
Earlier I called these limitations significant; I meant this, not in the way that they disable the day to day use of Google Maps' features, but in the way they cast light on our own distortion of reality. Because places are less populated or less economically well to do, or even simply because they are located nearer to the poles, Google deems them less important and offers them an inferior program. While this may be practical, it forces us to recognize our willingness to sacrifice equality for practicality. Additionally, the fact that Google Maps' photos are so disconnected from one another shows our minds' fragmentation of the world into borders between towns and countries and also between objects and moments, rather than seeing a continuum of time and space. Humans evolved to exaggerate borders. If they were an attacking animal, it helps to be able to discern it from the trees behind it. Our senses evolved to highlight difference rather than continuity known in psychology as parsing (Gleitman 164-168). While these gaps in our perception are not quite as obvious as Google Maps' blanks, there are gaps in the things we perceive using our senses and our memories, thus any dissatisfaction with Google Maps might be frustrations with our own incomplete realities.
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