Anti-electricity cartoon from 1889.
Electricity is portrayed as a spider with a cobweb of electrical wires for trapping its human victims.
Also features the mandatory skull, dead horse, and a mother with a child killed by the daemon.
@kravietz Keep in mind that the stuff was a) pretty dangerous at the time and b) safety measures and knowledge were at best primitive.
Not that you couldn't die from plenty else as well.
Institutional resistance was also likely high.
Absolutely yes — the poster was actually based on a tragic accident of an electrician electrocuted (the person hanging on the wires).
The problem with the poster is however that's it's not a safety warning, but a portrayal of new technology as an absolute evil that cannot be controlled, that appeals to lowest emotions and instincts.
@kravietz Resistance to technological innovation goes back a ways.
See "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations (1937)"
https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39
Berhnard J. Stern's student research assistant would talk of this work later. He went on to use concepts in his own writing. You may have heard of Isaac Asimov.
I've retyped the document in Markdown, available for reading here:
https://rentry.co/szi3g
#BernhardJStern #ResistancesToTechnologicalInnovation #Technology #Luddism #IsaacAsimov
This article is so awesome! 😂
> The wide use of electric locomotives has been delayed because of capital loss on old equipment
One of the England's busiest lines (GWR) was electrified only in... 2019! 🤦♂️
@kravietz @dredmorbius "capital loss" will be a *major* consideration in the sustainability transition. Central banks have taken an active interest in how sustainable private bank balance sheets not because of particularly green fingers but to have visibility on financial system risks...
UK central bank is usually very friendly to any kind of investment. I would say even excessively - for example they didn't mind the real estate bubble unrolling in 2000's (I might be not fair here if Bank of England did actually protest but that was the outcome).
The capital loss could be indeed a problem if you replaced the railway system every decade or so, but in this case we're talking about like 40 years lag - most of Europe electrified back in 80's.
@kravietz @openrisk @dredmorbius
there was also lack of consensus about *how* to electrify UK railway for many years; instead of standardising on 25 000V AC overhead there was (and still is) 660 and 750V DC third rail in areas of SE England closer to London, also 1500V DC overhead used in some areas. Subsequently, sectorisation or BR and the hiving off of centralised research/infrastructure divisions such as BREL and BRT to make it appealing to private investors stalled progress further..
@kravietz @openrisk @dredmorbius
BREL = British Rail Engineering Limited (who designed many of the trains used in the mid-late 20th century)
BRT = British Rail Telecommunications (ran the signals and telecoms, which also includes the special private circuits used to co-ordinate electrification (these had (and maybe still have) their own separate telephones)
@kravietz @openrisk @dredmorbius
I used these same lines a /lot/ during 1980s/1990s (British Rail days), for all the faults of BR they weren't any worse than today, and the trains were more affordable to a teenager/young adult, especially to visit London. I didn't even /need/ a car back then!
I agree they should have been electrified earlier, but there must have been a factor of "don't fix what is already working fairly well" (more so with privatisation looming)
@vfrmedia @openrisk @dredmorbius
If it's spewing clouds of smoke and particulate matter into the air all along the way, in towns and in the stations, then it hardly counts as "working fairly well"! Especially in Paddington, which is all roofed, the smoke is especially vicious.
@kravietz @openrisk @dredmorbius
to be fair I was still at the age where this didn't immediately bother me; and I would smoke a cigarette waiting for the train, and many others did; which may be forbidden today..
What I do remember fairly fondly is a journey to the other side of London or even to Essex was much more affordable (more so than running a car), environmental impact aside its the other way round these days even for a single traveller.
@vfrmedia @kravietz @dredmorbius this reminded me about the massive amount of rail-related terminology and facts on the ground. the UIC has actually been a sponsor of mediawiki / semantic mediawiki projects to organize the related knowledge base https://uic.org/rail-system/erim-database/
@kravietz @dredmorbius the concern is not the new investments but existing ones that might need to be written off (and the size of liabilities).
Given how pervasive practices have been for a long time across many sectors there are potentially major risks that only now start getting recognized / assessed. A new term has come to existence: "transition risk".
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/climate-change-what-are-the-risks-to-financial-stability