I’m 51, I spent the 90’s in Louisiana, and since my wife doesn’t fly, we have driven across the USA more times than we can count. In the 90’s, if you didn’t have a bug screen on your grill, the LoveBugs would clog your radiator and you would over heat. You also needed the windshield scrib and squeegee to scrub off the bug splatter every time you filled up. Now, you don’t need either of them.
Humanity making progress like it always does
Submitted 11 months ago by mozz@mbin.grits.dev to science_memes@mander.xyz
Comments
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
xenspidey@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
I have been thinking about this recently. How much of this is lack of bugs vs aerodynamics. I mean back in the day we all drove big rectangles. I’m not denying the fact that it could be a mass extinction of bugs. Just curious.
Ephera@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Nope, seems to purely be the mass extinction thing. In fact:
modern cars hit more bugs, perhaps because older models push a bigger layer of air – and insects – over the vehicle.
hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Same in Europe.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Drove a ton in the 90s all across the US as well every year there was a couple several thousand mile vacations starting from near Kansas city.
The bugs were bad, but we never needed a bug screen on the grill. I never even remember seeing something like that exist, actually. Definitely less bugs now, though.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Lucky. I-10 could get ridiculous between the black cricket things, the love bugs, the dragon flies, etc.
shalafi@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Same age. Dad taught me to always clean the windshield when we filled up. Yeah.
octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
This has bothered me for years. It’s a really strange thing to be telling younger relatives about how you legitimately could not drive any substantial without windshield cleaner at certain times of year. I remember them being plastered across the front edge of the hood and against the radiator after a long trip.
It’s one of the most visibly different things about the world today, IMO, and it’s a little eerie.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 11 months ago
The sounds, too.
I was talking with my dad walking near to a place that had frogs croaking, and he got a little emotional and excited to hear them over the phone. Normally it's just traffic noises now, and silence.
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
I remember the wasps always buzzing around the vehicle grills munching on all the dead bugs too. Now it’s just shiny and chrome.
Vlyn@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
I still remember 10 years ago when I was driving on the Autobahn at 130 km/h and a juicy bug hit the windshield. It was literally a loud splat. Besides the grill always being covered in bugs.
Hasn’t happened since, nowadays I can count the number of bugs on the grill with one hand. And that’s after months of driving.
chetradley@lemmy.world 11 months ago
We’re undoubtedly in the midst of another mass extinction, caused by human activity. Here’s another one that will freak you out:
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Why is that supposed to freak me out? We cultivate animals for consumption and there’s not a 1:1 absorption/usage ratio. Now add insect biomass.
MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There is no cow level.
platypus_plumba@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Don’t worry guys, the billionaires already built their bunkers and their space ships! Just as planned.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 11 months ago
MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Not quite correct. The 2020 image should have a car completely covered in a dust of green pollen because city planners only planted male trees for decades because female trees would produce fruit or seed and be a “nuisance” and/or create trash/animal bait etc…
But if they only planted female trees, they would never get fertilized, so they wouldn’t produce fruit anyway… Or pollen.
Worst case scenario, they would produce fruit, and cities would still smell bad and have rodent problems. But without the allergies.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oh I remember 2 years ago where I live there was so much fucking pollen. And we had no rain for like 2 months so the streets were yellow with it. I am not allergic to pollen and yet I was constantly sneezing and my eyes were irritated. It was such a relief when we finally had some rain to clear everything.
weariedfae@lemmy.world 11 months ago
But girls are gross! We can’t let our city streets and parks be sissies!
(/s)
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 11 months ago
I’m so dopey. I thought this was suggesting that we’d invented up with some clever formulation to stop bugs sticking to windshields in 2020 and that we’d all have fully autonomous cars by 2050.
mipadaitu@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There ARE fewer bugs, and that’s a problem, but also cars are more aerodynamic and would kill fewer bugs these days regardless.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 11 months ago
What is it about then 0_o ?
WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
It is about how the death of the insects is a precursor to the death of the rest of us. In the 90’s, there were a lot more bugs in the world, and it was very noticeable on road trips. They’re all gone now.
Lenny@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Idk but I’m reminded of the 2002 adaptation of The Time Machine. One of the great achievements of our civilization was an advanced AI with all of our collective knowledge that you could converse with. Feels like our AI tech is on track to get there by the time we start dying off en mass lol
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 11 months ago
There are quite a few wonderful stories about the AIs continuing after humans are gone. "For a Breath I Tarry" by Roger Zelazny, and the whole of the Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem, are some great ones.
Of course, one of the critical points of "For a Breath I Tarry" is that the machines are just doing what they're programmed to do, maintaining the infrastructure for no one and just sitting in their orbits keeping the power grid going and all, and are actively hostile to any effort to bring the humans back because that would make things complicated and isn't in their programming (since although superficially they can converse and act "intelligently," more so than humans, they can't really grasp the purpose of things.) Also, "With Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson is another perfectly realistic one.
XPost3000@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Honestly, having a world that’s just alone and empty, but not “abandoned”, sounds so soothing to explore, so liminal
Until insanity set in, but until then I’d have alot of fun just exploring the place for a while
Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Even if the AI can’t converse well, there will not be many humans around to have human conversations so it will seem a normal chat.
nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
We could put two in front of each other and let them ping pong nonsense for all eternity.
formergijoe@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Future civilization will be adding glue to pizza once humanity rebounds
thejoker954@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Orlando Jones was my favorite part of that movie lol.
grue@lemmy.world 11 months ago
When I was a kid, there used to be hundreds of fireflies in my backyard in the summer. Now, I get excited to see even two or three.
I blame the anti-mosquito pesticide services half my neighbors seem to hire.
fishos@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Blame the raking of the leaves. No leaves in fall means no place for the eggs to be laid and no place for the larvae to grow. It’s another casualty to grass lawns. A “clean” nature is a place where nothing has room to thrive.
JustAnotherRando@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I try to help what little I can there by not raking (or if I do, I collect and move into our fenced in section so insects can still make use of them). It does also help my laziness that I have a legitimate reason to not rake.
Not sure if it helps or not since I do mow the leaves with the grass at the start of the summer.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 11 months ago
Where I grew up, the city wanted to hire a bunch of trucks to drive around town spraying malathion into the air to kill the mosquitos. They had a vote, and the town voted overwhelmingly that, fuck no they did not want that, please don't do that, that sounds awful. Then they did it anyway.
Same thing; now there are pretty much 0 fireflies.
Aralakh@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Whoa, this is disconcerting. My folks used to run a rental car agency and I helped out every now and then by cleaning cars. I remember cleaning so many bugs off of cars 20ish years ago, and now on my own car - barely nothing. :(
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
I’m ready for the hyper-industrialized moon-scape our planet will become once our environment completely collapses. I think there will be a point past which any environmental protection measures will be useless because there’s nothing left to protect so industrial landscapes will become the norm.
Omniraptor@lemm.ee 11 months ago
industrial landscapes need a base of natural resources and less developed regions with high birth rates (as a source of labor) to support them.
GluWu@lemm.ee 11 months ago
My parents never gave me money unless I worked for it and washing their cars was one of those few things they did pay me to do. I remember always having to scrub bugs off the front, it was the hardest part. I’ve literally never washed my road cars because its just dust.
KillingAndKindess@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
My parents never gave me money unless I worked for it
my road cars because its just dust.
I’m sorry. I legitimately can’t tell if this is satire or not…
GluWu@lemm.ee 11 months ago
What are you confused about? Some cars I’ve owned cannot go off road, maybe a bumpy dirt road here and there. Other cars I have owned I bought specifically because I needed them to go where there isn’t pavement or even a road. They get a lot dirtier and need cleaning just to stay functional.
TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Last panel should have one of those stock scanning robots behind the wheel.
Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
With a human body on the windshield?
Norgur@fedia.io 11 months ago
And a tesla logo on the bonnet for absolutely no reason at all wink wink
Blaster_M@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Misread that, was thinking OG BSG Cylon behind the wheel… you know, the one with the red light that goes back and forth.
Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Stop cutting your lawns and dig a pond. It’s not going to stop industrial scale destruction, but it’s something actionable that you can do yourself and see the positive impact right at home. If enough homes do it, a network of gardens can become a macro system.
Death_Equity@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Idk my artificial monoculture of non-native grasses kept immaculately trimmed and racially pure with toxic chemicals applied regularly makes me feel better than my neighbors’ artificial monoculture of non-native grasses kept immaculately trimmed and racially pure with toxic chemicals applied regularly.
That is how my daddy did it and that is how his daddy did it and their generations haven’t set any cultural precedents that have been incredibly predictably devastating to life and the biosphere as far as I can tell in these recordbreakingly hot and insect free times. I mean sure, those other places are experiencing historic climate events, but that is just part of normal climate cycles that haven’t existed in millennia.
secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s a very funny commentary on how we’re all about to die!
Why didn’t the scientists warn us that pollution was bad? Where were the scientists lighting themselves on fire in protest?
This is all science’s fault!
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 11 months ago
baatliwala@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Bro would probably be more than 70 years old in 2050, good that he’s off the streets
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 11 months ago
Sorry, can someone explain? If there are less bugs, that’s attributable to something I should know?
Rubisco@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
Do you convert dead organic matter into fertile soil or pollinate flowers? They do. If insect populations were to vanish, so would humans. They perform too many vital functions that humans cannot.
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 11 months ago
Yes… Sorry, I didn’t mean I didn’t understand what bugs do. I just was trying to understand the meme. I was not aware that there’s universally less bugs. I haven’t seen this covered in news.
Kaboom@reddthat.com 11 months ago
OP literally never leaves the city.
ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
I have noticed this in the suburbs specifically. Just over the span of my short life I’ve seen pretty much all the bugs in any area I’ve lived in disappear, along with the bats that eat them.
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 11 months ago
I’m not in the city right now. The key word in my post was “attributable.” As in, what’s causing the phenomenon?
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Pest control is a trillion dollar industry
nifty@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I wonder if the insects have just learned to avoid highways, is there any data to indicate a shift in behavior like that? I couldn’t find anything
Rolando@lemmy.world 11 months ago
200,050: a giant cockroach at the wheel.
Surp@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s true
BrazenSigilos@ttrpg.network 11 months ago
Oh, my. I hadn’t even noticed how much less I’ve had to clean my Windshield lately. That is a very bad sign…
henfredemars@infosec.pub 11 months ago
It’s been a couple years since I’ve had to scrape the bugs from my windows.
snooggums@midwest.social 11 months ago
I had to last week. It was the first time in years.
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Waaiiittt… How fast you need to go to get flies on your windows? I think my place has much more flies but i never saw this thing
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Couldn’t that also be new improvements in car aerodynamics where bugs simply glide off instead of getting squished?
Ephera@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Apparently, it’s the other way around, presumably because unaerodynamic cars pushed around a big air cone, which deflected the insects.
theguardian.com/…/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-hu…
platypus_plumba@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I was thinking the other day that we no longer see bugs around the house I grew up in. When I was a kid my house was always full of bugs, we live next to a protected natural area, so it was impossible to keep them out. Anyways, I’ve always loved bugs so they were welcome. I moved out and whenever I go there are no animals to be seen. I can’t even hear birds or see iguanas walking around. It’s so disturbing.