P2P software. I mean, think about it… it’s an idea a fair amount of us take for granted now, but somebody came up with the idea of let’s make everybody else do the work, instead of having one centralized server.
It’s like a bureaucracy where everybody is trying to make everybody BUT them do the work! Spectacular. That, and laser printers. And The Simpsons. And soap. And while this doesn’t blow my mind, I do find it mildly peculiar that somebody’s walking across campus outside my window. I mean, it’s 3AM! Go the hell to sleep already!
People have mentioned lots of aspects of this already, but in general, the world infrastructure. I have a one-pound bag of spaghetti that was apparently imported from Italy. I consider all the farm workers and machinery that had to harvest the original crops, the processing plant where it was turned into pasta, the distribution warehouse with all its workers in New Jersey, and the supermarket where I bought it. Plus transportation between each of these steps. And that’s just first-order. There’s also packaging, design, marketing, management, and inventory. Plus electricity for all of these. And my 75¢ has to pay for it all. My room is full of products I get a similar wow from considering. That’s why I try not to think too much.
The fact that my motorbike can rev up to 10,000 RPM is just amazing to me, too. And it sounds like it likes it, a lot! Unlike my car, it just gains power as the revs fly up. Somewhere between my legs, a shaft is turning 10,000 times per minute!
Uh, upon re-reading that, I see that that could be misinterpreted. I mean the watchamacallit, the drive shaft?
World War II went nuclear. Not that’s I’m complaining, but still…whoa.
That the Earth’s surface is just made up of (relitively) thin plates of rock, floating on a sea of magma.
That the atomized remains of the probe that Galileo dropped into Jupiter’s atmosphere are still in there…somewhere…On a planet that has clouds bigger than this freakin’ planet.
That there are people who have no idea the the Brain is the seat of human consciousness.
More to come, I’m sure.
Shark scales are actually evolved from teeth. They have enamel, a pulp cavity, and so on. Thousands of little teeth, all over the outside of a shark’s skin. Eeeugh.
This might be a little drespressing, sorry, but it’s the mood I’m in.
The thing that consatntly blows my mind is the set of chances that had to come together to lead to this exact moment, and condition. That all of the little subatomic particles came together, to make atoms, to make molecules, to condense into this galaxy, and this sollar system, and this hunk of rock floating around space. That life started, that life evolved to mammals, to humans, to my ancestors to my family, and then to me. That the house I grew up in, the familiy and freinds I had, the schooling I got, the dumb luck, good choices and bad choices I made that ended up in me ending up here. With that person on TV , sitting in this chair in front of this computer in these underwear(made by a machine, designed by that guy, built by those other guys) typing this post to be read to whoever ends up reading it. I just cannot get my mind aroun dthe fact all these things ended up happening to lead to now, except for the simple fact that something had to happen, and why not this I guess. Then I think about my paththetic 120 Kgs of mass, and my measly 70 years of expected life span, and the fact that I take things so seriously, when my life (just as everybody else’s) is so freaking insignificant in the space and time scope of existece.
Babies.
They grow inside humans? Holy cow, that’s amazing!
Earth is floating in space.
There’s absolutely NOTHING in any direction. Like…forever.
Colors.
Just colors. So many. Pretty… Me like colors.
Professional athletes.
What in the world is it like playing a game for a living? You get a fantastic amount of money for having fun. The stress must be tremendous.
The brain.
Forget the universe. THIS is my universe. How does it work? It’s just a bunch of goop. It’s me. Why is it me?
The fact that the molecules of my flesh don’t bond with the molecules of things I touch.
Imagining California in various stages of history. At one point the San Diego Mission/Presidio was the only European construct in the whole freakin’ state!
Same here, pepperlandgirl. What really blows my mind is that in 2003, seemingly intelligent people don’t accept evolution. Or people who actualy believe in “creationism” and follow organized religion and participate in antiquated religious rituals, etc. It blow my mind that people actually believe in that stuff.
What really blows my mind is the beauty of nature. Animals, plants, water. My love for nature is my religion.
The Lewis and Clark trip. What was it, like 26 people? Walking/rowing through completely unknown (to them) country. Just the trip blows my mind. I also read something (no cite) saying Jefferson thought they would find dinosaurs out in the “Great American Desert.” Crazy.
How we can be both incredibly massive in comparison to the nucleus, and at the same time incredibly miniscule in comparison to the planets and the stars, or the space that holds them
Like Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor said, looking up at the stars at night.
How this moment, as it happens, can never happen exactly as it is again.
How different people can be though we all come from the same blueprint, essentially.
The apparent “contentedness” with the state of the world and it’s motives (by so many others).
That so many people are misunderstood just because their minds are unable to translate their “all-too-human” emotions into a language that others can understand and relate to.
A couple of things that just blow me away.
Standing in a tall building and looking out the window at the city below me, and realising that it somehow works. Electricy flows, traffic flows (most of the time ), water is piped in, and sewage gets piped out.
Being in the mountains and thinking what it must have been like for early explorers to get across mountains without any roads, or maps. Damn those people were tough.
That we are all just “ugly bags of mostly water” yet we think and love and feel and have evolved to this point.
Yet, through hundreds of thousands of years on this planet, we still have the capacity to hate each other based on appearance, beliefs, choices we have made, or mental or physical limitations.
Unfortunately, if you’re the end goal, there’s no reason for evolution, and the necessary reproduction for such, to continue. Sorry, but that’s the burden you must bear. The rest of us must keep striving, however…
As one might be able to discern from my moniker, I, too, am “blown away” by evolution and its results. My mind is blown when I contemplate that the Allosaurus claw I once held belonged to a living creature, and that it lived millions of years ago. My mind is blown when I contemplate that the closest living relatives of such beasts are not the scaly lizards which live under rocks, but birds…which can fly. Birds are flying dinosaurs…and I keep two of them as pets!
