🌎 Measuring Mars
Mars was empty before we came. That’s not to say that nothing had ever happened. The planet had accreted, melted, roiled and cooled, leaving a surface scarred by enormous geological features: craters, canyons, volcanoes. But all of that happened in mineral unconsciousness, and unobserved.
Thats from the opening of the book, Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.
We all act based on information. There’s so much information, if we act incorrectly we can quickly recorrect. Lines on the highway, notches on a belt, returns of a market. Information informs and we adapt.
Problems arise when we use the wrong information. No one will knowingly do this—but again, there’s so much information.
Mars is just a rock. There’s nothing.
Or is there?
It depends on your information.
This has special relevancy during the coronavirus pandemic. People who thought they were quite productive realized that there was still a lot of friction in their schedules. Our change in place and process can lead to changes in information. How and if we act depends on how we choose to ‘measure Mars’.