TIL: Edison shocked elephants with AC to disprove Tesla, trying to prove that DC is safer
TIL: Edison shocked elephants with AC to disprove Tesla, trying to prove that DC is safer
You may have heard of Topsy the elephant and her sad demise at the hands of Thomas Edison. But what's the real story?
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The more you read about that shithead edison, the worse it gets. The asshole acted with an impunity that defies modern logic.
As it was, there was no social media and our current sensibilities back then, information took much more effort to spread, so way too many people have revered him as some sort of saintly hero. Word didn't spread about how narcissistic and petty, how cruel to the point of savagery, he was.That goes ditto for Marconi, his "billion-dollar innovation" consisted of stealing every academic research idea and design within reach, and patenting every single one as his own.
The asshole acted with an impunity that defies modern logic.
... have you not seen how our modern billionaires act?
It was in my mind, but I think Edison got away with some things that exceed the current crop of billionaires, by at least one length, as they say in horse racing. Especially during his no-holds-barred attack on Westinghouse/Tesla and their alternating current, while Edison pushed direct current, which included his inventions to create and deliver it. He had the whole goddamned infrastructure planned out, world domination for decades and decades was at stake here.
But even as Edison pushed every vicious tactic to discredit DC as unsafe, Nikolai Tesla came out the winner, and he did it with dignity and style. Remember the famous photos of Tesla by the arcing electric wires and stuff? Those were publicity shots to show the world (well... mostly NYC at the time, where the AC vs DC war was being fought) that DC was safe enough for even the inventor to sit there casually and read the newspaper.
Have you insinuated that there is logic to back that?
Of course there is. It may not be morally justified, but it's still logical.
Their logic isn't "We need to better society so that all may live in harmony", it's "I must control as much as possible to stave off the inevitable nothingness of death".
Assuming all things that are repugnant to you have no logic to them at all is an easy way to misunderstand and underestimate those who can do the most harm to you.
nobody granted them this attribute