• sunbleachedfly@lemmygrad.ml
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    19 days ago

    That might actually be a reference to what a lot of people said in Western countries when the train was invented. The idea being that when they sped up their travel time, the physical world became smaller. This was also in reference to the telegraph in the 1800s.

    “We traveled at least eighteen miles an hour when at full speed, and made the whole distance averaging as much as twelve miles an hour. This seemed like annihilating space.” - Ulysses S. Grant, 1839

    Rivers of Darkness, “The Annihilation of Time and Space”, Rebecca Solnit

    Albeit hamfisted, but I would presume that’s what they’re referring to.