5 ms·

The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now. Also, the idea that a p

The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now. Also, the idea that a physical barrier could affect the spread of information. Its interesting how much of 20th century history centers on Berlin. There's a wall museum in Berlin, well worth visiting. Edit: thanks for the reminders about contemporary split cities, sobering to think about those

marc__1 5y ago
> the idea of a city split into two We see this more often than not. The modern version just omit the walls https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-electio... > physical barrier could affect the spread of information Don't you think that there is a component of physical barrier in today's internet? while this may sound odd for the Americans, this is very typical in many parts of the world (East Europe, Asia and parts of Africa and Latin America)
perihelions 5y ago
"The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now." Current reality in Nicosia (capital of Cyprus, a EU nation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_... >"The Turkish army has built a barrier on the zone's northern side, consisting mainly of barbed-wire fencing, concrete wall segments, watchtowers, anti-tank ditches, and minefields. The zone cuts through the centre of Nicosia, separating the city into southern and northern sections. In total, it spans an area of 346 square kilometres (134 sq mi), varying in width from less than 20 metres (66 ft) to more than 7 kilometres (4.3 mi).[2][3][4] Because of this, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Nicosia remains the last divided capital in Europe.[5][6]"
- usr1106 5y ago
  Korea. While it's not in the middle of the capital, it's not that far. And the border is much tighter than the Berlin wall has ever been.
  - flohofwoe 5y ago
    I don't know about that, trying to cross the border had/has a high chance of being shot to death, both in the GDR and (AFAIK) in North Korea. East Germany even had automated the whole killing part: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschussanlage https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschussanlage (I haven't found the matching article on the English Wikipedia, sorry)
    - fsckboy 5y ago
      matching article in English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-gun (on most wiki pages you can find matching articles in other languages near the bottom of the column of links under the wikipedia logo on the far left of the desktop version)
    - usr1106 5y ago
      I know that. But there was always some travelling over the Inner-German border. Not convenient at all for those wanting to travel from the East, could lead to losing your job and even imprisonment until the West paid to get you free years later. But possible for those who were persistent enough and accepted the sometimes severe consequences. In Korea even that is not enough.
      - flohofwoe 5y ago
        Only pensioners got an exception and could travel from East to West to visit family. Everybody else had to try their luck digging tunnels (mostly in Berlin in the 60s), over the Baltic Sea or make it through the "Death Strip" alive, all ending very likely in death or if they're lucky, imprisonment (one of my uncles and his wife ended up with a 10-year prison sentence for trying to flee over the Hungarian border, and were eventually "bought out" by the West). Travel from West to East was unrestricted of course.
        usr1106 5y ago
        Neither is fully correct. We had working age relatives visiting us from the East in the West in the 1980s. But visa were not easily granted, not at all for people in many positions. And only for one person of a family at a time. I'm sure the Stasi checked in advance that the risk of not returning to their family was low. Traveling from the West to the East was not free either. Officially it was only allowed to visit relatives and for cultural exchange. Individual tourist journeys were not allowed, only day visits to East-Berlin. But nobody checked very carefully whether the "relatives" were real. I had a friend of mine visit distant relatives of myself in the 1980s. They just filled in that the relationship would be cousin or something like that and nobody asked or checked. The East was interested in the money from the West. For every visiting day there was a mandatory exchange. From a Western point burning money because you could not buy anything of equivalent value for money in the East. I bought a big series of math books translated from Russian once. I fear I still haven't read them all. Maybe when I retire...
- mattr47 5y ago
  Big difference between Berlin and Nicosia/Lefkoşa. I lived for 2 years (2010-2012) in the North as a westerner and while the division certainly affects the Island, it is nothing like Berlin in the Cold War. Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before reunification.
  - SerLava 5y ago
    >Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before reunification. I have an instinctive reaction to that type of language now - it makes me wonder if one side has dramatically more fault than the other
    - Landefeld_1 5y ago
      'Fallacy' ? Take two opposing Counterparts, teached by history. 'Farmers and the church were the first, who thought something like welfare, the farmer were "addicted" to the help of others to bring in the harvest, often village people to construct and harvest...historical the church seemed to be addicted to grace -which the people had to obey [turns-in-a-circle] to fulfill the will of "god" (abstract: a 3rd person). So it today those two (farmers and the church) seem to be the first who drag money out of it (the social).' A few post above someone wrote something that "'fascist' refer to Germans who didn't join communism" And that one may say, extremists are 'well-aligned on the idea of strict enforcement of their ideologies' (Quoting). So take a look at history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian_era And add that Wilhelm II (Germany) was an grandchild of the british Queen Victoria. And, that socialdemocracy as domestic policy was concerned the biggest threat of his time (under his politics) Bismarck (his predecessor) for example whereas is considered as the father of the 'modern' welfare state. Maybe a try to show how easy it was to distract me, with a simple 'governments pushing their agenda a lot more strongly than the general population would have on its own'. (-;
  - vanusa 5y ago
    Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before reunification. Along with massive repatriations for lost property; compensation to the families of the hundreds who disappeared; and criminal investigations of those responsible for -- and who profited from -- the orgy of plunder and mayhem that ensued after the partition. Of course.
newacct583 5y ago
> The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now. Jerusalem says hi.
kunagi7 5y ago
> The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now. Say welcome to the "Peace lines" or "Peace walls" [0] in Belfast and other cities in North Ireland. There's also Jerusalem, Nicosia and more places with walls around certain areas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines
inglor_cz 5y ago
"sounds like sci-fi now" Sci-fi is usually about future. With 8 billion people in the world and growing, I can definitely see some other places divided by walls so that hostile factions do not mix. There are "peace lines" in contemporary Belfast and Derry still in existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines
flohofwoe 5y ago
> Also, the idea that a physical barrier could affect the spread of information. It didn't, radio waves didn't stop at the wall ;) My dad told stories of communist youths tearing down people's "west antennas" and there were also attempts to jam western TV and radio stations, but this was in the early 60's or so. Later it was more or less tolerated (to watch western TV and listen to western radio), even though officially a taboo.
- est31 5y ago
  Yeah they could send to most of the east except for a few regions that got dubbed "valley of the clueless". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_der_Ahnungslosen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_der_Ahnungslosen
- tylersmith 5y ago
  Slightly off topic but the German band Rammstein, whose members prodominately grew up in East Berlin, have a great song called "Radio" about how the information leakage from the west to the east over radio helped encourage the cultural changes required to unify Germany. It's interesting to me to hear from the source how valuable it was/is.
mbg721 5y ago
Having the subway run under the other side's territory and just skip stations is the part that really feels sci-fi/cyberpunk to me.
pomian 5y ago
Mexico USA border seems to a pretty strong example of a contemporary wall. Imagine what would happen if it was completely removed?
- nautilius 5y ago
  You mean all 700 miles of it along 2000 miles of border? I would guess nothing at all would change. No comparison to the German wall with minefields, self shooting devices, etc.
- gadders 5y ago
  The Berlin Wall was to stop people escaping. The US border Wall is to stop people coming in.
- relativ575 5y ago
  Border wall is nothing new and not that rare. They are often used to stop illegal immigrants. Just an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_border_barrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_border_barrier
Barrin92 5y ago
>sounds like sci-fi now if you actually want the speculative fiction version and the concept taken to the extreme, you're in luck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City
- codeulike 5y ago
  Yes! Love that book

marc__1 5y ago

> the idea of a city split into two We see this more often than not. The modern version just omit the walls https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-electio... > physical barrier could affect the spread of information Don't you think that there is a component of physical barrier in today's internet? while this may sound odd for the Americans, this is very typical in many parts of the world (East Europe, Asia and parts of Africa and Latin America)

perihelions 5y ago

"The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now." Current reality in Nicosia (capital of Cyprus, a EU nation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_... >"The Turkish army has built a barrier on the zone's northern side, consisting mainly of barbed-wire fencing, concrete wall segments, watchtowers, anti-tank ditches, and minefields. The zone cuts through the centre of Nicosia, separating the city into southern and northern sections. In total, it spans an area of 346 square kilometres (134 sq mi), varying in width from less than 20 metres (66 ft) to more than 7 kilometres (4.3 mi).[2][3][4] Because of this, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Nicosia remains the last divided capital in Europe.[5][6]"

usr1106 5y ago
Korea. While it's not in the middle of the capital, it's not that far. And the border is much tighter than the Berlin wall has ever been.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  I don't know about that, trying to cross the border had/has a high chance of being shot to death, both in the GDR and (AFAIK) in North Korea. East Germany even had automated the whole killing part: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschussanlage https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschussanlage (I haven't found the matching article on the English Wikipedia, sorry)
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    matching article in English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-gun (on most wiki pages you can find matching articles in other languages near the bottom of the column of links under the wikipedia logo on the far left of the desktop version)
  - usr1106 5y ago
    I know that. But there was always some travelling over the Inner-German border. Not convenient at all for those wanting to travel from the East, could lead to losing your job and even imprisonment until the West paid to get you free years later. But possible for those who were persistent enough and accepted the sometimes severe consequences. In Korea even that is not enough.
    - flohofwoe 5y ago
      Only pensioners got an exception and could travel from East to West to visit family. Everybody else had to try their luck digging tunnels (mostly in Berlin in the 60s), over the Baltic Sea or make it through the "Death Strip" alive, all ending very likely in death or if they're lucky, imprisonment (one of my uncles and his wife ended up with a 10-year prison sentence for trying to flee over the Hungarian border, and were eventually "bought out" by the West). Travel from West to East was unrestricted of course.
      - usr1106 5y ago
        Neither is fully correct. We had working age relatives visiting us from the East in the West in the 1980s. But visa were not easily granted, not at all for people in many positions. And only for one person of a family at a time. I'm sure the Stasi checked in advance that the risk of not returning to their family was low. Traveling from the West to the East was not free either. Officially it was only allowed to visit relatives and for cultural exchange. Individual tourist journeys were not allowed, only day visits to East-Berlin. But nobody checked very carefully whether the "relatives" were real. I had a friend of mine visit distant relatives of myself in the 1980s. They just filled in that the relationship would be cousin or something like that and nobody asked or checked. The East was interested in the money from the West. For every visiting day there was a mandatory exchange. From a Western point burning money because you could not buy anything of equivalent value for money in the East. I bought a big series of math books translated from Russian once. I fear I still haven't read them all. Maybe when I retire...
mattr47 5y ago
Big difference between Berlin and Nicosia/Lefkoşa. I lived for 2 years (2010-2012) in the North as a westerner and while the division certainly affects the Island, it is nothing like Berlin in the Cold War. Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before reunification.
- SerLava 5y ago
  >Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before reunification. I have an instinctive reaction to that type of language now - it makes me wonder if one side has dramatically more fault than the other
  - Landefeld_1 5y ago
    'Fallacy' ? Take two opposing Counterparts, teached by history. 'Farmers and the church were the first, who thought something like welfare, the farmer were "addicted" to the help of others to bring in the harvest, often village people to construct and harvest...historical the church seemed to be addicted to grace -which the people had to obey [turns-in-a-circle] to fulfill the will of "god" (abstract: a 3rd person). So it today those two (farmers and the church) seem to be the first who drag money out of it (the social).' A few post above someone wrote something that "'fascist' refer to Germans who didn't join communism" And that one may say, extremists are 'well-aligned on the idea of strict enforcement of their ideologies' (Quoting). So take a look at history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian_era And add that Wilhelm II (Germany) was an grandchild of the british Queen Victoria. And, that socialdemocracy as domestic policy was concerned the biggest threat of his time (under his politics) Bismarck (his predecessor) for example whereas is considered as the father of the 'modern' welfare state. Maybe a try to show how easy it was to distract me, with a simple 'governments pushing their agenda a lot more strongly than the general population would have on its own'. (-;
- vanusa 5y ago
  Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before reunification. Along with massive repatriations for lost property; compensation to the families of the hundreds who disappeared; and criminal investigations of those responsible for -- and who profited from -- the orgy of plunder and mayhem that ensued after the partition. Of course.

newacct583 5y ago

> The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now. Jerusalem says hi.

kunagi7 5y ago

> The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like sci-fi now. Say welcome to the "Peace lines" or "Peace walls" [0] in Belfast and other cities in North Ireland. There's also Jerusalem, Nicosia and more places with walls around certain areas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines

inglor_cz 5y ago

"sounds like sci-fi now" Sci-fi is usually about future. With 8 billion people in the world and growing, I can definitely see some other places divided by walls so that hostile factions do not mix. There are "peace lines" in contemporary Belfast and Derry still in existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines

flohofwoe 5y ago

> Also, the idea that a physical barrier could affect the spread of information. It didn't, radio waves didn't stop at the wall ;) My dad told stories of communist youths tearing down people's "west antennas" and there were also attempts to jam western TV and radio stations, but this was in the early 60's or so. Later it was more or less tolerated (to watch western TV and listen to western radio), even though officially a taboo.

est31 5y ago
Yeah they could send to most of the east except for a few regions that got dubbed "valley of the clueless". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_der_Ahnungslosen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_der_Ahnungslosen
tylersmith 5y ago
Slightly off topic but the German band Rammstein, whose members prodominately grew up in East Berlin, have a great song called "Radio" about how the information leakage from the west to the east over radio helped encourage the cultural changes required to unify Germany. It's interesting to me to hear from the source how valuable it was/is.

mbg721 5y ago

Having the subway run under the other side's territory and just skip stations is the part that really feels sci-fi/cyberpunk to me.

pomian 5y ago

Mexico USA border seems to a pretty strong example of a contemporary wall. Imagine what would happen if it was completely removed?

nautilius 5y ago
You mean all 700 miles of it along 2000 miles of border? I would guess nothing at all would change. No comparison to the German wall with minefields, self shooting devices, etc.
gadders 5y ago
The Berlin Wall was to stop people escaping. The US border Wall is to stop people coming in.
relativ575 5y ago
Border wall is nothing new and not that rare. They are often used to stop illegal immigrants. Just an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_border_barrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_border_barrier

Barrin92 5y ago

>sounds like sci-fi now if you actually want the speculative fiction version and the concept taken to the extreme, you're in luck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City

codeulike 5y ago
Yes! Love that book