Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

We don't have access to any part of the planet below a depth of 2.5 miles, so the image should compare the volume of accessible water to the volume of accessible Earth, except then it would fail in its dishonest mission to make people say "gosh that sphere looks relatively small compared to the other sphere, I must restrict myself to ten-second showers."

Even if it was accessible water to accessible non-water I don't really see how the metric is relevant in any decision making. Is it warning against a half-baked plan to mix water with every available cubic meter of soil or rock? Because there wouldn't be enough water to do that crazy thing? Thanks, I'll bear that in mind.




You seem really upset about what to me looks like a quite neutrally presented fact. There are lots of interesting aspects to this picture which don't have anything to do with criticizing you or the length of your morning shower.


>We don't have access to any part of the planet below a depth of 2.5 miles

Given how many miles I can travel over land or through the air, 2.5 miles _into_ the earth is amazingly shallow in similar ways to how the article already anticipated my amazement of how small the spheres of water were.


It’s just an interesting infographic that is factually correct. You can disagree that the chosen facts are relatively the best ones, but, not everything has to have an agenda. Calling facts dishonest because they make you uncomfortable is what I consider yucky.


I think a neat follow-up image would be a sphere containing the top 2.5 miles of Earth’s crust for comparison to the water.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: