The time-zone grid ignores geography and embodies imperial control

Evidence

Dowd’s plan was a wonderful example of crackpot realism. The lines were laid out with geometric exactness and ignored geography, topography, region, trade, or natural affinity. Maine and Florida were put in separate time zones. It is a wonderful example of the maxim that the grid is the geometry of empire. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 850

Categorization

• DEFINE: “Crackpot realism” — a grid laid out with geometric exactness regardless of human or natural reality — is a vivid concept worth keeping.
• SEED: The grid-as-geometry-of-empire maxim could anchor an essay on how supposedly neutral technical standards encode power relations.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 850
• XREF: connects to: The telegraph made geography irrelevant to trade — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 827; Local sun-based time produced dozens of conflicting time zones per state — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 847; The establishment of Greenwich Mean Time unified global timekeeping practices. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1398 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• The establishment of Greenwich Mean Time unified global timekeeping practices. #expands (0.80) — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1398
• Control of time enables coordination of activity and social control #corroborates (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 848
• Social order is fundamentally about how systems bind time and space #expands (0.72) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 44
• US overseas bases extend an ancient imperial strategy of encircling domination #expands (0.55)