I’m writing this week’s weekly roundup while taking in the wonder of modern technology, since it seems very likely that Storm Éowyn (finally, one with a good name – the UK met office must have chosen it) will deprive my wife and I of all electricity over the weekend.
I was exchanging voice notes with a friend over whatsapp on Wednesday evening when it hit me how much of this stuff we take for granted. The fact that I can talk into a small device in my hand, which transmits my words to a box in the living room, which in turn sends it to a satellite Elon Musk put into the sky, and in turn back down to earth and eventually to someone on the other side of the country, and I came to a realisation: I’m not really very smart. The people who figured out how to do that, they’re the smart ones. And we hear very little from them in public life: There aren’t many (indeed there aren’t any) telecoms engineers in Dáil or Seanad Éireann. There are none in journalism. There are none who write any columns in newspapers.
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