Comment by dfabulich
7 hours ago
> unless you consider Frankenstein part of the hype cycle
It absolutely is. Frankenstein is a seminal work of science-fiction horror, and the mysterious power of electricity to change everything is what made it so chilling to its readers in the 19th century.
> it really doesn’t compare to how much people hyped social media
The media is considerably different now from in 1818, thanks, in significant part, to the power of electricity. I assure you, when the electrical telegraph came on the scene, people were hyped.
Of course, much of that hype was on paper printed on printing presses, so it was, in some sense, "incomparable" to the hype possible on cable television, or the hype that's now possible with online social media.
But if your argument is "Yeah, electricity was kinda hyped, but, you know, not all that hyped, so it proves my point that the more the hype, the less the impact," you have some more research to do. Please just Google "War of the Currents" for a minute.
> It absolutely is.
It was published as Fiction. The vast majority of people didn’t think it was anymore realistic than Interstellar etc.
There’s plenty of stories where we cure cancer, but the 50% improvement in cancer treatments over the last 40 years just doesn’t get much hype because it’s so slow. It’s hard to get excited about the idea cancer may be gone in 200 years because while that will be awesome for people alive then it doesn’t do anything for the people I know.
> electric telegraph came online people where hyped.
Objectively it got way more of a meh reaction than you’d think simply based on the timelines involved.
France was happy to continue using its network of optical telegraphs long after the electrical telegraph became a practical thing. Transatlantic telegraphs got hyped up somewhat, but again the technology took so long from the first serious attempt to a practical working system people understood the limitations inherent to having such limited bandwidth between the contents.
Obviously new technology gets attention because it’s a net improvement, being able to send messages across the US much faster was useful. But hype is different, it’s focused on second order effects not what it does but what will change. The original iPhone isn’t just another cellphone that also takes pictures, it’s “the internet in your pocket.”
The electrical telegraph was integral to the growth and consolidation of the British Empire. Britain acquired more colonies and held on to them for longer than the other European powers partly due to its naval might, but also due to far superior bureaucratic and communications technology.