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I remember reading that the early telegram adopters were really surprised that no one destroyed the lines just for fun. They all thought it was a doomed technol
by kouru225 2y ago
I remember reading that the early telegram adopters were really surprised that no one destroyed the lines just for fun. They all thought it was a doomed technology cause the masses would sabotage it. TBH we’ve been pretty lucky for the last 2 centuries.
- ronsor 2y agoWhy was it so surprising? Society as a whole is only functional because most people are uninterested in causing mayhem for no reason.
- the_af 2y agoVandalism of public phones (when they existed) was pretty common in my city. And garbage bins in public spaces get destroyed all the time for no reason. Everything that isn't nailed down and very robust gets destroyed or stolen. Infrastructure things related to water pipes (at the buildings level) gets stolen, too (happened in my building recently). Everything that can be resold as raw materials gets stolen.
- compootr 2y agoFor a cable at the bottom of the ocean, there is a barrier to entry though. For theft in the city, the thing being stolen is pretty easily accessible, and requires much less thought than getting some kind of submersible and going to the bottom of the ocean
- the_af 2y agoDefinitely. I was only discussing the telegraph and its skeptics.
- grapesodaaaaa 2y agoThe egress/ingress points can sometimes be accessible by shore, but the cables I have seen there are pretty heavily armored (likely just the same type used to armor against ship anchors)
- diggan 2y ago> The egress/ingress points can sometimes be accessible by shore, but the cables I have seen there are pretty heavily armored I think the cables are of variable thickness. Thicker at the shore and in areas there is higher risk for damage because of rocks etc, and thinner where it's deeper and flatter.
- dingnuts 2y agothis is cultural. not every city is as you describe
- the_af 2y agoOh, I'm aware it's cultural. I was just arguing it wasn't unreasonable for telegraph skeptics to believe vandalism would be common.
- mmooss 2y agoThe second statement is true; the first is not necessarily the reason.
- samatman 2y agoSeems tautologically true to me. Culture covers a lot of ground. Like saying "cities have a lot of people for urban reasons".
- jpcom 2y agoDoes your city have those scooters that people ride without helmets at great speeds?
- the_af 2y agoWe used to, briefly. It was a failed experiment (not sure if they stole them, though I guess some were stolen). We still have bikes though.
- vasco 2y agoBecause it takes 1 person, in an isolated spot to ruin a whole chunk of a network. Even though society as a whole works, there's things where one person can easily mess it up for potentially millions of people. So even if that person would have to be a big statistical anomaly, they'll exist.
- buckle8017 2y agoFortunately the people wanting to do that are often to stupid to realize what's vulnerable.
- dylan604 2y agowell, a more charitable take on it would be they just don't have the means to achieve what they might want to do. would you be able to charter a boat with the ability of cutting the cables while also ensuring that whatever crew you hired will be complicit with your task? make it more simple you say by finding where the cables come on land and attack them there is more complicated because now you're on foreign soil. so does that make someone stupid because they're not an evil billionaire and just someone that likes to watch the world burn?
- TacticalCoder 2y ago> well, a more charitable take ... One of the main reason the very few manages to ruin cities for everyone else is because of the charitable take. In addition to that, just like GP, my experience is that the people being nuisance are really just stupid. I haven't seen many chess IMs nor many engineers destroying things the majority relies on just for fun. There's zero reason to be charitable with dumb people acting evil and there's zero reason to attribute intelligence where there's typically close to none.
- card_zero 2y agoThey are thin on the ground, so far I could only find Norman T. Whitaker, who did a lot of insurance fraud and various kinds of swindle and was prison friends with Al Capone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_T._Whitaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_T._Whitaker
- highcountess 2y ago[dead]
- kouru225 2y agoI think the big thing that separates cables and all the other technology is just how in-your-face power cables and telegram lines are/were. You’re stringing them across people’s windows sometimes, blocking their views at worst and making aesthetic changes to the neighborhood at best. The fact that no one sabotaged these things en masse is a miracle IMO, especially considering how many people had nothing to lose back then.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- vijucat 2y agoJust look at the airport luggage belt. Runs on reciprocal altruism. Most people are not good (and this was true even before CCTV, for the cynics :) )
- massysett 2y agoThat’s not altruism, more like because a bag of someone else’s used clothes and underwear isn’t very useful or valuable.
- vijucat 2y agoHa ha. There could be valuables, you know. Anyway, I wanted to edit it to write, "most people are good, or at least compliant", but now the window has passed :) Because I had this epiphany about how we lead such passive lives, complying with the rules of the system around us.