AT&T Microwave Tower Climb

Posted: Saturday August 29, 2020

The advancement of technology and the ability to rapidly communicate brought with it the initial promise of unifying ideas, shared values, and core freedoms in the hope of spreading a sense of democracy world wide. However, upon examining current culture, it appears that technology has evolved faster than our menial biological brains could keep up with the information which is ever speedily spread through invisible air waves. Unfortunately, technology at best is only a tool, a tool which cares not about what it is used for but merely only that it is used. As information crosses the globe at near light speed, us flesh and bone humans have lost a great deal of control and understanding for how such technology even works.

We humans have become like children at a magic show, mesmerized by the shiny coin that appears in the magician's hand in one second, only to be vanished, seemingly by pure sorcery, just to reappear moments later where it seems most impossible. In essence we've become a hypnotized audience to our own inventions, unable to debunk the illusion of the disappearing coin for the sleight of hand that the trick indeed was. This allegedly magic coin is no different than the billions of text messages and photos that appear to vanish from one phone to another distant phone, located perhaps halfway across the globe; a true feat of magic to the uneducated mind. After all, the power of illusion and trickery lies in the ability of the magician just as the true capacity of technology is wielded by those who control and understand it.

Unfortunately, as the evolution of technology has effortlessly superseded the average human's ability to understand it, we have been lead astray, taken advantage of, and controlled by the few technological juggernauts whom exude the prowess to control our daily lives with it. I too consider myself no more aware than the average mindless technological addicted flesh being, conscious of the science behind technology, yet bewildered by its very existence. Like that child at the magic show, I am awed by the power of technology but dumbfounded as to how much of it actually operates, often left in an illusional state of wonder. This inability to understand the inner-workings behind the pseudo-magic of technology has lead to a shift in global control, quickly tipping from a political reign to big tech corporations controlling all our most sensitive and useless data.

Politics and government at this point seem almost useless, for our true leaders are no longer voted in, they're bought by whichever device we choose to fill our pockets with or slap over our wrist to monitor our every movement and heartbeat. This natural ability to want to trust, rely, and even believe in technology has been successfully used to bait and switch our minds and encapsulate us within a dense fog of information so thick we're forced to ignore much of what we see and thus believe only what suits our individual biases. We have become a society divided into clans of sport minded goons, split up into factions grouped together by analogous emotions and sensational melodrama, forced to turn against any differing opinion as if each different view point represents one of only two opposing sports teams. We've become stuck in a cycle where emotion trumps fact and logic and critical thinking take a back seat to personal beliefs and opinions.

Information is spread so efficiently and quickly by our present technology that we have become bombarded by an unconscious yet never ending stream of data. Data which hits our brains so fast that it becomes impossible to decipher fact versus fiction, for technology doesn't care about the morals of what it is used for it only cares that it is being used; for a hammer is just as much a tool as it is a weapon. The frustration associated with data overload has manifested into humans perceiving stimuli with our animalistic emotional minds versus our realistic albeit slower logical brains, which are incapable of digesting the information overload. Any opinion can become fact to serve any number of emotions which we now pledge allegiance to like sticking with a sports team regardless of how good or bad they may actually be at any given time. We watch as those once in political power lose control to the same devices that have warped our own sense of reality. It appears technology has superseded democracy. I can't be sure this is necessarily a bad outcome, however so long as those who control technology remain in ultimate power, like modern kings and queens, I perceive the power being forever corrupted and manipulated to their advantage.

I bring up this potential technological dystopia not out of fear but from lack of understanding. My adventures into the modern ruins of society are really nothing more than the close examination of antiquated, and in many cases dead technologies. From examining the workings of a shuttered integrated steel mill to climbing hundreds of feet up to the top of suspension bridge, exploration is as much about the thrill as it is understanding how things work. But as it turns out things are very complex, and most people do not understand how technology works and it's been that way for many decades. Most people would be able to grasp the technology behind the design of a fork, however explaining how data can be sent through the air is a lot more complex. The fascinating part is very intelligent humans have figured all of this science out many decades ago. This thought occurred to me while climbing up the scrapped skeleton of an abandoned AT&T Long Lines Tower. To me this tower represented nothing more than an obstacle to ascend, its purpose rooted in not what it was, but what it currently exists as (an abandoned platform reaching high into the sky). But as history reveals, the United States was once dotted with hundreds of these broadcast towers, many of which were constructed during the 1950s through the 1980s. These towers represent the first mass network of wireless telecommunication, transmission, and receiving stations, utilized to create the country's fist wireless television and telephone network.

These Long Line Towers as they became known, represented the ability to send data wirelessly versus relying on physical wires to transmit information over long distances. At the time this too seemed like magic, an array of towers that wirelessly talked to each other allowing American's to tune into an uninterrupted stream of television shows and telephone conversations. Much like the technological giants of today, AT&T was the Long Lines giant, a company that grew so large and monopolistic, it was forced to be broken up. Clearly AT&T still remains today and very much as a monopoly again. However the technological breakthrough of the Long Lines System laid the ground work for the inundation of data transfer that we have today. The question that remains is whether the tech monopolies of today will be forced to be broken apart? Contrary though, it seems that the systems put in place to prevent such monopolies from controlling all our intellectual freedom have been bought out by the influence which these trillion dollar corporations hold over such government safe-nets. As it turns out, what unites also has the power to divide us so long as power is given to the few and control taken from the masses.

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