“It behooves wired people to know a few things about wires.” In 1996, nealstephenson traveled across three continents to document the laying of what was then the longest wire on Earth. WIRED Research Editor epsneider revisits the story:
I first learned about the fiber-optic cables underpinning the internet when I was 18 and pursuing a crush. I was hungry to acquire and share knowledge about the world that felt magical and improbable, and for whatever reason I landed on the physical architecture of the virtual world. I have next to no technical background or know-how, but I’ve been fascinated ever since by the cables that carry internet traffic across the ocean floor.
For that reason, among others, there was one story I knew I wanted to share when I took over the Classics newsletter: by Neal Stephenson. This feature, like its subject, is epically sprawling, borderline fantastical. In it, Stephenson, already a groundbreaking science fiction writer , traveled across three continents to document the laying of what was then the longest wire on Earth. The Hacker Tourist’s travelog ran on the cover of the December 1996 issue of WIRED, a whopping 42,000-word chronicle. To this day, it’s considered one of the magazine’s most iconic stories.
If you ask me, really good nonfiction accomplishes two things simultaneously: It underscores the fantastical in real life, and it makes otherworldly and inscrutable aspects of the world feel knowable. Stephenson’s essay walks this tightrope brilliantly. “It behooves wired people to know a few things about wires,” he writes. “How they work, where they lie, who owns them, and what sorts of business deals and political machinations bring them into being.
What other aspects of the technological world feel enchanted to you? What do you want to understand the inner workings of better? Let me know in
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