Junk. It’s everywhere. From island-sized floating masses of garbage to the thousands of tons of space debris found in low orbit, mankind has left its permanent mark on planet Earth. As junk is generated as a byproduct of consumerism, the debris left behind by satellites, or the inefficient data-grabbing of companies; we are faced with mountains of waste every day.
The question then is, how should we tackle this junk problem? Similarly, how should companies handle the acquisition and exchange of data? In the information age, the ever-increasing volume of data is proving to be a challenge within the data marketplace.
In this episode, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby discuss human junk and its effect on our evolution.
There are a hundred million pieces of debris found in Earth’s low orbit. Each of those are only larger than a millimeter. That may sound harmless, but the environment is different in outer space. Up there, there’s barely any friction or gravity, which allows the individual pieces to speed up at around 17,500 miles per hour.
And so, a tiny piece of junk floating around can cause large amounts of damage to any equipment unfortunate enough to get hit. A bigger yet obvious problem is the difficulty with which people can repair damages, as it’s hard to even reach the damaged equipment.
As of the year 2020, there are currently 3,372 active satellites in orbit. Now, the US Regulatory has already permitted SpaceX from launching satellites, of which they plan to launch 42,000 of them. This will only increase the risk of important satellites and instruments from being damaged.
The International Space Station has even had near-miss events because of space debris, which cements it as a real problem with real consequences. Obviously, this isn’t the problem of the ISS alone.
Junk has become such a prevalent issue around the world, and yet we don’t even consider why it exists in the first place. We create plastic and other pollutants for commercial goods, without taking into account what happens to it after it is thrown away.
Ever since humans have developed technology, we created this mentality of not caring about the aftermath of our actions. Which, in turn, has created all this junk and waste around us, which is hindering our evolution as a society.
This isn’t to say that we are unaware of our predicament. However, the way we try and solve this problem is by simply going around the junk. For example, instead of trying to get rid of space debris, they instead designed better spacecraft to withstand the high-speed debris that crashes into our satellites.
In addition to humanity’s indirect approach towards junk, our pre-existing systems are open and do not take into account the amount of waste that will inevitably get created. Because of the open systems that society has relied upon, we are continuously burying ourselves beneath our waste.
As an example of society’s indirectness towards problems, picture this scenario. A child is left in their car seat as the parents go inside the store. The parents are reliant on the car’s system, that it will provide AC and therefore keep the child cool. However, what happens when the AC malfunctions? We could design a camera to observe, but that’s simply an indirect fix.
Instead of simply going to the root of the problem and simply bringing the child along, the parents create complicated measures.
Junk is everywhere, and yet it is simply tolerated. Instead of finding roundabout ways to avoid junk, we should instead focus our efforts on it. Focusing on it gives humanity a deep understanding of the cause and effect of junk, and how we can eliminate it.
Within the data marketplace, TARTLE is cleaning up data for buyers and sellers alike, creating order and organization from piles upon piles of junk data. TARTLE is creating a closed system with no waste, making it efficient and precise.
