Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

99.999999999% of the Earth is unknown to you

Seeing stuff in pictures or videos doesn’t count and even if it did still 99.9999999% of the Earth would be unknown to you

And I am not even starting on fast vehicles, seeing videos or pictures of other people riding fast vehicles is absolutely not the same as doing it yourself

Same with drugs, sex, music, falling in love etc

There is unknown on Earth for 1000 human lifetimes, probably much more than that




You might have too many nines there. Based on its surface area, that's 0.51 square km or 0.15 square km of the land area.

Sure, the density of "stuff" is very irregular. But I can look out my window at more Earth than that right now. I agree with your point that there's enough on Earth for at least 1000 human lifetimes, and it's pretty fractal in nature.


There is a really massive difference between "the unknown" and "stuff I personally haven't seen yet".


There is also a massive difference between seeing the Grand Canyon or the Great Bahamas Basin in pictures and doing 54 kts on a jetski flying on water in such Basin.

We also have pretty nice pictures of the Olympus Mons so if you are snubbing the Grand Canyon and the Great Bahamas Basin just because someone else already took pics, then you should snub the Olympus Mons as well, otherwise you’d be committing a logical fallacy.

And besides, the frontier of the unknown as it pertains to humanity as a whole has moved to the micro and the nano, all stuff that requires boring research and experiments costing billions as opposed to Wild West adventure.


The main reason to snub the Grand Canyon is that it's been very well explored, not that it's had photographs taken of it.

So, although I'm willing to snub Olympus Mons a little bit if we really have such good photos of it (I don't think we do), since that does reduce the scope of the unkown. But I would still think there's much adventure to be had there as one of the first people to explore it.


> > The main reason to snub the Grand Canyon is that it's been very well explored, not that it's had photographs taken of it.

By whom? By you? Dont think so. Anyway this is stupid, if you want the thrill of first time exploration you can just avoid researching any info on the topic and head directly to your destination and explore it without any assistance

Much like Dakar riders are forbidden from using GPS


Why not stop and think for a moment about what is "the unkown" instead of keeping talking about what I have personally seen or my personal feelings.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: