Today in 1846, declaring the end of war, the New York Herald celebrated the inauguration of the telegraph line between Boston and New York (completed on June 27; on July 18, news brought to Boston by a steamer from Europe were transmitted on this telegraph line for the first time).
“When a telegraph network spanned the globe, war would be no more, and cannonballs and mortars would be locked up in museums as curiosities and remnants of a barbarous age”—The New York Herald, July 12, 1846
Ever since, the belief that global networks of any kind can abolish war and topple tyrants has stubbornly persisted:
“Nations are getting obsolete, we go and live where we will. Steam has enabled men to choose what law they will live under. Money makes place for them. The telegraph is a limp-band that will hold the Fenris-wolf of war. For now, that a telegraph line runs through France and Europe, from London, every message it transmits makes stronger by one thread, the band which war will have to cut”—Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits, 1856
“The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention argues that no two countries that are both part of the same global supply chain will ever fight a war as long as they are each part of that supply chain”—Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat, 2005
“This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics, motivated by terror, armed with nukes, and playing old but now far too dangerous games. This generation will not bypass existing institutions and methods: look at the record turnout in Iran and the massive mobilization of the young and minority vote in the US. But they will use technology to displace old modes and orders”—Andrew Sullivan, “The Revolution Will Be Twittered,” The Atlantic Monthly, June 13, 2009
“We live at a moment when the majority of people in the world have access to the internet or mobile phones—the raw tools necessary to start sharing what they're thinking, feeling and doing with whomever they want. …By giving people the power to share, we are starting to see people make their voices heard on a different scale from what has historically been possible. These voices will increase in number and volume. They cannot be ignored. Over time, we expect governments will become more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a select few”—Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s IPO filing, 2012