It’s in Tomorrowland, but it smells like 1979. Good to remember where we came from as long as we’re actually going somewhere else.

“I’ve got to this point in my life now where I just don’t know quite how to handle it, or how to express it, or what to say – yet I’ve got to tell people what I see and what I hear. Actually, I don’t need to say anything – the messages are revealed through the soundscapes.”

This data of how things are now or were 50 years or more ago is so important to bring our love for nature into the future where it will be farther and farther from people’s everyday lives and memories. People already don’t know what they are missing, the changes even from my childhood.

Humans are (what behavioral scientists call) “conditional cooperators”. They contribute more to the public good if they believe that others contribute as well. For this reason, pessimism about others’ contributions is harmful. It can constitute a critical obstacle for climate action. We thus conclude in the paper that, “[r]ather than echoing the concerns of a vocal minority that opposes any form of climate action, we need to effectively communicate that the vast majority of people around the world are willing to act against climate change and expect their national government to act”.

This is one reason I dislike the term “virtue signaling”, or at least it’s negative connotations. We communicate to each other in so many ways, and it is important to see small actions around you to combat the manufactured idea that everyone is apathetic or opposed to change. Highlighting small virtues, even sometimes your own, is important even when the good deed or the person doing it is not the best possible. It can be off-putting, like being lectured, or like witnessing someone’s cringy morning mirror pep talk. But if you don’t take it personally you can see these things as just reflections of our collective thought struggling awkwardly to adapt and move forward.

I think this may be true. After my last Mac upgrade, the app did not work with either of my phones. It looked like just a timing issue, because the files would eventually appear but the file transfer app had given up and wouldn’t let you do anything but quit. Probably a fairly minor bug that for whatever reason they just won’t fix.