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This doesn't directly have to do with this article, but in case some people have not seen it before: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.c

This doesn't directly have to do with this article, but in case some people have not seen it before: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ "Mother Earth Mother Board" This is a good hour-long read, one of the most interesting descriptions I ever read of all that goes into funding, building, operating subsea fiber optic cables that connect us around the world. It's a couple years out of date, but very entertaining. Goes from the physics of transmission all the way to the ships and people who lay the cable.

bcaa7f3a8bbc 6y ago
Note to other readers: It requires 2 hours to read. This is a timeless classic from Wired, written by Neal Stephenson in 1996. I love this article not only because of the article itself, but its enthusiasm and energy from the age it was written in. It was an age with a bright future where everything seems possible. Back at that time, Wired represented the avant-garde of Silicon Valley (including the fact that Neal Stephenson being the author) that was going to revolutionize everything through computing and the Internet, the free and fast flow of information enables decentralization, and would liberate us from all the old forms of political control. In particular, this article had a clear techno-libertarian overtone, about how authoritarianism and monopoly would be defeated through disruptive innovation. One goal of constructing FLAG (the cable) was explicitly to reduce the reliance of the infrastructure of the United States and to challenge the role played by traditional ISP over the control. The article even mentioned the early cypherpunk movement (in the mid of the first Crypto War), and acknowledged "Virtually all communications between countries take place through a very small number of bottlenecks, and the available bandwidth simply isn't that great. Even outfits like FLAG don't really grok the Internet." But FLAG was still seen as a step moving towards the correct direction and the beginning of the new network order. The dream eventually came to an end. Wired-inspired DotCom bubble busted. Although FLAG was the first move to break U.S. and traditional ISP's monopoly, future projects in the next 10 years didn't quite accomplish this goal. Silicon Valley became the new giant establishment and monopoly (the critics say massive deregulation was partially responsible). Authoritarian regimes have done a good job preventing the information flowing online to bring liberal political changes. And the Internet has been seized as the means of mass surveillance. Nevertheless, the late 90s was a great age to be alive with that dream.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- supernova87a 6y ago
  It's probably like when the first cellphone inventors imagined the freedom and productivity that portability would offer humanity. And didn't realize that a sizeable portion of the eventual effort would turn into serving up cute cat videos and trying to prevent people from yelling at each other based on fake news.
  - bcaa7f3a8bbc 6y ago
    > would turn into serving up cute cat videos Cute cats, per se, is not the problem. Did you know the "Cute cat theory of digital activism" [0]? Literally, the first online cat meme posters imagined the freedom and productivity that cats would offer to digital liberty. > trying to prevent people from yelling at each other based on fake news This turns out to be a much bigger problem that couldn't be solved using cat memes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_act...
- andrepd 6y ago
  > the free and fast flow of information enables decentralization, and would liberate us from all the old forms of political control. Of course, it turned out precisely the opposite.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    The fundamental flaw in the original thinking on this topic was that people saw the digital frontier as a new wild west of sorts, where old rules and established lines of power did not apply and a bold, adventurous spirit could carve out a new realm for themselves. The thinking wasn't wrong at all. It merely failed to extrapolate to what happened to the American wild west after the era of the gold rush. The vast, vast majority of humanity doesn't want to live in the wild west. And when given the option between a laissez-faire no rules world where those with better understanding of the natural rules triumph and a structured society, structure wins every time. Nobody is really forced to use Facebook. Or Twitter. Or Google. Or Amazon. But they are, all of them, vastly more convenient than the DIY alternatives which were the only option when the internet was young.
miguelxpn 6y ago
Interesting, Stephenson later used some of that on the plot of Cryptonomicon.
Cyph0n 6y ago
> Couple years 1996... But I will definitely be adding it to my reading list!
rainbowzootsuit 6y ago
One of my favorite articles of all time. I still have the hardcopy somewhere around.

bcaa7f3a8bbc 6y ago

Note to other readers: It requires 2 hours to read. This is a timeless classic from Wired, written by Neal Stephenson in 1996. I love this article not only because of the article itself, but its enthusiasm and energy from the age it was written in. It was an age with a bright future where everything seems possible. Back at that time, Wired represented the avant-garde of Silicon Valley (including the fact that Neal Stephenson being the author) that was going to revolutionize everything through computing and the Internet, the free and fast flow of information enables decentralization, and would liberate us from all the old forms of political control. In particular, this article had a clear techno-libertarian overtone, about how authoritarianism and monopoly would be defeated through disruptive innovation. One goal of constructing FLAG (the cable) was explicitly to reduce the reliance of the infrastructure of the United States and to challenge the role played by traditional ISP over the control. The article even mentioned the early cypherpunk movement (in the mid of the first Crypto War), and acknowledged "Virtually all communications between countries take place through a very small number of bottlenecks, and the available bandwidth simply isn't that great. Even outfits like FLAG don't really grok the Internet." But FLAG was still seen as a step moving towards the correct direction and the beginning of the new network order. The dream eventually came to an end. Wired-inspired DotCom bubble busted. Although FLAG was the first move to break U.S. and traditional ISP's monopoly, future projects in the next 10 years didn't quite accomplish this goal. Silicon Valley became the new giant establishment and monopoly (the critics say massive deregulation was partially responsible). Authoritarian regimes have done a good job preventing the information flowing online to bring liberal political changes. And the Internet has been seized as the means of mass surveillance. Nevertheless, the late 90s was a great age to be alive with that dream.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
supernova87a 6y ago
It's probably like when the first cellphone inventors imagined the freedom and productivity that portability would offer humanity. And didn't realize that a sizeable portion of the eventual effort would turn into serving up cute cat videos and trying to prevent people from yelling at each other based on fake news.
- bcaa7f3a8bbc 6y ago
  > would turn into serving up cute cat videos Cute cats, per se, is not the problem. Did you know the "Cute cat theory of digital activism" [0]? Literally, the first online cat meme posters imagined the freedom and productivity that cats would offer to digital liberty. > trying to prevent people from yelling at each other based on fake news This turns out to be a much bigger problem that couldn't be solved using cat memes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_act...
andrepd 6y ago
> the free and fast flow of information enables decentralization, and would liberate us from all the old forms of political control. Of course, it turned out precisely the opposite.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  The fundamental flaw in the original thinking on this topic was that people saw the digital frontier as a new wild west of sorts, where old rules and established lines of power did not apply and a bold, adventurous spirit could carve out a new realm for themselves. The thinking wasn't wrong at all. It merely failed to extrapolate to what happened to the American wild west after the era of the gold rush. The vast, vast majority of humanity doesn't want to live in the wild west. And when given the option between a laissez-faire no rules world where those with better understanding of the natural rules triumph and a structured society, structure wins every time. Nobody is really forced to use Facebook. Or Twitter. Or Google. Or Amazon. But they are, all of them, vastly more convenient than the DIY alternatives which were the only option when the internet was young.

miguelxpn 6y ago

Interesting, Stephenson later used some of that on the plot of Cryptonomicon.

Cyph0n 6y ago

> Couple years 1996... But I will definitely be adding it to my reading list!

rainbowzootsuit 6y ago

One of my favorite articles of all time. I still have the hardcopy somewhere around.