Wired For Change

Stella K. Block

1996

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 3rd quarter 1996, No. 321

If there is any lingering doubt in anyone's mind about technology bringing about social change, he or she should peruse the 65th anniversary issue of the CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC Magazine, November-December, 1995 issue. It is a graphic pictorial and written evidence of the changes brought about by just two technological innovations: the telephone and the telegraph. The editorial in itself is a revelation of how swiftly technological innovations were accepted and incorporated into everyday life. As the editorial stated, ``The railroad may have physically united Canada but it was the telegraph that literally called the nation into being.''

The first transmission of a message by telegraph was made in 1846 -- which triggered a mad scramble to ``wire'' the whole nation. This was a message transmitted from Hamilton to Toronto -- such a short distance compared to the transmission of information via satellite today!!

Leafing through the pages of the magazine is like taking a walk through history of the technological progression that has occurred on this Continent. As stated above, the first telegraph message was sent in 1846 between Hamilton and Toronto. In 1858 the first transatlantic cable was laid from Valentia Bay, Ireland to Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. Alexander Graham Bell designed the telephone at Brantford, Ont., in 1874. In 1876 Bell made the world's first long-distance calls between Ontario communities of Mount Pleasant, Brantford and Paris.

The anniversary issue of the magazine is replete with pictures of the early beginnings of the so-called ``information revolution'' that we are witnessing today: One photo shows a row of approximately 15 to 20 couriers on bicycles ready to take off carrying messages outside a Montreal office (1920). Another picture shows a row of telephone operators, ``centrals'' as they were called: ``In 1907 when 21 women operated the Vancouver central switchboard for a population of 65,000, a private telephone line cost $1.00 a month. Customers called ``central'' by turning a handle, operators then connected them to their number.''

The telephone and telegraph were accepted with great speed -- quoting one segment of the text, ``Telephones were all the rage in Canada in the early 20th century, which meant much employment for workers who erected the wires and poles needed to accommodate an ever-burgeoning demand. In the one-year period of 1912 alone, the number of Canadians with phones grew by about 19 percent by 1913. When the population was 7.5 million, one in 16 Canadians had the newfangled device.'' This text was accompanied by a photograph of the method used at that time to erect a telephone pole -- between twenty and thirty men were involved in raising the huge pole.

Yes, in the beginning, the growth of technology did indeed create employment. By contrast, how are poles erected today? Huge cranes powered by extraneous energy do the work of a multitude of men, with just one operating the controls in a comfortable cab. The text of two photographs reveals the very essence of ``technological progression'': ``Each strand of a fibre optic cable can transmit from Toronto to Vancouver in one-tenth of a second -- the equivalent of the information in a 32-volume encyclopedia. By contrast, two intertwined threads of spaghetti-like copper wire, held by a technician with the Saquenay-Quebec Telephone Company in 1948, could transmit a maximum of just 12 conversations simultaneously.

A few words of explanation in regard to ``fibre optics.'' According to the text: ``Canada's first coast-to-coast fibre optic cable -- the world's longest -- was completed on March 13, 1990, by Stentor -- an alliance of the country's major telephone companies. Last summer, Stentor finished a parallel back-up line: every 400 kilometres, a cross-link-rung of high-performance fibre cable joins the two lines so that if one breaks, data is automatically rerouted to the other without any loss of service. Thus continues a long tradition of cross-Canada cabling that began with the telegraph.

``Fibre optic cable is made of fine strands of glass along which information is transmitted, using pulses of light. A fibre the thickness of a human hair can deliver 32,000 simultaneous conversations, or 1,000 billion bits per second, of audio, video or data signals.''

In 1880, the Niagara Falls telephone convention adopted ``hello'' as the standard salutation. The first telegraph line across Canada was laid along-side the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. Samuel Morse had invented the electric telegraph in 1844 -- dots and dashes of this code became universal and it signaled a new age in meteorology, among other things. And - in 1890, Sir Sanford Fleming standardized time zones which were accepted around the world. Up until that time, there had been no need for such notions. Prior to the invention of the telegraph, news could only travel as fast as a human on horseback could carry it. Before Samuel Morse invented his message machine, transportation was only as fast as a human could travel. Suddenly, with the Morse code, word could be transmitted instantly! Distance was no longer a major problem.

But the social implications of the development of the telegraph was not recognized for the dynamic influence it really was -- not any more than any other technological invention before that, or since. But the social fabric of the hand-tool, hand-toil age was doomed.

Interspersed with the text about the ``wiring'' of Canada, are pictures of the workers stringing wires of the telephone and telegraph -- even one of a park warden using his horse as a ladder to ``repair'' a broken telegraph wire attached to a tree. This was part of the added duties of the park wardens out in the wilds of Canada at that time -- not only looking out for fires, but keeping an eye on the slender wire of communication.

The phrase ``history repeats itself'' can very well apply to the feverish activity regarding the ``Internet.'' In the early days of the telephone and telegraph, many companies were formed, each one vying for customers. Time revealed this to be an inefficient way to communicate. Eventually the small individual telephone and telegraph companies were bought up and consolidated into trans-Canadian enterprises. So too, did the ``Morse Code'' become obsolete in the wake of ``wireless'' transmission of the radio, etc.

The computerization of the entire Continent is developing at a breakneck speed. Just about every publication carries articles on the ``Internet'' with various opinions of observations by pundits and others. A whole new language has evolved with the evolution of the computers. Dictionaries are now available that are as thick as Webster's, with words that Webster never heard of. All evolved from the electronic revolution we are witnessing. Every business, be it doctors' offices, groceries, gas stations, schools, restaurants, retail shops, airlines, hospitals with a computer in every patient room, and any other endeavor you want to name, is computerized -- because they have to be.

Howard Scott, the founder of Technocracy, stated, many years ago, that the public would be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world of technology. We are witnessing that today. Social change has taken place, but the human animal, being a creature of habit, is still clinging desperately to the same old concepts of yesterday. There is no turning back, and how we survive in the next few years will depend on how well we understand what is happening to our world.

The North American Continent is the logical leader of the coming age. It is the only area that has the physical components to establish a social system that will be in complete harmony with the new age of technology.