the implication is we could live
| here sustainably, but you're right.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Nah, we just need to bootstrap a cislunar economy.
| There's plenty of resources to use upwell, more than
| there ever were on Earth - but we need to seed the
| infrastructure for turning them into useful goods, and
| make it self-sustaining.
| wildmanx wrote:
| The sad part is that many of us have to constantly fight
| against those of "us" who are actively working against
| those improvements.
|
| It's easy to take an outside look and say "well, see,
| humankind fixed it", but the personal energy and misery
| that goes into fighting for those fixes is enormous. I
| wouldn't call it "misanthropy".
| abraae wrote:
| > I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look
| like for an "advanced" species besides optimal?
|
| An advanced species would recognize the uniqueness and
| importance of the natural world, and would fence off huge
| sections of it to protect it for future generations.
| OrbitRock wrote:
| There's a conservation goal that's going around.
|
| 30 by 30.
|
| Or, 30% of the planet's surface as protected areas by 2030.
|
| The Biden administration adopted it, but it'd be cool to
| see it as a global goal as well.
| ThalesX wrote:
| Wouldn't some weird interpretation of the Pareto
| Principle [0] mean that we should be using 20% of the
| available resources for 80% of our production goals?
| bscphil wrote:
| I agree, but your comment might be better served by giving
| reasons _why_. An advanced species that we can observe is,
| by definition, a successfully self-reproducing species.
| That is, a species that didn 't die out in an early stage
| of its (social and technological) evolution. This means you
| have to ask (1) what steps did they take to avoid
| extinction, and (2) what social values allowed them to
| achieve those moves.
|
| The biggest threat we face as a species in the foreseeable
| future is the exhaustion of our natural resources. Ergo, it
| makes sense to reserve as much as we can for future
| generations to decide what to do with. Some argue that we
| should use them as fast as possible in order to blow past
| some (claimed) barrier to entirely technological
| reproduction (producing a self-sustaining system on the
| Moon, for example), but this strikes me as hasty. The
| difficulties of achieving this might be _far_ more
| difficult than advocates imagine, and if so we 're likely
| to hit resource exhaustion.
|
| That's before you even deal with the values. We don't have
| a lot of choice over those, but it's worth pointing out
| that many of our personal scruples are more compatible with
| collaborative than combative approaches to growth. The real
| moral challenge is whether the new frontier of growth
| (wealth acquisition) hits any wall before it destroys the
| environment.
| DeusExMachina wrote:
| Would it? How do you know?
|
| You are just projecting what you think on this hypothetical
| advanced species. They might find, instead, that they don't
| need or care for any of that and just wipe it out faster.
| abraae wrote:
| Yep, that's my interpretation of "advanced".
|
| Yours could be one that retreats into hermetic shelters
| and plays Call of Duty between themselves all day long.
| DeusExMachina wrote:
| Mine isn't either of those, or any other variation. The
| point is that since you are not them, you can't know what
| they would do.
|
| Your "interpretation" is just making them after your self
| image, thinking that that is what it means to be
| "advanced".
| Robotbeat wrote:
| America actually does it with our fantastic National
| Parks system.
| [deleted]
| OrbitRock wrote:
| Yup, to me it's fascinating.
|
| We're another level of the fractal of life, replicating
| patterns seen in bacterial biofilms, slime molds, circulatory
| systems, nervous systems, leaves, all manner of multicellular
| architectures.
|
| It's certainly a bad thing that we are growing in a sort of
| zero-sum manner against many original ecosystems though.
|
| We need to learn to restrain our own growth (a tough one that
| we're in the process of trying to beat into all of our heads
| it seems), and also we need to learn how to maximize the
| potential for biodiversity to exist within the structure of
| human occupied areas as well. (A good book on this last
| subject is "Win-win Ecology").
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I think biodiversity within the structure of human occupied
| areas is very unrealistic and potentially
| counterproductive.
|
| I also think we shouldn't attempt to constrain growth but
| instead constrain _footprint_ upon the Earth.
| OrbitRock wrote:
| I disagree on the first note.
|
| The human footprint already covers nearly the entirety of
| the planet. Conservation of systems that are within or
| directly adjacent to that footprint is actually very
| important. Extraordinary amounts of biodiversity are
| contained in these areas and we need to study how to
| reconcile our land use with the needs of that
| biodiversity. We shouldn't ignore it out of a fear that
| people will get the wrong idea.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Almost all (80-90%?) of the human footprint is making
| food. To try to grow our food and ensure biodiversity on
| the SAME LAND is going to be less productive per acre and
| would mean even MORE of the Earth's surface is needed to
| feed humanity. That's a losing proposition as we're
| already near land usage limits in much of the world that
| uses less efficient production methods. The best way to
| ensure biodiversity is to INCREASE the intensity of
| farming, at the limit to just convert our staple food
| production to vat-based food production (think methane
| fermentation ala Calysta Feedkind, or maybe microalgae).
| Corn and wheat and meat gets highly processed anyway; you
| can hardly tell it WASNT made in a vat. Fresh fruit and
| veggies that retain their grown form are a relatively
| small part of our footprint.
|
| Grow food in vats, and the vast majority of the planet
| can just be like National Parks.
|
| But I do think we can think of smart ways to ensure
| biodiversity under, say, solar arrays. Solar arrays are
| (or can be made to be) biologically inert. If they are
| high enough, they can act as a sort of technological
| canopy over a biodiverse forest floor. And that would
| only be a small portion of the planet (the rest would be
| National Parks). We'd use solar electricity to produce
| food super efficiently from vats. About 2000-4000W
| nameplate solar per person (at least in the 30N to 30S
| latitude that most people live in) should be enough to
| provide the macronutrients for the average person. At
| high efficiency, that's about 10 square meters per person
| at noon. That's just 100,000 square kilometers to feed 10
| billion people, compared to over 50,000,000 square
| kilometers used for agriculture today (which is half of
| the habitable land surface of ~100 million km^2). It can
| be over the ocean, too. That's just 0.02% of the Earth's
| surface.
| OrbitRock wrote:
| I agree that we should ideally minimize our agricultural
| footprint and turn everything else into a nature reserve.
| But we've got to work from the realities of where we are
| today.
|
| Consider this image:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-
| use/img/2018...
|
| Notice that for the USA for example, not very much of the
| land is state or federal parks. The vast majority is used
| by humans in some way, and the reality is that they're
| not about to turn it all into parks.
|
| So, while pushing for the protection of as much land as
| possible, we should also study conservation on land
| that's not already a protected area.
|
| The book I mentioned has a number of examples where good
| conservation work has actually been done on such lands.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That "cow pasture/range" chunk is largely extremely low
| productivity scrub land owned by the federal government
| and leased basically for free by cattle folk. We could
| convert all of it to national parks without much more
| than a blip in food calories produced in the US.
|
| As far as actually farmed land, productivity has
| increased by an order of magnitude, MUCH faster than
| population, so we actually farm less land than in the 40s
| in spite of having a much larger population that eats
| more. We burn that corn in our cars, for goodness sake.
| The land area use for ethanol corn in our country is more
| than enough area to convert the entire nation's electric
| production to solar.
|
| Corn yields: https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/newsletter
| s/pestandcrop/wp...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| That would be great. My fear is that we are more like yeast
| in a bottle of juice.
| bestorworse wrote:
| Isn't this growth pattern a straightforward consequence of
| disorderly growth?
|
| When microorganisms divide, the children "appear" in the same
| location. Our species growth dynamics kind of has this same
| property in that it's easier to build something closer to the
| already established region than far away.
|
| So, in the end, looking from far away, the growth pattern is
| the same.
| bndw wrote:
| Joe Rogan talks about the idea in an old clip:
| I think human beings are just a very complicated form of
| bacteria.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyc12-neTjM
| misterkrabs wrote:
| Honestly can't stand the guy but I think of this soundbite
| constantly - he MUST have gotten it from someone else, right?
| lol
| devmunchies wrote:
| a lot of people get these types of thoughts when high. I
| originally thought of humans like mold growing on a loaf of
| bread in my early 20s.
| jkubicek wrote:
| Paraphrased from The Matrix maybe?
|
| > I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time
| here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species.
| I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal
| on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium
| with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not.
| You move to another area, and you multiply, and you
| multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. 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 are a plague,
| and we are the cure.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The earliest I remember in popular culture is from the
| first Matrix movie. And I'm sure they got it from somewhere
| else.
|
| Anyone studying mathematical biology has also probably come
| to the same conclusion.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| I've heard the idea expressed by many people in many
| different ways. Most versions compare our civilizations
| progress to a cancer or virus instead of just any old
| bacteria, because of the way we treat our environment. My
| favorite example is this[1] post about Factorio, which is a
| game in which you constantly add to a factory and expand to
| use more resources.
|
| [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/b6gsxp/spread
| ing_...
| ProAm wrote:
| Yes this has been around for a long time. Sometimes instead
| of bacteria it's viewed as a cancer because cancer is
| metabolic and will continue to grow until is destroys it's
| host.
| devmunchies wrote:
| >will continue to grow until is destroys it's host.
|
| i saw global warming and covid19 as part of the earth's
| immune system to curb human impact. however, with our
| technology we are too resilient.
| slver wrote:
| We do precisely what bacteria does, albeit at a much more
| complicated level. And I'd argue bacteria does what basic
| particles do, albeit at a much more complicated level. There
| are vast number of parallels in the behavior of systems from
| the microscopic to the macroscopic.
| mmaunder wrote:
| And,technically speaking, cities are an infestation of humans.
| seppin wrote:
| Pretty dirty ones, at that.
| btbuildem wrote:
| The self-similarity (or, fractal nature if you like) of living
| things at various levels of scale.. it's really beautiful and
| fascinating.
| roody15 wrote:
| well said
| vbtemp wrote:
| What's so fascinating to me about our civilizations that look
| like fungal colonies on Petri dishes from a cosmic perspective,
| is that if you zoom in enough you see all sorts of individuals
| doing and creating all sorts of fascinating things. No one
| would ever suspect it if they didn't focus in to look. Billions
| of autonomous individuals, self-aware creating art, innovating
| technologies, and in general being a fascinating conduit
| through which the universe becomes aware of itself.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| "X reminds me of Y" often says more about the speaker than
| about X or Y.
| pmastela wrote:
| Here's a specific example of your slime mold hypothesis [1] in
| which a slime mold grew a network just like Tokyo's rail
| system.
|
| Slime mold doesn't have the same ring as "rail network planning
| AI", but it seems that's what it is.
|
| 1: https://outline.com/t8hxKh (original:
| https://www.wired.com/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network-
| just-...)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| We conquer topography, yes, but it's economical to follow it.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I think of humans as a form of fire uniquely cursed with the
| ability to see the beauty in what it's burning, and to feel bad
| about it.
| Infernal wrote:
| I just wanted to let you know I really appreciate this idea -
| there is beauty in the layers of analogy.
| tus88 wrote:
| We did a lot more than merely spread though.
| pojzon wrote:
| 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.
| stared wrote:
| "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
| bestorworse wrote:
| "And you exist only because of us" - Neo
|
| I think this pattern of exponential growth of human beings is
| a curse of their intelligence. All other animals end up being
| controlled by these large ecosystem dynamics because they
| can't adapt and/or do group work sufficiently. Species with
| this property are easily influenced/controlled by large scale
| dynamics.
|
| Maybe, a species with more intelligence than us wouldn't grow
| so fast and unorderly because they can see the future
| consequences of their own dynamics more easily. We just
| happen to not deal with large temporal scales very well.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| This is why I think reproduction is unethical.
|
| We have the capacity to understand the implications of
| birthing new sentient lifeforms, knowing the harm it will
| cause to the planet and the other species we share it with,
| yet we selfishly and blindly do it anyway because _everyone
| else is having babies so why shouldn 't I_ and _it 's my
| right as a human to reproduce_.
|
| It is this line of thinking that has caused our population to
| balloon to over 7 billion with no limit in sight. What a
| shithole this rock is becoming.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Somewhere, some overlord in a galaxy far, far away is looking
| at us through a faster-than-light telescope and going
| "Yeppers. They are about to hit critical mass. Either a
| population crash is imminent or they start colonizing their
| solar system. Schedule a diplomatic mission for their corner
| of the galaxy to invite them to the intergalactic council
| should they survive this completely normal, though
| adolescently awkward, stage of development."
| dudeman13 wrote:
| That's some oddly specific characteristic to use to counter the
| value of being special, having conquered environments,
| technology and more.
|
| Why would the traditional mathematics of growth make all that
| _less_?
| kortilla wrote:
| Sure, we're the same if you ignore a bunch of important
| differences. Growing our own food, not reproducing rapidly
| during food excess, etc.
| globular-toast wrote:
| 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.
| scubbo wrote:
| 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"?
| divbzero wrote:
| I suppose we would still be in the exponential phase [1] and
| haven't yet reached the stationary phase or death phase.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_growth
| matthewcanty wrote:
| 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?
| anonred wrote:
| Sounds similar to the micro story "Mold of the Earth" (1884)
| posted to HN a few weeks ago:
| https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Mold_of_the_Earth
| jdkee wrote:
| I think the growth of humanity contains much more complexity
| than that of a slime mold to be honest. Uncountably so.
| ehsankia wrote:
| 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 very similar to the lower
| level.
| amelius wrote:
| Very nice, but of course this was designed/engineered to
| act like this. It's basically a computer implemented in the
| game of life, which runs the game of life.
| fooker wrote:
| Wow this is awesome! Thanks.
| samstave wrote:
| Any sufficiently robust advanced species is indistinguishable
| from fungi.
| frereubu wrote:
| I've always been fond of Bill Hicks' description of humanity as
| "a virus with shoes."
| yesenadam wrote:
| 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
| probability and reasonableness and the other upon the most
| glaring error, and it will almost invariably embrace the
| latter. It is so in politics, which consists wholly of a
| succession of unintelligent crazes, many of them so idiotic
| that they exist only as battle-cries and shibboleths and are
| not reducible to logical statement at all. It is so in
| religion, which, like poetry, is simply a concerted effort to
| deny the most obvious realities. It is so in nearly every
| field of thought. The ideas that conquer the race most
| rapidly and arouse the wildest enthusiasm and are held most
| tenaciously are precisely the ideas that are most insane.
| This has been true since the first "advanced" gorilla put on
| underwear, cultivated a frown and began his first lecture
| tour in the first chautauqua, and it will be so until the
| high gods, tired of the farce at last, obliterate the race
| with one great, final blast of fire, mustard gas and
| streptococci. ( _Meditation on Meditation_ , 1922)
|
| It's hard to believe the USA's top newspaper editor once
| wrote like that! Writing worth paying for. Here's some more:
|
| [The Declaration of Independence is] "a mere string of
| sonorous phrases, a piece of windy flapdoodle, a rhapsody
| almost empty of intelligible meaning, and probably composed
| under the influence of ethyl alcohol. And yet, as I say, it
| is more powerful than a million swords. It looms larger than
| the massive fact of Gettysburg. It is worth more than the
| whole Civil War. The man who loosed it upon posterity has
| left it a vaster heritage than the man who invented
| baseball." ( _Smart Set_ , 1914)
|
| He said of US politics:
|
| "It was Americans who invented the curious doctrine that
| there is a body of doctrine in every department of thought
| that every good citizen is in duty bound to accept and
| cherish; it was Americans who invented the right-thinker. ...
| In the face of this singular passion for conformity, this
| dread of novelty and originality, it is obvious that the man
| of vigorous mind and stout convictions is gradually
| shouldered out of public life. He may slide into office once
| or twice, but soon or late he is bound to be held up,
| examined and incontinently kicked out. This leaves the field
| to the intellectual jelly-fish and inner tubes." ( _Baltimore
| Evening Sun_ , 1920)
| cblconfederate wrote:
| life is fractal
| wonminute wrote:
| Why yes it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
| 7952 wrote:
| 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.
| abraxas wrote:
| And just like mold this expansion will continue until we hit
| resource limits and then it's colony collapse.
| ModernMech wrote:
| 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, unable to recognize the consciousness our
| collective activity creates? It's fun to think about.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > 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.
| Vrondi wrote:
| 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 about it religiously, how else would one
| think about it?
| matthewcanty wrote:
| 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.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Do they have a version of earth VR for oculus Quest 2 yet?
| samstave wrote:
| What does that mean? OoTL
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