#egocentrism — Public Fediverse posts

Childhood Beliefs: When the Moon Follows You

https://legawa.com/2026/06/27/childhood-beliefs-when-the-moon-follows-you/

Nature conservation is a delicate topic, because the greater good is not something people have on top of their list. The Anthropocene grew egos and not memory of how ecosystems function - living together to survive together.
#ecosystems #egocentrism #conservation #nature #wildlife #urbanism

https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/116372242596852586

Siba N'Zatioula Grovogui on how colonial legacies shape global governance
#egocentrism #eurocentrism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEwE5fUW8HI

‘c’: More Than Just Fast as We Unpack the Universe’s Master Constant

Let’s dive into the universe’s ultimate speed limit: the speed of light. It’s a concept so fundamental that it underpins much of modern physics, yet so mind-bogglingly fast that, as you say, human intuition struggles to truly grasp it. We call it ‘c’, and its value in a vacuum is precisely 299,792,458 meters per second. That’s not just an estimate; since 1983, the meter has been precisely defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in exactly 1/299,792,458 of a second. So, light’s speed isn’t just something we measure; it’s a foundational pillar of our measurement system.

Think about what that speed means. If you could travel at ‘c’, you could zip around the Earth’s equator about 7.5 times in a single second—literally faster than your neurons can process the act of blinking itself. This incredible velocity is why, in our everyday lives, light appears instantaneous. Flip a switch, and the room is lit. There’s no perceptible delay. But the universe is vast, and on cosmic scales, even light takes its sweet, observable time.

One of the most profound insights, largely attributable to Albert Einstein, is that ‘c’ isn’t just the speed of light; it’s the speed of causality. It’s the universe’s ultimate speed limit for any information or influence to travel. Nothing with mass can reach it, and anything massless, like photons or gluons — the force carriers of the strong nuclear force –must propagate at this speed in vacuum. However, unlike photons, gluons are confined within atomic nuclei and never observed traveling freely through empty space. This isn’t just a suggestion; it’s a fundamental rule woven into the fabric of spacetime. If you could break it, you could, in theory, send information back in time, leading to all sorts of paradoxical headaches. So, the constancy of the speed of light, regardless of the motion of the source or the observer, is a cornerstone of Special Relativity, with bizarre and beautiful consequences like time dilation and length contraction. Essentially, the universe conspires to keep ‘c’ constant for everyone, and it does so by manipulating space and time themselves.

Here’s something many people miss: the speed of light isn’t just about seeing things. It’s about interaction. When you look at the Sun, you’re seeing it as it was about 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago because that’s how long it took the light to travel the ~150 million kilometers to Earth. But it’s not just photons; any gravitational influence from the Sun also propagates at ‘c’. If, hypothetically and impossibly (since this would violate fundamental conservation laws), the Sun were to vanish instantaneously, we wouldn’t know it — either by sight or gravitational pul — for those same 8 minutes and 20 seconds. This interconnectedness, this speed limit for all fundamental forces, is what makes ‘c’ so much more than just how fast light travels. One could metaphorically think of it as the propagation speed of the universe’s fundamental interactions, akin to the operating system that governs cosmic processes.

Another layer of complexity to consider is how ‘c’ dictates our perception of “now.” When astronomers observe a galaxy billions of light-years away, they literally look billions of years into the past. The light hitting their telescopes began its journey when the universe was much younger. Telescopes become time machines. But it also means there’s no universal “now.” This reflects the profound insight known as the “relativity of simultaneity,” meaning your “now” differs fundamentally from the “now” of distant observers, such as those in the Andromeda galaxy (2.5 million light-years away), because any information exchange between you is inherently delayed by at least 2.5 million years. This fundamentally undermines the classical Newtonian concept of absolute simultaneity across the universe. Instead, we have an intricate web of cause and effect, all governed by the finite speed of light.

Perhaps one of the most subtle yet profound implications is how ‘c’ acts as a conversion factor between mass and energy in Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc². Here, ‘c²’ (the speed of light squared) is an enormous number, highlighting just how much energy is locked away in even tiny amounts of mass. This isn’t an arbitrary constant; it’s the constant that reveals the fundamental equivalence of mass and energy, reshaping human history — from nuclear power to our understanding of stellar evolution. Thus, the speed of light isn’t just a velocity; it’s a key to unlocking the deepest secrets of matter and energy.

So, while its sheer velocity is difficult to internalize, the speed of light is far more than just “fast.” It’s a fundamental constant shaping our reality, defining our ability to observe the universe, limiting the speed of all interactions, and bridging the concepts of space, time, mass, and energy. It’s the universe’s ultimate traffic cop, ensuring cosmic order is maintained. Understanding it isn’t just about comprehending a big number; it’s about appreciating the intricate and elegant rules governing the cosmos.

Okay, let’s keep unraveling the implications of this cosmic speed limit. We’ve discussed its foundational role in physics and how it governs our perception of the universe. Now, let’s bring it closer to home and then stretch our minds to the very edges of what’s knowable.

Consider the technology powering our modern world. The global positioning system (GPS) in your phone or car relies critically on the constancy and finite speed of light. GPS satellites send signals to your receiver, and by precisely timing these signals’ arrivals, your receiver calculates distances from multiple satellites, pinpointing your location. But here’s the kicker: those satellites move rapidly and exist in weaker gravitational fields than Earth’s surface. Special Relativity predicts GPS satellite clocks tick about 7 microseconds per day slower due to their speed, while General Relativity predicts clocks tick about 45 microseconds per day faster due to weaker gravity. Without accounting for these relativistic effects (a net difference of about 38 microseconds daily), GPS would accumulate significant errors within hours. Thus, every time you navigate, you’re benefiting from our understanding of ‘c’ and its deep connection to space and time.

The finite speed of light also imposes real limits on our ambitions in the digital realm and space exploration. That slight delay in video calls across continents results largely from the time signals take traveling thousands of kilometers. Similarly, supercomputer performance is increasingly limited by the “light-travel time” across microchips. When NASA communicates with Mars rovers, there’s an unavoidable delay ranging from about 3 to 22 minutes each way, dependent upon the varying orbital positions of Earth and Mars around the Sun. Mission controllers can’t “joystick” a rover in real-time; they must patiently await results after sending command sequences.

It’s also crucial to distinguish between the speed of light in a vacuum (‘c’) and its speed in other materials. When light travels through water, glass, or air, it slows due to photon interactions with atoms. While individual photons always propagate at ‘c’, their interactions with atomic structures — absorption and re-emission processes at the quantum level—result in an effectively slower average speed of the wavefront through the medium. This causes refraction, explaining phenomena like a straw appearing bent in water. The fundamental cosmic speed limit, ‘c’, always refers specifically to propagation in a vacuum.

Lastly, to reiterate a subtle point often missed: ‘c’ is the speed of all massless particles and fundamental force fields. When gravitational waves were directly detected by LIGO and Virgo in 2015 — and spectacularly corroborated with electromagnetic observations of a neutron star collision (GW170817) in 2017 — it confirmed gravitational waves indeed travel at precisely the speed of light, as Einstein predicted.

This brings us to the observable universe’s edge. Because light travels at a finite speed and the universe has a finite age (about 13.8 billion years), there’s a boundary, known as the “particle horizon,” marking the maximum distance from which light has traveled since the Big Bang. It differs subtly yet importantly from the “event horizon,” beyond which events occurring now can never become observable due to cosmic expansion. This boundary humbles us; we are surrounded by a vast, potentially infinite reality, yet can access only a finite portion, thanks entirely to the universe’s ultimate speed limit. It makes the light we do receive from distant quasars and ancient galaxies all the more precious.

#c #delay #egocentrism #einstein #fundamental #galaxy #light #speed #stars #time #universe #vacuum

Even if we “Thanos Snapped” Trump and his Minions from existence, without a change in values, someone just like him will inevitably reemerge as a product of our quasi-religious faith in Social Darwinist Neoliberalism because he is the inevitable consequence of these beliefs, not the cause of our immiseration.

It Makes a Kind of Sense • The Trump Tariff Tier List
#vLogBrothers #HankGreen #Economics #Corruption #Egocentrism #MafiaEconomics #MafiaGovernment #Trump #TrumpRegime #Project2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JuuGjRhSYE

Égocentrisme (2025)

→ Moi, moi, moi et merde au reste.
→ Me, me, me, and fuck the rest.

► Récit & photos : https://www.worldofjosh.be/photos/20250408-egocentrisme/egocentrisme.php
► Story & pictures : https://www.worldofjosh.be/en/photos/20250408-egocentrisme/egocentrisme.php

#abandoned #AbandonedPlaces #lostplaces #urbex #urbanexploring #egocentrisme #egocentrism

© 2025

I consider the #Vedanta #worldview to be a prerequisite for a #sustainable future for the West. Why? Our worldview led us inevitably to #materialism. As a side dish, we got #egocentrism and #selfishness. The result was ruthlessness in the expansion of the economy, in the #exploitation of nature for our selfish purposes. The root of our current problems lies in our thinking: in our worldview and our view of #humanity.

"Ecosystem services" for ALL living beings

"Solving our current ecological and social crises requires a radical transformation of humanity's relationship to the global ecosystems that sustain all life."

At present there is government paralysis and "we keep voting in people who are OK with prolonging the use of fossil fuels, the very thing that is cooking our planet".

We have an egocentric approach to nature, despite knowing that without the environment, there's no economy.
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-12/albanese-government-fed-budget-scientists-warn-climate-change/103834644

"Nature does not revolve around humans any more than the sun revolves around the Earth...Ecosystem services are co-created by all species; humans must stop free-riding."
"We redefine ecosystem services as nature’s benefits to the biotic community of which humans are a part...The Ecozoic is defined as an era characterized by the mutual flourishing of humans and the rest of Nature.
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Rethinking ecosystem services from the anthropocene to the Ecozoic: Nature’s benefits to the biotic community
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212041624000305?dgcid=coauthor

Ecosystem Services Key concepts and applications, au gov
>>
https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/ecosystem-services.pdf
#nature #EcosystemServices #egocentrism #Australia #resources #TAKEApproach #anthropocentrism #biodiversity #conservation #ecosystems #Ecozoic #biodiversity #ExtinctionCrisis

@mackaj @cass_m @erinwhalen

> So the people living in these remote areas are going to have to adapt.

#Translation: anyone whose situation is #different from mine or what I am familiar with doesn't matter, so we don't care about how anything #affects them.

Good to know. There's a reason that most of the rest of the #population hates the "big thinkers" from the large urban areas.

#DontCare #ignorance #egocentrism