The Victorian Internet Chapter 5
tags:: #source #morse #information-transfer projects:
Reference¶
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Summary & Key Take Aways¶
Discusses how Dr. Whitehouse was poorly informed enough to create a trans-atlantic telegraph. Then with the proof of concept that was the first line and the furthering of the scientific knowledge in the field and better engineers on the problem a more stable one was eventually created. The chapter also discusses the public's reactions to the telegraph and breefly how they effected people and general culture
Thoughts¶
- people's reaction to the creation of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph line was crazy, it feels as though the internet didn't have a similar sort of fan-fare but perhaps it did before my time
- the public's reaction can perhaps be compared to the modern conversation around AI and ChatGPT where it seems the public is disinterested in the science until the practical version is created and they can see the uses for themselves
- interesting how it was speculated to cause world peace as instant communication could remove the common misunderstandings that could often cause conflict. It is interesting seeing how it failed to do so such as with WW1 where a large part of the cause of ww1 was miscommunication
- Morse was deemed to have "Annihilated both space and time in the transmission of intelligence" which really directly connects to The Space Economy
- it talks about the volume of communication causing the telegraph to "be a victom of its own succsess" which is a similar problem that the internet has had and faced which is why we have such a mass of servers storing incomprehensible amounts of data