as I'm delving deeper into geoguessr, I frequently think about how these snapshots of the world we are exploring are also a kind of permanent goodbye to the world as it is in them. the climate catastrophe is going to change so much about our planet, rising sea levels are going to obliterate entire coastal features, biomes will change, areas will become much wetter, much drier, much hotter. and we are looking at images of countries when they were at peace, even if today they aren't. houses that have in the meantime collapsed. fields that still show crops that aren't there any more. forests that have been cut down and turned into furniture. it's a weird sort of melancholy that takes me sometimes as I'm trying to figure out where exactly this or that kind of palm grows.