In the 1930s radio reached ubiquity, going from fad to fixture in 80%+ of u.s. homes by decades end.

Radio’s rapid rise threatened several established professions; newspapermen as a primary source of news, musicians as a source of entertainment and - lesser known - lawyers as source of legal counsel…

Why? A New York radio program called ‘Good Will Court’ featuring real defendants receiving legal advice - often because they could not afford a lawyer - acted as ‘canned counsel’ for listeners, cutting out traditional lawyers.

The program became popular fast, by 1936 it secured a national broadcast deal with NBC and soon became one of the top-10 radio shows in America:

The legal profession started to take notice, as one paper put it: when lawyers heard about “free legal opinions dished out to millions of Americans,” they “set up a howl that could never be mistaken for static” fearing “legal instructions from a cigarette hour.” One lawyer threatened legal action over the shows name and a number of lawyers associations filed complaints.

Bar Associations in New York threatened to disbar judges and lawyers that participated in the program. The Chicago Bar Association said it exploited “human misery for commercial purposes” and the American Bar Association said the show was “unqualifiedly disapproved and condemned as being contrary to public interest.”

The New York supreme court was asked to give its opinion on the matter, a memorandum given in defense of the show called the barring of legal pros from appearing a “gross interference with the freedom of speech and of thought” pursued selfishly “for the fancied benefit of some particular class” that would “restrict the liberties and opportunities of the whole community.”

The memorandum would finish with a pithy remark: “if such a force as this for social betterment is contrary to law, then there is something wrong with the law.”

The defense fell on deaf ears, the court ruled that any attorneys that gave free legal advice over radio - or any other publicity medium like newspapers - would be deemed guilty of professional misconduct. ‘Good Will Court’ lost its sponsors and the show went off the air.

Some were incensed that access to free legal advice was diminished, deploring “greedy lawyers” who saw “perhaps thousands, of people beating a path to the door of the “Good Will Court,” instead of beating a path to the doors of their own offices.”

Sound familiar?

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This begs the question: if today’s analog age virtues were once seen as sins of modernity, are some resolutions set today inversions of those set in the past?

Judging by some of the dialog around them, it is a reasonable assumption:

DON’T READ IN BED

Reading in bed was once considered as degenerate and sleep sapping as bed bound smartphone scrolling, as books became abundant and affordable, they stopped being a status symbol and became a symbol of decadence…

In the late 19th and early 20th century newspapers and medical authorities would sound warnings about the practice having a negative impact on your eyes and sleep patterns…“Why do people talk about being ‘guilty’ of reading in bed?” asked the London Spectator in 1903, noting that medical authorities were sounding warnings - many of which it noted were quoted by ‘The Daily Mail’ (yes that one)

In 1908 the concerns were given renewed legitimacy when medical journal ‘The Lancet’ weighed in on the matter, repeating a warning it first made in 1888, even going so far as suggest 18+ age limit on the practice to protect eyes.

In 1950 the American Medical Association magazine warned not to read, as part of its rules of getting good sleep. It is an unfounded notion the persists today, passed down the generations.

CYCLE LESS

The bicycle boom of the 1890s would garner disapproval from a number of groups… while some physicians argued cycling was healthy others linked it to insanity, deformities of the spine and even a cause for appendicitis.

One insurance company even refused to insure bicycle riders, while one army recruitment office rejected applicants who were avid cyclists because it was assumed they had a weakened ‘bicycle heart.’

REDUCE RADIO TIME

The rise of Radio in society was inevitably followed by handwringing and speculation about its possible downsides: dead birds, poor grades and sleep deprivation were just some of the unfounded concerns.

In 1938 it was dubiously blamed of mass panic after a War of the Words broadcast, a notion perpetuated by newspapers who felt threatened by the new medium.

One preacher declared in 1943 that “Persons who listen to the radio from dawn to dusk suffer from the disease “radio perpetuum”, a slow but sure softening of the brain” - what we today call ‘brainrot.’

GIVE UP CHESS

In 1858 Paul Morphy became widely considered the world Chess champion, as a result national interest in the game boomed, leading to Scientific American weighing in on the matter opining: “Chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time”

Paul Morphy’s mental health would rapidly decline in the proceeding years, Chess was blamed by some for the deterioration, when other champions met similar fates there was speculation Chess might have a negative impact on players more generally.

CUT DOWN ON CROSSWORDS

Today word games are widely considered good for our brains, crosswords have survived the transition from print to digital and new word games continue the emerge - like Wordle.

The omnipresence of crosswords in the U.S. was described in detail in a British article that reported the “fad” was “in trains and trams on omnibuses, in subways, in private offices and counting rooms, in factories and homes, and even — though as yet rarely — with hymnals for camouflage, in church.” Along with other modern trends, the crossword had supposedly “dealt the final blow to the art of conversations.”

Ironically The New York Times - now famous for its crossword puzzle - would refuse to publish the games for many years, deeming them unworthy of a serious publication. Why? Because they were considered unintellectual and associated with distraction, earning bans by at least one professor and a judge.

Happy New Year

Every generation believes it has finally identified the real vices - the habits that must be curtailed for health, morality, or progress. History suggests caution.

As the new year begins, it’s worth asking whether some resolutions we set today will look as strange in hindsight as vows to read less, cycle less, or stop playing chess. After all, yesterday’s degeneracy has a habit of becoming tomorrow’s virtue. Choose wisely.

Osborne’s ascent to satanic scape goat began in 1969, when his British band ‘Earth’ changed names to ‘Black Sabbath’, and adopted occult aesthetics. Meanwhile in the United States, the seeds of satanic panic - planted by the founder of ‘The Church of Satan’ Anton LaVey in 1966 - were beginning to germinate: as the Manson murders were making headlines linking them to occult worship, LaVey’s Church published ‘The Satanic Bible.’

The following year Ozzy - right on cue - would turn up on US shores. In 1970 ‘Black Sabbath’ performed in the US for the first time - their ominous name, dark lyrics, and theatrical use of occult imagery would make his association with Satanism and the occult, all but inevitable.

Satanism concerns lingered through the 1970s, perpetuated by Manson trial headlines, former satanist ‘high priest’ Mike Warnke’s hoax memoir The Satan Seller, and hit films like The Exorcist and The Omen. In 1979 a new fangled game called Dungeons & Dragons - already linked to occultism - would be falsely tied to a missing-person case. (it’d later inspire 1982 TV movie ‘Mazes and Monsters’ featuring a young Tom Hanks.)

1979 would also see Ozzy Osbourne leave ‘Black Sabbath’ to go solo, and pivotal moment in music: the release of the Sony Walkman - giving young people more access to music and a way to listen out of earshot of elders.

The 1980s kicked off with a new supposed ‘expose’ of satanism ‘Michelle Remembers’ (1980) by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, who claimed to have recalled repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse.

1982 would see accusations of ‘back masking’ in rock music - secret satanic messages when played backwards - such as “Satan move through our voices” and “My Name is Satan”, bringing increased focus on music as a vehicle of satanic influence.

That same year Ozzy Osbourne released his first solo album ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ in the US - retaining the same occult aesthetics of Black Sabbath. During a 1982 promotional concert in Des Moines, Iowa he would infamously bite the head off of a live bat on stage (he later claimed he thought it was a toy.) This shocking stunt secured his place as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and the poster boy of Satanism, a crucifixion was just a matter of time.

Satanic panic would spike further - in 1983 - when the Los Angeles D.A. brought charges against local daycare ‘McMartin Preschool’ for satanic ritual abuse that included reports of flying witches - in what became the longest, costliest series of trials in U.S. history.

In 1985 Ozzy’s song ‘Suicide Solution’ would be blamed for a youth suicide in a lawsuit - even though the lyrics were actually about alcoholism that killed a fellow musician (it would eventually be dismissed on free speech grounds.) Another British heavy metal band - Judas Priest - would also end up in court, with accusations of subliminal messages encouraging suicide.

That same year Tipper Gore would form the ‘Parent’s Music Resource Centre’ after buying Purple Rain for her daughter, she was appalled by the lyrics. In a rare bipartisan moment, she and other D.C. wives formed the Parent’s Music Resource Center. Ozzy’s Black Sabbath song ‘Trashed’ would be listed in the ‘filthy fifteen’ - a list of the most offensive unregulated songs. The effort combined concerns about occult influence, with more general moral concerns that appealed to secular parts of society.

In 1986 Ozzy would cancel a concert in Texas after protests and death threats:

Ozzy remained defiant: the same year he was amusingly cast as a satirical anti-metal ‘moral crusader’ in Horror movie ‘Trick or Treat.’

A few years later he would appear on ‘Geraldo’s’ infamous ‘Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground (1988) to defend himself against complicity in the scourge of satanism inspired crimes.

Ozzy would be grilled live from London - before his answers were cut off in favor of a live jail house interview with a teen on death row, who’d say his crimes were done in the name of satan. Other highlights included a priest warning of demonic possession, a defence of Satanism from Anton LaVey’s daughter and a jail house interview with Charles Manson.

In 1990 the ‘McMartin Preschool’ case concluded with no charges, and the evidence in the trial was later discredited - this would mark the peak and decline in satanic panic. Ozzy’s star would fade, as heavy metal became less popular, and would re-enter popular consciousness in 2002 as the bumbling patriarch of MTV’s reality hit The Osbournes.

Ozzy’s passing reminds us what was really at work: not evil, but fear. Older generations were seeking explanations for the collapse of traditional values and the rise of secularism. The 1950s had trained them to fear unseen forces like communism and new forms of entertainment, such as comic books. Satanism, Heavy Metal and Ozzy Osbourne were the perfect scapegoats. Or as he put it in “Rock ’n’ Roll Rebel”: “They live their lives in fear and insecurity… the ministry of fear that won’t let you live.”

When disruption comes and the world feels uncertain, it’s tempting to invent demons.

Today, the Apollo program is remembered by Americans with pride and reverence, a nostalgic symbol of American exceptionalism. Yet, before that "giant leap for mankind" Americans weren't so enthusiastic…

After President Kennedy’s 1961 declaration to put man on the lunar surface by the end of the decade a Gallup poll revealed only 33% supported, compared with 58% opposed:

This, despite Alan Shepard Jr. recently becoming the first American in space. Aggregations of opinion polls through the 1960s have shown disapproval of the moon landing was consistently higher than approval.

Popular opposition isn’t something you often hear about regarding the Apollo program. It is conveniently missing from America’s collective memory, in lieu of a tale of collective patriotic triumph. A narrative that appeals to Democrats as an example of successful big public programs - and Republicans - as a triumph of the capitalist west against the communist east.

The truth is, opposition was a constant, and even continued after man set foot on the lunar surface. Dr. Norbert Wiener - the ‘father of cybernetics’ - would coin the term ‘Moondoggle’ for the program in 1961, a neologism that would be adopted by Republican’s like Barry Goldwater (and a 1964 book of the same name.)

President Kennedy’s own head of Science Advisory Committee - Jerome Wiesner - opposed a manned mission, releasing a critical report on the notion before Kennedy had even been sworn in, or made his declaration.

In January 1962 The New York Times would note what else such a budget could afford the American people: over a hundred universities, millions of homes, hundreds of hospitals and cancer research. These concerns would be echoed by left wing opponents to the program, later memorialized in Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken word poem ‘Whitey on the Moon.’

In September, 1962 President Kennedy gave his famous Rice University speech where he spoke those famous words: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” This no doubt helped sentiment towards to mission.

However by November that same year Kennedy was expressing concerns privately about public sentiment saying “We’re talking about these fantastic expenditures which wreck our budget, and all these other domestic programs are starving to death”, suggesting the cost could only be justified if framed in the context of military superiority over the Soviet Union.

1963 would really see opposition heat up. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower - whose administration initially created and funded NASA - expressed his own reservations, dismissing Kennedy's lunar ambition as "almost hysterical" quipping:

Kennedy would shoot back, noting the previous administrations record deficit spending. Some in the scientific community would push back too, a newly appointed editor of the prestigious journal ‘Science’ - Philip Abelson - would pen a critique of the mission - saying it was a moral outrage to not instead focus research expenditure on something like Cancer research. The Washington Post would cover Abelson’s criticisms, followed by a 3-part series in the same spirit titled ‘Moon Madness?’

In September 1963 President Kennedy would again voice his concerns about public perception - especially since he was up for re-election the following year, saying to NASA head James Webb, "But this looks like a hell of a lot of dough to go to the moon” conceding that much could be achieved with an unmanned mission. Through the conversation Webb would insist it would be worth it in the end - with Kennedy affirming this notion:

Months later Kennedy would be assassinated - he wouldn’t live to see his moonshot manifest, but despite continued resistance to the moon mission the Apollo Program would eventually succeed.

As author of ‘One Giant Leap’ Charles Fishman noted when the landing eventually happened The New York Times would devote 18-pages to the moon walk. This the same paper who implied the mission was a waste of money, and deemed space travel impossible in 1920 - something it would issue a correction for as Apollo 11 approached the moon:

Once skeptical Barry Goldwater, would call the Apollo crew “the only national heroes we have” crediting them with “giving inspiration and hope to the young people of our country.”

In the end most Americans are “glad we made it” - as Kennedy predicted - but it took a while, only four years later the Apollo program was defunded. Only 47% said it was worth it a decade later in 1979 and it would take 20 years for this number to reach 77% in 1989. Meanwhile opposition to further moon missions remained higher than support until at least the mid-1990s. The US hasn’t been back to the moon since 1972.

In 1974, Isaac Asimov would reflect on the recent opposition to space exploration, referencing his 1938 short story ‘Tends’ in-which he foretold the resistance in a narrative about the first space mission, saying of the story:

“It never occurred to anybody that there might actually be resistance to the whole notion; people might think it was a rotten idea and a waste of money.”

The only difference being his story involved a private space entrepreneur - John Harman - trying to reach space rather than a nation state. A seemingly unbelievable prospect even in 1979, not so anymore.

The Sony Walkman is now an icon of the 1980s, eliciting nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ of owning music, rather than renting it. Affection for the device is now universal, but that wasn’t always the case…

The sudden rise of headphone wearing pedestrians - spurred by Sony’s lightweight headsets (17% the weight of others) - caused unease about an unfamiliar new world quickly coming into view.

Some said it was a sign of a continued rise of Reagan and Thatcher style individualism. Cultural critic Allan Bloom deemed the Walkman "a nonstop... masturbational fantasy” in his 1987 book ‘The Closing of the American Mind.’ Neo-Luddite John Zerzan saw the Walkman as part of a modern trend that encouraged a "protective sort of withdrawal from social connections" and Thomas Lipscomb, chief of the Center for the Digital Future, equated it with the euphoric drug "soma," from Huxley's Brave New World, creating, as he put it, "an airtight bubble of sound" that was nothing but a "sensory depressant." In other words it all felt ‘a bit blackmirror’ as one might say today. (A collection of quotes collected in this 1999 Reason Magazine article)

The Walkman, critics claimed, was more than just music to one's ears; it was a tool of societal disconnect and for government officials and law enforcement a danger on the roads, because it limited the hearing of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

After a number of accidents involving Walkman headphones, numerous states across the US swiftly put into effect or proposed restrictions, many related to headphone use while driving or cycling. Among them were statutes in California, Florida, Georgia, , Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.

The New Jersey township of Woodbridge went a step further, forbidding not just driving or biking, but even crossing the street while wearing Walkman headphones.

The price for breaking this prohibition? A potential two-week stay in jail and a fine. The law made national and international news, including the BBC who got reactions on the street:

The day the law was put into effect - Oscar Gross - a retiree from a neighbouring town, was spurred into action. Seething, he approached Police Sergeant Lou Monzo, purposefully donned his headphones, and crossed the street.

The outcome of this small act of civil disobedience? Gross became the first person to receive a citation for wearing headphones (even though they weren’t plugged into anything.) Undeterred, he stated in an interview, "I’m prepared to go to jail for 15 days just to prove a point."

Gross end up being interviewed for national outlets as did members of the Woodbridge town council. However, to his disappointment, Gross was not sent to jail. After the judge imposed a $50 fine, which was later suspended, a frustrated Gross said to a journalist: "He didn't even give me the opportunity to say that I was willing to serve time in jail."

Oscar Gross was preparing to take the case all the way to the supreme court, but backed out after someone was killed crossing the street while wearing headphones. The kind of tragic anecdote that is the inevitable and unavoidable price of freedom.

This chapter in techno-pessimism is a good reminder that nostalgia tends to elicit amnesia about the resistance new technologies once faced. After all, who would have thought the “good old days” could ever have been considered a bad, brave new world?

Note: the Walkman wasn’t the only personal electronic device causing a stir in the 1980s, Pagers were also facing prohibitions of their own.

In 1851 physician and Florida resident Dr. John Gorrie was granted a patent for an ice making process - after years of experimenting with artificial cooling methods for medical purposes. This would be the genesis of modern refrigeration systems we all enjoy today.

The notion of ‘manufacturing’ ice through an industrial process likely felt similarly strange as lab grown meat feels today. A product of a natural process suddenly produced through scientific wizardry.

In 1847 Gorrie would astonish guests at an event in Florida by serving wine cooled with artificial ice in the middle of summer - when ice was often scarce. Some scoffed at the notion - with The New York Daily Globe reportedly saying that same year: “There is a Dr. Gorrie, a crank, down in Florida, who thinks he can make ice as good as God Almighty.”

Scientific American would testify to the validity of the method in 1854 - in answer to a reader question about it - but noted the process was too expensive to be made in commercial quantities for common purposes - a bit like lab grown meat today (and other early innovations through history.)

A year later Dr. Gorrie would die, and ice would be manufactured in large quantities for the first time - though it would be many decades before the price fell enough to compete with the harvested ice industry, once it did however the incumbent ice industry pushed back…

THE BACKLASH

As the ice manufacturing industry grew, the incumbent ice industry would market its products as ‘natural ice’ - insisting a purer product, an unconvincing pitch to the public increasingly wary of pollution in bodies of water. One 1898 advert would pronounce:

“Science Fails and We Must All Bow Our Head to Nature”

In 1911 the Natural Ice Association of America would form and offer ‘certification’ to natural ice sellers - akin to the ‘organic’ and ‘GMO-free’ labels of modern times.

The effort didn’t work - as Virginia Postrel pointed out - ‘artificial’ didn’t have the same negative connotations in the early 19th century as it does today. By the 1930s natural ice use was in decline (below left) but that didn’t stop ice companies insisting natural ice was better, such as the 1931 advertorial (below right) that misleading claimed experts said natural ice was better.

The only prohibition of artificial ice were 1918 bans limiting its production during World War 1 in the name of preserving ammonia supplies - a key part of the ice manufacturing process. These laws however appeared to be pre-emptive and unnecessary.

All this begs the question whether similar efforts against lab-grown meat might be more successful - so far this seems to be the case. Had the natural ice industry preemptively lobbied to permanently outlaw the production and sale of artificial ice, it could well have hastened its arrival to consumers - if not preventing the industry ever emerging at all.

Dr. Gorrie would never get to see his innovation change the world in the profound ways it has, but his legacy is honored with a statue in Washington D.C. (Ironically gifted by the State of Florida, who pioneered artificial ice in the past and the prohibition of artificial meat today.)

Note: artificial ice caused some other controversies, ice manufacturing plants were liable to explode. Some distrusted that food frozen for long periods of time was still edible - with some states passing laws about storage. The late Calestous Juma has a great chapter about this in his book - Innovation and its Enemies. We plan to write on this more in the future.

Audio Version: Thinking Different is Never Popular (at First)

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He was right. Here’s a quick overview:

Macintosh: Command Lines (1984)

A computer without a command line was heresy in the 1980s - a graphical user interface (GUI) featuring pictures and icons was considered childish and unserious. One study suggested it was distracting for students…

iMac: Floppy Disk Drives (1998)

A computer without a floppy disk drive was considered unthinkable. Critics mocked Apple's decision to replace the universal floppy with CD-ROM and USB ports, arguing it would isolate users and render the colorful new iMac impractical for everyday computing.

iPhone: Physical Keyboard (2007)

A smartphone without a physical keyboard was widely ridiculed as impractical, particularly by business users accustomed to tactile BlackBerry-style keyboards. Typing on a screen was thought to be slow, error-prone, and uncomfortable - because it was - Apple overcame these issues with an auto-correct system that made it feel effortless and easy.

Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer would infamously quip in reaction to iPhone:

“…it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine."

Macbook Air: CD Drive (2008)

The Macbook Air was the thinest laptop Apple ever made, and it was only possible by removing a once standard feature in laptops: a CD drive.

A laptop without a CD drive was labeled obscene. Critics argued that removing optical drives would render the MacBook Air little more than an overpriced, overly thin status symbol, doomed to fail in a market reliant on physical media.

Apple offered a USB optical drive sold separately, leading to accusations they were trying to sell something to customers that once came standard.

iPad: Adobe Flash (2010)

A tablet without Adobe Flash had many write off the iPad as useless and unable to compete with laptops as a portable computing device. So fierce was the criticism that Steve Jobs penned an open letter ‘Thoughts on Flash’ noting that alternatives like HTML 5 was the future.

Macbook: USB ports (2015/2016)

Just as people had gotten used to a Macbook without a CD drive, Apple removed the USB-port in its new 12-inch Macbook and then Macbook Pro’s leading to uproar. Like floppy and CD drives, USB was now standard part of our digital lives.

Apple also removed HDMI and SD cart slots on Macbook Pros - something it would later bring back.

iPhone 7: Headphone Jack (2016)

The most recent controversy was Apple removing the 3.5mm headphone jack - an almost century old standard - this really pissed people off because it was an open standard, unlike Apple’s lightening ports.

In the same announcement Apple revealed Airpods - leading people to think this was a way to force users to go wireless. Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing predicted the backlash, preempting questions about the decision with an infamous line:

Whatever you think of this heterodox design decision, it’s hard to argue Schiller didn’t have a point in the macro.

Jefferson would warn “A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels” saying the habit lead to a “bloated imagination” in which “reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected.” Context: youth novel reading had been a point of contention for adults since 1774

The original letter in the founding fathers very own handwriting is below, along with a transcription of the relevant section:

“A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed. when this poison infects the mind, it destroys it’s tone, and revolts it against wholesome reading. reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy; and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. the result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life. this mass of trash however is not without some distinction: some few modelling their narratives, altho fictitious, on the incidents of real life, have been able to make them interesting and useful vehicles of a sound morality.”

Jefferson would make an exception for some novels - that he said were realistic with good moral lessons - unlike the majority ‘mass of trash’ available at the time. He appeared to apply the same logic to poetry when he said:

“for a like reason too much poetry should not be indulged. some is useful for forming style and taste. Pope, Dryden, Thomson, Shakespeare, and of The French Moliere, Racine, the Corneilles may be read with pleasure and improvement.”

This is another good reminder that some of histories great thinkers weren’t immune from pessimistic tropes about kids these days, or in the case of Einstein: the lump of labor fallacy…

Something similar happened with radio — and a new genre it helped popularize: Jazz. Giving rise to what you could call ‘The Saxophone Theory of Everything.’

Here are some headlines that blamed jazz for negative macro trends:

Crime Waves

Suicides

Bad Grades

Goitre

Indigestion

Labor Shortage

Heart Failure

Bigger Feet

Lack of Beards

Marriage Decrease

Unwed Mothers

Moral Decay

Indigestion

Lack of Salmon

Then came the internet, paving the way for cheap and free calls to and from anywhere in the world… Guess what? Traditional long-distance telephone companies felt threatened.

In 1995, the internet had just 16 million users — but it was enough to make online phone calls useful. That year, startup VocalTec launched the first commercial internet phone software, amusingly named ‘i-phone’ (short for internet phone.) It quickly caught on with early web users, offering cheap long-distance calls - partly thanks to being exempt from FCC tariffs like local access charges. This prompted action from incumbents, who deemed it unfair.

In 1996 America’s Carriers Telecommunications Association (ACTA) - representing over 300 of them - filed a petition with the FCC that sought to ban the sale of long distance internet telephone services until they were regulated as ‘common carriers.’ The internet friendly Clinton Administration would oppose the petition - but it was up to the FCC to make a final ruling.

The Backlash

This is when the nerds stepped in: web browser pioneer Marc Andreessen told The San Francisco Examiner that his browser - Netscape - would build online calling into a future software update seemingly in protest (the feature never materialized.)

Jeff Pulver - an early i-phone user, who’d started a popular mailing list for online phone enthusiasts, would take it upon himself to lead the resistance. Prior to the FCC petition he launched the first online telephone network called ‘Free World Dialup’ (using the VocalTec system.) His mailing list turned into the ‘Voice on the Net coalition’: a group of internet phone enthusiasts and tech startups building out the technology.

This rag tag bunch of innovators would cobble together a lobbying effort to fight incumbents and allow this nascent technology to flourish…

In the following 8 years the VON coalition would fend off various attempts to rein in the technology, while the FCC would hold off ruling on the ACTA petition (VON is still operating today.)

1998 would see the FCC make a number of statements sympathetic to online phone services - meanwhile iphone.com would host an effort to petition lawmakers against online phone services. It isn’t clear if this was a real grassroots effort, or an astroturfed one by traditional phone providers…

In 2000 a bill passed the US house of representatives preventing phone companies charging by the minute for internet access - but it excluded internet telephony services. This prompted Jeff Pulver and his VON coalition to organize the ‘Internet Freedom Rally’ in Washington DC. It would feature the chairman of the FCC and classic rock performances.

In 2004 the FCC would finally rule on the ACTA petition after 8 years - but not before the Justice Department asked for a delay on a decisions until online phones call could be as easily wire tapped as regular calls. The FCC would make its final ruling dubbed the ‘Pulver Order’ allowing for cheap and free online phone calls to anywhere in the world we take for granted today.

This is a good example of how incumbents will try to use old rules to thwart competition enabled by new technologies - had the long distance telecoms companies succeeded, services like Facebook and Google might not be able to offer free voice and video calls globally.

Recommended reading/watching: Virginia Postrel explores this dynamic in her prescient 1998 book ‘The Future and its Enemies’, a thesis she talks discusses in this video featuring Virginia Postrel.

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The UK Intelligence Agency GCHQ invented ‘Public Key Encryption’—a method we use everyday to ensure digital privacy. However, it kept the discovery classified for decades - reportedly hesitant to use it - unsure if it was fool proof.

It was this secrecy that left US researchers at Stanford to discover the method independently in 1976, followed by MIT researchers who patented a simpler, more practical form of public key encryption a few years later. Subsequently the United States got all the credit for the general discovery…

…until 1997 when UK Prime Minister Tony Blair declassified documents about the breakthrough in a bid to prove the countries ability to innovate.

The declassified report from 1970, titled ‘The Possibility of Secure Non-Secret Digital Encryption’ posited what at the time was unthinkable: a form of encryption that didn’t require the recipient to first receive a decryption key physically or over an insecure line.

It was written by British Intelligence employee James Ellis, who initially considered the entire notion impossible, from Wired:

"It was obvious to everyone, including me," he later wrote, "that no secure communication was possible without a secret key, some other secret knowledge, or at least some way in which the recipient was in a different position from an interceptor. After all, if they were in identical situations, how could one possibly be able to receive what the other could not? Thus there was no incentive to look for something so clearly impossible."

Only when Ellis came across a novel form of obscuring and decoding phone calls by introducing and removing noise, developed secretly by Bell Labs in the 1940s - did he begin to think there might be a way.

The Bell Labs paper inspired an epiphany for Ellis in 1969, leading to a concept for what would come to be called Public Key Encryption. It would be further improved by his colleagues Clifford Cocks, and Malcolm Williamson - all three would see American researchers crowned the first to pioneer the methods.

The UK government declassification came at a time when the western world was grappling with encryption generally and governments were trying to control its use. In the run up to 1997 UK general election that elected Tony Blair, GCHQ was pressuring the UK government to outlaw public key encryption, unless it held everyones ‘private keys.’ Similar efforts were taking place in the United States.

Years earlier in 1991 - then Senator Joe Biden - accidentally kicked off the ‘encryption wars’ after pushing to outlaw encrypted email. We wrote about it here:

This gave programmer Phil Zimmerman the motivation to finish and release his open source public key encryption project ‘Pretty Good Privacy’ (PGP.) PGP would spread rapidly - and make it impossible for governments to control its use. As the personal computer market grew, and then the internet - so did demand for encryption.

UK intelligence continued to pressure the Blair Government to outlaw public key encryption, unless it had copies of the private keys for decryption - it was seriously considered. However, in 1999, the UK government would back down.

In 2000 the US patent for the MIT researchers Public Key Encryption system - one that was practical for use on the internet - expired, allowing its widespread free commercial use in the US and US tech companies.

The technology is now used by billions of people everyday - including you right now. However, 26 years later encryption is again under attack in the UK, proving that this war will never end and the battles will keep coming.

The AFM mounted an amusing and costly advertising blitz—costing $9 million in 2025 dollars - with the goal of shifting public sentiments about the use of ‘canned music’ in movie theatres.

The adverts were emblazoned with titles like “Banish Music?” and “Is Art to Have a Tyrant?” and depicted a looming “Robot at the Helm” imperilling classical ensembles, “Making Musical Mince Meat!” all in the name of a soulless “Profit Without Honor.”

It was an early example of conflict borne of automation changing the relationship between businesses and creatives. One we see repeated today in new conflicts between unions and Hollywood - but with one key difference: local Hollywood union members were anything but outraged…

Musicians in Hollywood suddenly saw their earnings sky rocket, since their performances could be captured and re-used. One paper reported in 1929:

“Local musicians are making, for the first time in their lives, concert artists’ wages recording this very ‘canned music’ against which their less fortunately situated brethren are protesting.”

Ironically the AFM would impose caps of 9 hours of work per week on members in Hollywood, for fear their newly enriched members would no longer see the need for collective bargaining.

Some of the ads they ran even alluded to these very union members, highlighting that 300 Hollywood musicians were supplying all the music for theatres.

The AFM wasn’t wrong that recorded sound was reducing demand for live musicians in theatres - but it was wrong for wasting time, and $9 million dollars of union members money - protesting the inevitable, all while barring Hollywood musicians from increasing their earnings.

If today’s analog age virtues were once considered degenerate sins of modernity, are some new years resolutions set today opposites of ones set in prior decades and centuries?

In this post we imagine some possible new years resolutions of the past:

STOP READING IN BED

Reading in bed was once considered as degenerate and decadent as bed bound smartphone scrolling. In the late 18th and early to mid 20th century newspapers and medical authorities would sound warnings about the practice having a negative impact on your eyes and sleep patterns…

“Why do people talk about being ‘guilty’ of reading in bed?” asked the London Spectator in 1903, noting that medical authorities were sounding warnings - many of which it noted were quoted by ‘The Daily Mail’ (yes that one.)‹

In 1908 the concerns were given renewed legitimacy when medical journal ‘The Lancet’ weighed in on the matter, repeating a warning it first made in 1888 - and in 1950 the American Medical Association magazine warned not to read, as part of its rules of getting good sleep…

DON’T CYCLE SO MUCH

The bicycle boom of the 1890s would garner disapproval from a number of groups…

While some physicians argued cycling was healthy others linked it to insanity, deformities of the spine and even a cause for appendicitis. One insurance company even refused to insure avid bicycle riders, while one army recruitment office rejected applicants who were avid cyclists because it was assumed they had a weakened ‘bicycle heart.’

REDUCE RADIO TIME

Radio’s growth in society was inevitably followed by handwringing and speculation about its possible downsides: dead birds, poor grades and sleep deprivation were just some of the unfounded concerns.

One preacher declared in 1943 that “Persons who listen to the radio from dawn to dusk suffer from the disease “radio perpetuum”, a slow but sure softening of the brain” - what we today call ‘brainrot.’

GIVE UP CHESS

In 1858 Paul Morphy became widely considered the world Chess champion, as a result national interest in the game boomed, leading to Scientific American weighing in on the matter opining: “Chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time”

Paul Morphy’s mental health would rapidly decline in the proceeding years, Chess was blamed by some for the deterioration, when other champions met similar fates there was speculation Chess might have a negative impact on players more generally.

CUT DOWN ON CROSSWORD PUZZLES

Today word games are widely considered good for our brains, crosswords have survived the transition from print to digital and new word games continue the emerge - like Wordle.

Ironically The New York Times - now famous for its crossword - would refuse to publish the puzzles for many years, deeming them unworthy of a serious publication. Why? Because they were considered unintellectual and associated with distraction, earning bans by at least one professor and a judge.

In this New Year make sure your resolutions aren’t wasted on reducing or giving up things that 100 years from now may well be seen as virtuous, rather than sinful.

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However, the word isn't actually new - in the archives we found examples going back as far as a century and a half of ‘brainrot’ being used in the context of unhealthy consumption of (new) media.

125 years ago - In 1899 - journalist Julian Ralph warned of a "BRAIN-ROT CONTAGION" that would be accelerated by an increase of magazines in the US - after witnessing their popularity in England. He posited that:

"The number of people who think like birds, in little broken thoughts, will be greatly enlarged."

The writer feared "millions upon millions of American boys and girls and men and women” would suffer the same fate as the English who were supposedly “unable to learn anything, to know anything well and to concentrate their minds upon anything."

Concerns about the psychological influence of ‘new media’ by those in the ‘old media’ are nothing new, and reactions to the rise of magazines and the ‘yellow press’ were no different.

The term ‘brainrot’ can be found used even earlier with regards to cheap periodicals - in 1866, a Vermont paper called a number of New York publications “soul destroying and brain rotting” and in 1883 ‘The Press’ of Stafford Springs, Connecticut lamented the rise of “vile ‘Illustrated’ weekly story-papers” that it said was “polluting the country”, continuing…

“The best of them are brain-rotting trash and twaddle, and the worst of them are deadly poison. And the infection is spreading day by day, week by week, and thousands of brave, honest lads all over the country are in moral peril from it.”

The real brainrot happening seems to be in media elites convincing themselves new mediums can have such powerful psychological impacts - postive or negative. We explored this dynamic in our previous two posts about the fictitious ‘War of the Worlds’ panic, cooked up by newspapers hostile to radio and the literary elites of 17th century Europe who insisted a popular new novel triggered a suicide epidemic among the young:

Can you say new media derangement syndrome?

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The novel unfolds through a series of letters written by its protagonist - Werther - portraying a tale of unrequited love that leads him to ultimately take his own life with a pistol.

The book would quickly become a sensation, first among youths in Germany and then across Europe and the United States after translations emerged. A community grew around the novel, an early ‘fandom’—similar to that of Harry Potter or Twilight—with merchandise and even cosplayers: some youths adopted the sartorial style of the main character donning a blue tailcoat, yellow waistcoat and boots.

New Media

The rapid popularity of the book was dubbed ‘Werther Mania’ - and inevitably made older generations uneasy, particularly religious institutions who admonished it for glorifying suicide.

It should be remembered that novels “constituted the most emotionally powerful medium” at the time, as the Lancet pointed out, noting “there were no other mass media; no radio, television, cinema, videos, video games.” The book would quickly be scorned and scapegoated, much like those more modern mediums:

A year after publication, the act of dressing in ‘Werther-Tracht’ (Werther Costume) would be banned in Leipzig, Germany - where the novel was originally published. This was only the start of the backlash…

Suicide Epidemic

Early reviews of the novel in German newspapers would allude to the danger of ‘glorifying’ suicide to a young audience “who are not able to distinguish between fiction and reality.” One outlet would sign off a piece with: “we would wish that it had never been written.”

Translated Excerpt: “But if we consider this little book from another perspective and reflect on how harmful it could be for certain young men or some girls who might fall in love, who are not able to distinguish between fiction and reality, we would wish that it had never been written.”

The Blame Game

Those early concerns that Werther might encourage suicides created an expectation and elicited confirmation bias. It was only a matter of time before the book would be directly blamed for adolescent tragedy.

The first example of this was in 1778 when Christel von Lassberg, a young Weimar court official's child, died by suicide. The Sorrow of Young Werther was found in her coat pocket leading to obvious conclusions. Goeth gave credence to this conclusion, taking responsibility and promising to build a memorial in her honor.

Possession of the book by victims was treated as causative evidence by grieving families, the media, and the church, despite its common wide ownership among young people. Use of a gun, and motivation by heartbreak were also deemed proof of inspiration by The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Correlation not Causation

In 2023 a study noted that of the reported suicides blamed on the novel, many of them were attributed using these questionable forms of evidence:

In the above examples from previous literature, 19 suicides were attributed to the novel between 1755 and 1833. 10 of them were blamed on the novel because the young person simply owned the book. Only 2 could be directly tied to the book. The study also found new examples, with a similar lack of causative evidence.

These speculations and reporting led to the notion of a "suicide epidemic," prompting bans in Italy, Denmark, and parts of Germany out of an abundance of caution. The reputation stuck.

Guilty Conscious

One author remarked in 1813 that the novel “caused more suicides than the most beautiful woman in the world” and the following year Goethe himself would recount his feelings of culpability for some tragedies, saying:

“My friends…thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public…”

This suggests he felt guilt for more than just the death of Christel von Lassberg - but of the larger supposed epidemic. These feelings prompted him to re-release a slightly toned down version of the novel in 1787.

The Werther Effect

In 1974 the concept of the ‘Werther Effect’ was coined by David Philipps, who suggested that reporting on high profile suicides - such as a celebrity or one blamed on a novel - can cause a spike of copycat suicides. Notably this is about reports of real world suicides, not fictional ones.

Assuming Philipps theory is correct, the panicked reporting on ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ could have exacerbated any uptick in youth suicides - many of which may well have been wrongly blamed on the novel, reported as such and lead to more coverage and potentially more copycats.

Although even ‘the Werther Effect’ could be just another simplistic answer to a complex issue: youth suicide - and scapegoating media - real or fictional, a distraction from real mitigations.

The day after broadcast sensationalist headlines ran from coast to coast: The New York Times placed “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact” front and center, with the report beginning: “A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners throughout the nation.”

Others headlines read “Hysteria Sweeps Nation”, “Fake Radio ‘War’ Stirs Terror Through US’ and ‘Death Blamed on Radio Scare’; the radio play was blamed for panic in the streets, suicide attempts and at least one fatal heart attack - reported by The Washington Post (but never corroborated or confirmed.)

The FCC would announced a probe of the incident and one congressman would promise to introduce a congressional bill "controlling just such abuses as was heard over the radio last night...”

Even H.G. Wells himself felt moved to issue a statement that he “gave no permission whatever for alternations which might lead to the belief that it was real news.”

FICTITIOUS NEWS

The thing is… the mass hysteria likely didn’t happen at all.

In a 2013 article for Slate Jefferson Pooley and Michael J. Socolow called into question this poplar historical tale - recently perpetrated by a PBS documentary - noting evidence to discredit the sensationalist reports at the time: ratings data suggesting a tiny listenership (just 2% of 5000 households surveyed) among other things.

In 1940 the initial media reporting was given academic legitimacy when Princeton Professor Hadley Cantril published the book ‘The Invasion From Mars’ that claimed a million American’s were ‘frightened’ by the broadcast, using flawed and misleading data.

Pooley and Socolow note when a team of researchers for the book tried to prove claims of hospitals treating people for shock due to the broadcast, they found the claims false.

Radiolash

The real reason for this sensationalism according to Pooley and Socolow? It amounted to what was essentially a smear against radio, a new competing medium that was siphoning of advertising revenue from newspapers:

“…the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted.”

The general sentiment in the reporting was that an easily fooled public were tricked by an immature, irresponsible new medium - radio - that The New York Times said did not “master the materials it uses” and was in need of more (self) regulation. This, a sentiment echoed by newspaper industry trade journal ‘Editor and Publisher’ which stated:

“The nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove … that it is competent to perform the news job.”

This dynamic makes sense, and also gives context to the large number of erroneous reports in newspapers we’ve found blaming radio for all sorts of other things, including: killing birds, poor grades, droughts and skin rashes.

The old media were hostile to the new media, plus ça change.

A few concerned calls about a radio drama offered an irresistible opportunity to stick it to the the meddling radio-bros.

There certainly was a contagious panic about a strange invasion from the skies that posed an existential threat, but it didn’t happen on the streets or homes of America and it wasn’t about aliens: it was about radio and occurred throughout newsrooms. A sort of radio derangement syndrome that possessed the media elites of the era who felt a new technology diluting their power, influence and relevance.

Remind you of anything?

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His name? Albert Einstein.

In a 1933 speech the famous physicist argued that automation — rather than war debts—were the primary causes of the economic turmoil in his home country of Germany, and the United States. The speech titled ‘America and the World Situation’ was covered by The New York Times under the headline "Einstein Traces Slump to Machine":

On the same page was a full transcript of the address in which Einstein stated his thesis:

“According to my conviction, it cannot be doubted that the severe economic depression is to be traced back for the most part to internal economic causes: the improvement in the apparatus of production through technical invention and organization has decreased the need for human labor, and thereby caused the elimination of a part of labor from the economic circuit and thereby caused a progressive decrease in the purchasing power of the consumer.”

His evidence? The United States was also in a depression, without the crushing war debts Germany had - however, both countries were seeing rapid automation in their economies: the common denominator in his mind. It was a diagnosis he’d hinted at years prior in a 1931 Berlin speech that blamed the “great distress of current times as the result of man-made machines.”

He wasn’t alone. Only a year prior economist John Maynard Keynes popularized the term ‘Technological Unemployment’ bringing the notion attention shortly after the start of The Great Depression. While Keynes would consider automation a factor in the downturn, he was optimistic in the long-run for it to improve quality of life and reduce working hours. Einstein didn’t seem to make any such optimistic caveats.

Einstein stressed that identifying automation, rather than post-war debts - as the key cause of economic strife would ease tensions between nations and reduce “a dangerous source of mutual embitterment of nations.” This was no doubt an allusion to the ‘The Treaty of Versailles’ (blamed for Germany’s economic turmoil by Adolf Hitler.) A week after Einstein’s speech Hitler would be appointed the chancellor of Germany.

Einstein had succumbed to what we now called the ‘lump of labor fallacy’ - the assumption that there is a finite amount of work for people to do - as did Keynes. Permanent mass-unemployment did not persist, and neither did Keynes prophecy of a 4-day-work week.

FEAR FEARING AUTOMATION

Ironically the fear of automation stoked by high profile figures like Einstein might well have unnecessarily dampened consumer sentiment by making unemployment feel inevitable and irreversible, it isn’t unreasonable to suggest this could well have made The Great Depression worse.

In ‘Narrative Economics’ Nobel Prize winning economist Robert J. Shiller suggested a ‘narrative epidemic’ around automation taking all the jobs likely exacerbated the depression of 1873, noting it was a similarly ‘epidemic narrative’ in the years leading up to the ‘The Great Depression.’

A few months after Einstein’s speech FDR would be elected President of the United States, in his inaugural address he uttered the famous words: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” - a notion worth remembering as a new ‘narrative epidemic’ is set to take hold around AI and job automation.

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Read more about the history of fears about automation in our previous post on the topic:

To read more about great minds making alarmist predictions about technologies, read our post on Norbert Wiener:

Portrait photography gave rise to an industry of photo ‘retouching’ - analog ‘beauty filters’ - to flatter subjects in a way portrait painters once did. This trend lead to questions about technology distorting our perceptions of beauty, reality and truth:

An 1897 issue of the New-York Tribune would declare the assumption “Photographs Do Not Lie” an “exploded notion”, saying:

Other commercial applications of photo retouching emerged: in 1911 tourists visiting Washington D.C. could acquire fake photographs of themselves posing with then President of the United States William Taft. This troubled Government officials. Upon discovering the practice in 1911, a United States Attorney ordered it stopped:

One (literal) photo-shop offering the novel souvenirs appealed to the White House for its blessing to continue the trade, but was denied. (the practice was not against the law, but pressure from the White House appeared effective if only temporarily - in the capital)

Photographic Crimes

The following year a fugitive - wanted for people trafficking - was found in possession of a fake photo posing with President Taft, it was reported he’d used it to buy the trust of his victims:

That this seemingly benign practice had been weaponized prompted some to demand it be regulated against abuse. The justice department prepared a law, that was introduced by then Senator Henry Cabot Lodge - who’d similarly been troubled after reportedly finding a photograph of himself with someone he’d never met.

On July 29, 1912 the bill was introduced to the Senate: “to prohibit the making, showing or distributing of fraudulent photographs”:

The law would make it illegal “to make, sell, publish, or show” any “fraudulent or untrue photograph, or picture purporting to be a photograph” of anyone who had not first given permission. Violation would see punishment of up to 6-months in jail or up to a $1000 fine ($31,797 adjusted for inflation.)

The proposed rules made headlines across the US, bringing the topic of fake photographs to wider attention:

The Intelligencer Journal of Pennsylvania applauded Senator Lodge's efforts to combat the "miserable business of creating fake photographs”, saying while the technology of photography was a “wonderful art”, it was “manifestly in need of control against abuse.”

The piece emphasized the need for "national and state laws" to address negatives "artfully combined to tell pictorial lies" something the author called "photographic crimes", warning that anyone was now vulnerable to slander from fake photos “apparently faithful and exhibited as the testimony of the innocent sun.”

Not everyone was a fan of the proposed law however. Some representing the photography community worried about unintended consequences of the bill: a 1912 edition of the publication ‘American Photography’ called the bill ‘indefensible’, saying that the law would make photographers and publishers “continually liable to blackmailing suits” - we assume by those claiming to have never given permission.

It appears the bill was never voted on and died in the Senate. The following year - President Taft would lose an election to Woodrow Wilson - reports of a renewed trade in fake photos of President Wilson in the capital would soon appear.

What if…

Had the law passed it would have been very relevant in the 21st Century, with the rise of digital photography, photoshop and more recently AI enabled image editing.

It would have made a federal crime of removing an object from a photo for instagram - without permission of everyone in it. On the other hand, recent efforts to legislate against fake nude images would be unneeded - those would be illegal already.

Surprisingly, this latter issue was also present in prior centuries: unmentioned in defense of the proposed law, were real cases of ‘photographic slander’ against women: in 1905 a gang was using the threat of “the circulation of indecent trick photographs for the purposes of blackmail.” A 1891 report out of Chicago noted the arrest of a “gang of scamps” selling fake nude images of high society women. (1936 would see a blackmail plot against opera stars)

Fake nudes could have been banned over a century ago - but the law was too broad, focusing on more speculative, rather than specific proven harms. A similar critique is made of some AI regulation proposed today - making this, a good possible lesson for the best way to approach AI regulation.

Side Note: Hypocrisy

A year after the law was proposed - in 1913 - a photo would appear of President Taft atop a Carabao - the national animal of the Philippines. It was thought to have been part of an effort to buy goodwill with a nation seeking independence from the United States:

It turns out, it was the very kind of fake photo the Taft administration was railing against. In 2018 history researcher Bob Couttie discovered a 1908 photo of President Taft astride a horse, in an identical pose: comparing the images it seems undeniable Taft had been cut and pasted onto a different image: literally.

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