Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
washingtonpost.com
Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#2I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following,
(1) cheated Nikola Tesla,
(2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and
(3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes.
Having read outside the hero worship sources kind of wrecked Edison for younger me, obviously.
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#3I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…
Edison > Tesla!
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#4I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…
American heroes regularly cycle between hero and goat decade by decade.
Edison is currently the goat and Tesla has been elevated to heroic status rather recently. I expect things to reverse in another 10 years or so.
As for the elephant thing, I find it highly abhorrent that anyone could do such a thing. But keep in mind that the only reason Edison could have done it at the time is if common attitudes at the time allowed it. It is a lot unfair to judge people by standards that become ascendant 100 years later.
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#5I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…
I confess I too was once a diehard Tesla fanboy. It was only after reading T.P. Hughes “The Electrification of America: The System Builders“[1] that I came to appreciate the accomplishments of Edison and the unfairness of the pervasive one-sided boosterism for team Tesla.
Both men were genius. It’s my own opinion that there is more to learn from the life of Edison and the work of Tesla than the other way round.
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#6I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…
American heroes regularly cycle between hero and goat decade by decade. Edison is currently the goat and Tesla has been elevated to heroic status rather recently. I expect things to reverse in another 10 years or so. As for the elephant thing, I find it highly abhorrent that anyone could do such a thing. But keep in mind that the only reason Edison could have done it at the time is if common attitudes at the time all…
To further support your view of the elephant debacle, I offer the treatment of Murderous Mary:
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#7I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…
American heroes regularly cycle between hero and goat decade by decade. Edison is currently the goat and Tesla has been elevated to heroic status rather recently. I expect things to reverse in another 10 years or so. As for the elephant thing, I find it highly abhorrent that anyone could do such a thing. But keep in mind that the only reason Edison could have done it at the time is if common attitudes at the time all…
It's unfair to judge them exceptionally when comparing among the range people and views of that earlier age, or to hide behind supposed earlier universal standards which often turn out to have been anything but. In the pantheon of world history it is perfectly reasonable to judge, question and doubt. Plenty of people of those ages found such things abhorrent and banded together to end child labour, animal mistreatment and slavery among countless other horrible behaviours. After all that is how we got our hopefully better and more enlightened standards today. The ASPCA was formed in the mid 19th century after the RSPCA was formed in the early 19th.
It also allows us to go further back to more brutal, death ridden times and understand there probably was little place
So it's perfectly OK to pour scorn and revulsion on Edison, and judge him and his peers for electrocuting elephants and family pets, whilst acknowledging Franklin appears to have learnt from and been deeply affected by his (eventually successful) attempt at turkey electrocution.
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
American heroes regularly cycle between hero and goat decade by decade. Edison is currently the goat and Tesla has been elevated to heroic status rather recently. I expect things to reverse in another 10 years or so. As for the elephant thing, I find it highly abhorrent that anyone could do such a thing. But keep in mind that the only reason Edison could have done it at the time is if common attitudes at the time all…
It's unfair to judge them exceptionally when comparing among the range people and views of that earlier age, or to hide behind supposed earlier universal standards which often turn out to have been anything but. In the pantheon of world history it is perfectly reasonable to judge, question and doubt. Plenty of people of those ages found such things abhorrent and banded together to end child labour, animal mistreatmen…
It appears that Edison's involvement is a bit of an exaggeration:
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unfair to judge them exceptionally when comparing among the range people and views of that earlier age, or to hide behind supposed earlier universal standards which often turn out to have been anything but. In the pantheon of world history it is perfectly reasonable to judge, question and doubt. Plenty of people of those ages found such things abhorrent and banded together to end child labour, animal mistreatmen…
It appears that Edison's involvement is a bit of an exaggeration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)
Interesting, so they were much more incidental to events than has entered popular awareness. Also the somewhat inevitable nature of events given publicity hungry keepers who'd mistreated the animal - unsurprisingly it reacted to being badly treated by drunk handlers. Also an early result (of sorts) for the ASPCA preventing a public hanging of the elephant - for spectacle, and thanks to paid admission, profit!
As usual it pays to dig a little deeper, thanks. :)
Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse
#10I've always wondered about the connection between Mr. Edison and the mysterious Theodore Audel. Many of Audel's (at one time) ubiquitous tech-craft books promoted the immortality of Mr. Edison.