06-01-2025, 03:30 PM
I have to admit that internet access on planes is one of those things my ape brain refuses to believe is real.
Even though I understand how communication with people in space operates. And like, you know, how people on the ground can communicate with the pilots.
People have said lots of stupid shit about Flight 93 over the years but I think there is a way to look at that as one of those dividing line moments where there's no going back. Flight 93 fought back because somebody on the plane had a cell phone and so found out about the rest of 9/11. That kind of ignorance between passengers and the outside world is never going to happen again, but not because of anything anybody did deliberately for safety reasons or whatever.
I don't mean that in an overstated sense, just an extension of what the telegraph started, planes were like one of the last bubbles. Reading about the early days of the telegraph and how quickly everyone just adapted to it is fascinating, like you don't even think about how much of a communications advancement it was over all of human history before. Yet the idea that we couldn't instantly communicate with someone is alien to most of us for our entire lives even if we can faintly remember when you had to find a phone.
Perhaps related to some other topics we talk about, I find it interesting that the people concerned about social media addiction and FOMO and the like seem to focus narrowly on the latest technologies instead of considering it just reaching a mass democratization point at the end of that telegraph bringing in change. 99% of human history didn't have instantaneous communications between even local areas, all we've done recently is just connect the entire planet. That the meager distance that existed before everyone carried smartphones was some kind of perfect balance rather than just when they grew up. I have to imagine I could find people saying the same stuff about people getting phones in their homes, you know it has to have been said about television.
Even though I understand how communication with people in space operates. And like, you know, how people on the ground can communicate with the pilots.
People have said lots of stupid shit about Flight 93 over the years but I think there is a way to look at that as one of those dividing line moments where there's no going back. Flight 93 fought back because somebody on the plane had a cell phone and so found out about the rest of 9/11. That kind of ignorance between passengers and the outside world is never going to happen again, but not because of anything anybody did deliberately for safety reasons or whatever.
I don't mean that in an overstated sense, just an extension of what the telegraph started, planes were like one of the last bubbles. Reading about the early days of the telegraph and how quickly everyone just adapted to it is fascinating, like you don't even think about how much of a communications advancement it was over all of human history before. Yet the idea that we couldn't instantly communicate with someone is alien to most of us for our entire lives even if we can faintly remember when you had to find a phone.
Perhaps related to some other topics we talk about, I find it interesting that the people concerned about social media addiction and FOMO and the like seem to focus narrowly on the latest technologies instead of considering it just reaching a mass democratization point at the end of that telegraph bringing in change. 99% of human history didn't have instantaneous communications between even local areas, all we've done recently is just connect the entire planet. That the meager distance that existed before everyone carried smartphones was some kind of perfect balance rather than just when they grew up. I have to imagine I could find people saying the same stuff about people getting phones in their homes, you know it has to have been said about television.
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