[HN Gopher] We all need some space
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       We all need some space
        
       Author : ColinWright
       Score  : 73 points
       Date   : 2023-07-08 09:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (aperiodical.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (aperiodical.com)
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | I live on a large open expanse of almost a kilometre in each
       | direction owing to the positioning of this farm relative to the
       | other farm fields in the area, and one of the main problems
       | neighbors and I have is that people from the suburbs think that
       | "nobody lives here." Using rural areas for hiking, fishing,
       | cycling where you are moving and there is a beginning and end to
       | it is fine and very welcome.
       | 
       | Absolutely get far, it's good for the soul but, PSA about being
       | out in nature and rural areas:
       | 
       | What made these places desirable was your absence. Loitering in
       | your cars in front of peoples properties is an abuse of the peace
       | the people who live there have invested in and created. Respect
       | the peace of those places you go. If you are out at night, always
       | turn off your car and all lights and be quiet. The most welcome
       | guests are the ones who leave.
        
         | arp242 wrote:
         | Leaving a car running on stationary is also annoying in the
         | city, never mind polluting both the environment and people for
         | no good reason.
        
           | scruple wrote:
           | I've had some conversations with neighbors about it. In fact,
           | most of my neighbors have had the same conversation with one
           | or two of our neighbors. The muffler on this guys WRX, which
           | is _always_ on the street instead of inside of his empty
           | garage, _vibrates our window frames_. He used to make a habit
           | of getting into his car, starting it, and then _fucking
           | around on his phone for 30 minutes_. It 's completely mental.
           | 
           | Thankfully, for our neighborhoods collective sanity, after at
           | least a dozen interactions with him, he's stopped idling in
           | front of his house.
        
             | johnchristopher wrote:
             | I once got out of bed at 11pm to go out and ask the
             | occupants of a car to turn off the engine, the low rumbling
             | noise was irritating me a lot. Was told they were waiting
             | for their SO to come back from the pizzeria with pizzas. I
             | later learned about misophonia but I still hate it when
             | people leave their engines on more than three minutes
             | before leaving.
        
             | jjtheblunt wrote:
             | I wonder what these "be noisy" car people will do as EVs
             | replace aging WRXes etc. we have a neighbor mid 40s age
             | with a teenage daughter, both super nice, both insanely
             | into loud mufflers. It's annoying to everyone at first but
             | they are so over the top hobby-level crazy about their
             | custom loud mufflers that everyone seems to have replaced
             | irritation with unavoidable amusement. Like there's a
             | unique set of cartoon characters living a few houses down.
             | They never sit around idling noisily so perhaps it's the
             | reason they're tolerable.
        
               | thelastparadise wrote:
               | Obviously, what they're going to do is blast music really
               | loud.
        
         | tjr225 wrote:
         | [dead]
        
       | djha-skin wrote:
       | Author needs to get out to the American West sometime. 1km is
       | chump change out here. I've always been around others when I've
       | traveled but I could have easily traveled alone if I wanted to.
       | Our party has been has often been so far away from others that no
       | other person could be seen for miles around.
        
         | thaumaturgy wrote:
         | I've spent a lot of time in some pretty deep wilderness in the
         | west, and I'm skeptical that I've ever been more than 10km from
         | the nearest other person. I often come across old tracks even
         | when I'm going cross-country. Even some of my secret spots are
         | now getting a lot of traffic (see also
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37Hmd-VkMIM). I climb mountains
         | just to get some peace and quiet and half the time there's some
         | other unfortunate soul trying to do the same. I think my most
         | remote trip so far was somewhere in the vicinity of 10T 480360E
         | 4595500N, and even then, I doubt there was more than 10km
         | between me and the next nearest person.
         | 
         | I think what most people are thinking of when they think of
         | wilderness solitude is _density of people_. The next nearest
         | person might be only 5km, but depending on conditions, I 'm not
         | likely to realize they exist. At densities of < 1 person/sq.
         | km., most people start getting that feeling of being "really
         | far out there".
        
           | akiselev wrote:
           | Take a look at Project Remote:
           | https://www.projectremote.com/state-rankings/
           | 
           | They haven't done California or Washington but New Mexico is
           | the most remote in the west so far with 11.5 miles to a road.
           | Even Texas only ranks in at 6.6 miles.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | pavel_lishin wrote:
       | Point Nemo (https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nemo.html) is
       | located 2,688 kilometers from the nearest landmass; if there are
       | no ships nearby, you could easily be thousands of kilometers away
       | from anyone.
       | 
       | Unless the ISS or the Tiangong is passing overhead.
        
         | zokier wrote:
         | I wonder what are closest significant shipping/flight routes of
         | Nemo
        
           | samtho wrote:
           | Likely not much, if you were to go further south, there are a
           | few parallels/latitudes where no landmasses exist. This
           | creates a very hostile environment for maritime vessels due
           | to 90mph (150kph) westerly winds and 50ft (15m) waves. As for
           | planes, most east bound flights from AU/NZ, the great circle
           | route that runs through there doesn't really go anywhere
           | except to middle Atlantic Ocean, dipping south of Cape Horn.
           | It is a place truly devoid of people.
           | 
           | If I recall correctly, they are actually planning the deorbit
           | of the ISS to land around there precisely because of its
           | proximity to literally nothing.
        
             | selimthegrim wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties
        
       | throwaway22032 wrote:
       | It seems strange that the article assumes that the country
       | someone currently lives in is relevant.
       | 
       | I'm British but I've been to places like the US, Scandinavia,
       | Russia etc that have huge open expanses.
       | 
       | Never more than 10m away from someone else is obviously just
       | wrong. That's less than following distance on a motorway.
        
         | KolmogorovComp wrote:
         | > like the US, Scandinavia, Russia etc that have huge open
         | expanses.
         | 
         | But most people living/visiting these open spaces are traveling
         | with their family/friends, not alone.
        
         | pavel_lishin wrote:
         | > _Never more than 10m away from someone else is obviously just
         | wrong. That 's less than following distance on a motorway._
         | 
         | If you live your entire life in a high-density city, you may
         | never have been on a motorway.
        
           | yakubin wrote:
           | But you probably visited a forest/a national park/swam in a
           | sea/a lake etc. I think it's rather unlikely for someone to
           | live till 20 without making more distance.
        
             | ComputerGuru wrote:
             | Your take is valid though /somewhat/ biased towards the
             | first-world experience. The scenario you dismiss is, for
             | example, actually rather likely for someone living in Dhaka
             | - and that's not to use an extreme "open air prison"
             | example like Gaza where 2 million people are confined to
             | 140 sq miles (365 sq km) without benefit of national parks
             | and with an extremely small fishing zone.
             | 
             | (Although I think one can still do better than being
             | literally within 10m of an individual at all times, which
             | is a bit extreme.)
        
               | ta1243 wrote:
               | Certainly I've been to Gaza a couple of times and I've
               | been more than 10m from someone just when I walked down
               | to the beach from the hotel.
               | 
               | 100m is probably a bit more of a challenge without
               | deliberately doing it, but I've only been there for a
               | handful of days to a handful of locations, not 20 years.
               | I suspect you could probably do 250m at the right time of
               | day/night at a few places though.
        
             | blueflow wrote:
             | > I think it's rather unlikely for someone to live till 20
             | without making more distance.
             | 
             | poverty.
        
       | internetter wrote:
       | The last hike I did -- 60km or so -- I encountered... I believe
       | it was 3 distinct groups. Assuming there were also others
       | traveling in my direction, 10km seems reasonable, though
       | unlikely. Probably closer to 8km or so
        
       | lentil_soup wrote:
       | Would Michael Collins (Apollo 11) be the person that has been
       | furthest from any other human ever? (or potentially someone else
       | from one of the Apollo missions?)
        
         | goda90 wrote:
         | Al Worden on Apollo 15 holds the record because of a different
         | orbit than the rest of the Apollo missions. 2235 miles from his
         | crewmates.
        
         | croisillon wrote:
         | Was he not up there with 2 other humans?
        
           | downboots wrote:
           | Arguably they meant average distance
        
           | avhon1 wrote:
           | Not while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were down on the
           | surface of the moon. Michael Collins remained in orbit around
           | the moon. Once every forty-odd minutes (the duration of his
           | lunar orbit), he was separated by the entire diameter of the
           | moon (over 3400 km) from the nearest two humans, and
           | completely cut off from radio contact with anyone.
        
             | croisillon wrote:
             | ah wow that's a feat, thanks for your answer!
        
         | cerebrum01 wrote:
         | The feeling of being on the dark side, with no radio contact
         | must be something quite special
        
           | defrost wrote:
           | It is.
           | 
           | Zero light pollution, no radio transmission devices,
           | fantastic night skys with stunning views of the milky way.
           | 
           | https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=10.00&lat=-26.70316.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/ARQZWA.html
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | There was a place for rent on AirBnb _in California_ which claims
       | to be 7 miles from anything.
        
         | samtho wrote:
         | There is a lot of federally owned land especially in the
         | mountains. If you managed to hold on to a plot that is
         | surrounded by USFS managed forest, that's entirely plausible.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | From another human is hard, but I've been on a couple of solo
       | hikes. Overall, the feeling of isolation hits for me at frequency
       | of human detection rather than distance, i.e. when I can see no
       | human and nothing built with human hands for a while. Volcanic
       | craters on rainy days are a good place since you can see all
       | around you and it's wilderness so you can get a good idea that no
       | one's in the crater with you and the jungle obscures the rest.
       | 
       | Especially now, with my girlfriend I think in the last year I
       | have not been more than 100 m from the nearest human. Maybe
       | riding my bike back from SF's business district, but those have
       | security guards in them, so realistically 20 m.
        
       | hackernj wrote:
       | This guy was at least 400 km from anyone else while alone on the
       | ISS: https://www.insidehook.com/article/science/nasa-chris-
       | cassid...
        
         | KineticLensman wrote:
         | > This guy was at least 400 km from anyone else
         | 
         | Well, apart from the two Russian cosmonauts also on board. He
         | was the sole American, not the sole human. Cassidy, however was
         | part of the largest group in space, 13 people, when a Shuttle
         | with 7 crew joined the 6-person ISS Expedition 20.
         | 
         | [Edit] The astronauts who have been genuinely alone and far
         | from the rest of humanity were the Apollo command module pilots
         | who stayed in lunar orbit while the other two crew descended to
         | the surface.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-08 23:01 UTC)