Not to sound like a broken record, but one of my favorite Tim Urban posts is the "7.3 Billion People, One Building" (https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html), where he makes the case that we could fit the entire population of the world into a single fictional building on Manhattan.
It also has a few other comparisons that always make people do a double-take when you mention them, like the fact that if you put people next to each other shoulder to shoulder, we could all fit inside one of the world's smallest islands.
It's so hard to wrap our heads around it, given how busy and crowded some cities feel. And yet...
"To get to 155 pounds, you would need over 5 million flies to make up one me."
I'm glad to hear that human beings add up to about 5 million flies, give or take. I wonder if we are really worth it though. Do we each contribute 5 million times the value of a single fly? Some people don't for sure.
Right now, much more of it is GPT4 than anything else. Daniel Nest (who comments here almost every day) writes a newsletter where he talks about the specifics every week. Highly recommended!
I was so frustrated, a week or so ago, when I heard an absurd claim made on the new Netflix series about food, You Are What You Eat. I don't recommend the series, because it played fast and loose with the facts. The claim was that cattle make up more biomass than all the other animal species (I don't remember the exact wording, but it was to that effect). This is untrue. There are a lot of cattle, but still they're only 40% to 50% of all mammal biomass, not all animal. And as you say, even animal biomass is only a small part of the overall volume of life on Earth.
Well done, Dan! I feel such a strong obligation to you (not just you, of course- anyone who reads my stuff) to do a good job with diligent fact-checking, it's hard to imagine an organization like Netflix not having the time and resources to do a better job. Still, some of those types of shows can be fun, so long as they just get you to think a little differently.
I love stuff like this!
Not to sound like a broken record, but one of my favorite Tim Urban posts is the "7.3 Billion People, One Building" (https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html), where he makes the case that we could fit the entire population of the world into a single fictional building on Manhattan.
It also has a few other comparisons that always make people do a double-take when you mention them, like the fact that if you put people next to each other shoulder to shoulder, we could all fit inside one of the world's smallest islands.
It's so hard to wrap our heads around it, given how busy and crowded some cities feel. And yet...
Exactly my style, too. It's pretty wild to think about things in a different way than we're used to. I guess that's one of my main goals!
"To get to 155 pounds, you would need over 5 million flies to make up one me."
I'm glad to hear that human beings add up to about 5 million flies, give or take. I wonder if we are really worth it though. Do we each contribute 5 million times the value of a single fly? Some people don't for sure.
Some even go negative!
Kind of scary to think about how much the little critters outnumber us. By how many tons! By the way, I love the bugman pic! Totally awesome!
Thanks!
I sometimes get lost in thinking about what "I" am, knowing that there are far more bacteria cells inside me than "human" cells. I'm a system!
Ugh! That is disconcerting...
What AI app do you use for your images?
Right now, much more of it is GPT4 than anything else. Daniel Nest (who comments here almost every day) writes a newsletter where he talks about the specifics every week. Highly recommended!
I was so frustrated, a week or so ago, when I heard an absurd claim made on the new Netflix series about food, You Are What You Eat. I don't recommend the series, because it played fast and loose with the facts. The claim was that cattle make up more biomass than all the other animal species (I don't remember the exact wording, but it was to that effect). This is untrue. There are a lot of cattle, but still they're only 40% to 50% of all mammal biomass, not all animal. And as you say, even animal biomass is only a small part of the overall volume of life on Earth.
Well done, Dan! I feel such a strong obligation to you (not just you, of course- anyone who reads my stuff) to do a good job with diligent fact-checking, it's hard to imagine an organization like Netflix not having the time and resources to do a better job. Still, some of those types of shows can be fun, so long as they just get you to think a little differently.