In reply to 98%monkey:
> (In reply to yorkshireman)
>
> This is more of a general feeling about the world. Enablement through technology is dis-enablement in many ways, it is an assist.
I get that you're having a sort of general neo-luddite rant, and that's fine as I'm guilty myself sometimes, but I just don't buy it.
Streetview doesn't diminish the actual thing it captures. Arguably one of the greatest steps forward in environmental conservation was the photograph of the Earth taken from the Apollo moon landings. This huge technical feat made it visibly clear just how small and fragile this planet really is, and made it seem all the more wonderous as a result of seeing it in context.
The view from the top of a mountain, is no less beautiful if you're there, just because Google posted it on a server somewhere.
> You could have just turned up with your running shoes and dealt with whatever was there - but you didn't.
Yes, but I was in Atlanta - its a very dangerous city in parts and lots of it is inaccessible on foot because of the massive road system. Instead, I found a reasonably busy and fairly safe corridor to get me to a large beautiful park. And I didn't get shot.
You could stick a pin in an atlas and go there on holiday, but I doubt that's what you do. You rely on feedback, brochures, reviews, tv programmes, websites etc to get informed? There's a place for serendipity, but who truly leaves everything to chance?
> Cumulatively that will have an effect on society.
Of course it will - all technology does, but you automatically assume that the net balance is negative. I beg to differ. Is society worse since the invention of the telephone? Or antibiotics? The car? They all have pros and cons.
The digitisation of Britain's countryside has come a step closer as the canal network begins to be added to Google's Street View. The Wales Coast Path might just be next.
