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.

@dredmorbius

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

@dredmorbius

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...

@openrisk @dredmorbius

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)