Memoryholing humans
Following on yesterday's note about British paper ballots.

There's a strong parallel to my recent discussions of pre-electric semaphore systems and scrip.

In all cases the official myth treats electricity as magic. When a system switches from manual to electronic, we automatically assume that the old manual way was INFINITELY slower. We can't possibly return to a method that takes "many months" to transfer messages or transfer money or complete a count.

In fact the changeover didn't improve speed and the old way didn't take months. That wasn't the real purpose of the change.

Yesterday's Brit election showed the speed of human counters. Each constituency counted about 100k ballots in real time and finished checking within an hour after closing. The whole nation was done five hours after closing.

Rehashing my discussion of semaphores:

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Electric telegraphs began around 1830 when visual semaphore systems were already widespread in Europe and Russia. In those countries, news traveled much faster than horseback but somewhat slower than electricity. Why didn't USA copy the idea? For 50 years those systems were well known and highly functional, but we didn't use them. We made do with horses and runners until Morse and others persuaded the government to try the electric system.


Why were semaphores slower than electric telegraphs? The obvious answer is because electricity... but that isn't the real answer.

Two reasons, one of which could have been solved with existing technology.

(1) The moving parts of semaphores were big and heavy, requiring considerable strength and time to overcome inertia. The keyboards of the first electric telegraphs acted easily and instantly, with negligible mass and momentum. This could have been solved with the compressed-air technology of pipe organs. The English six-panel system would be best because its action was binary. Each key would valve air into its own combination of pistons, each flipping one panel. When the key was released, the spring-loaded panels would snap back to default.

(2) More subtle but unsolvable. The first telegraphs were NOT significantly faster than semaphores. The Chappe system, with a dense network of stations and highly skilled operators, was able to send a message from Calais to Paris in three minutes under ideal circumstances, and one hour in typical usage. Early telegraphs shared the limitation of frequent human intervention. Batteries at each station had to overcome the resistance and reactance of long wires. The message might travel about 5 miles to the first receiver, where the operator would have to copy the complete message and then resend it. This is identical to semaphores except for the inertia and momentum. Telegraphs became instantaneous after the invention of the relay, which automatically transferred the information to a new circuit with its own batteries. Relays act instantly, so a well-formed and well-maintained line could send a message through unlimited distances instantly. There was no conceivable way to develop a relay for visual systems. It would be possible right now using video cameras and OCR technology, but it wouldn't have been possible even 20 years ago.

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Rehashing the discussion of scrip:

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Hawala or scrip is the economic implementation of a principle that's painfully familiar and even trivial in other areas.

Decentralizing works ONLY when the modules or units share a common ground.

A trust network holds up ONLY when the units are built with a shared purpose. Ideally each unit should be physically incapable of harming the network.

When you can count on the units to follow the same rule in the same situation, you don't need a central controller sending commands to the units, and you don't need a lot of communication between the units.

When the modules have different grounds or different limits or different operating systems, you need a strong central controller, and even then the overall system will be inefficient. Most energy will be chewed up in the contradictory and redundant operations of the bureaucratic control system.

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We conveniently skip semaphores and scrip. They are entirely omitted from our history of tech, just as analog computers are omitted.

Well then, if speed isn't the main distinction between manual and electric, what's the real difference?

SKILL AND CONTROL.

Manual methods give work and utility to people with a common culture. Electronic methods make people redundant, make culture redundant, and require everything to be controlled from one center.

Manual methods are necessarily MODULAR, with activities organized by level. Each module does its own measuring or counting using an agreed-on culture, and each module protects its own calculations. There's no choice.

Electronic methods can be modular, but big tech always requires globalism. Each module must be instantly and invisibly monitored and controlled and hacked from the global control center.

All of our thoughts and histories have been Rectified to make human functions and skills look horrible. We can't possibly go back, because we'd lose all of our efficiency and speed.

Nonsense.

BIG TECH IS GENOCIDE.

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Sidenote for future ref: In the earlier discussion on semaphores I asked: Why didn't USA copy the idea? I didn't answer the question, and still can't see an answer. We obviously weren't waiting for electric telegraphs, because they didn't even start developing until 1830. We had plenty of contact with France in those years. Our inventors and politicians often visited France for inspiration and financing. Chappe semaphores were EVERYWHERE in France, and they were dramatically visible. American writers commented on the 'flying wings' of Chappe, but we didn't adopt them. It's a strong puzzle.

Labels: Deadthink, defensible times, Morsenet of Things, scrip, skill-estate

  ¶ 10:54 PM