Time Traveller's Guide To Social Media in Australia is an eBook by Lisa Yallamas.
Intro:
Heretics. People who throw the proverbial spanner into the works and turn the world upside down.
“The Earth is ROUND” …
How long did it take before someone decided that Galileo was right and it was now necessary to actually change the curriculum? It actually took hundreds of years because the first person to write about the Earth’s girth was an Indian sage named Yajnavalkya
Yajnavalkay wrote that the Earth was spherical in the Shatapatha Brahamana and the Greek mathematician Pythagoras reached the same conclusion in 540BC.
The Catholic Church persecuted Galileo in 1600 for advocating that the Earth is indeed round and is not the centre of the universe. No one would have believed him even if he could’ve tweeted it out!
No matter. Christopher Columbus sailed way before this wrangle and of course discovered the Americas. “I’ve just discovered America” – what a tweet!
Excerpt:
Perhaps your feelings for social media are akin to those of Isaac Nichols – one of the forgotten founding forefathers of Australia’s communications network – when the judge sentenced him to seven years hard labour in the penal colony of Australia back in 1790.
He didn’t know that would be the making of him. He served his term and ended up our first postmaster.
His mission?
Isaac had to deliver the mail and stop unscrupulous colonials from stealing mail off the ships to sell back to rightful owners.
Personal information has always had value and people just give away free on the Internet.
So just how did a petty criminal like Isaac acquire enough status in his community to run Australia’s first post office from his home in The Rocks district of Sydney? Trust.
He gained people’s trust through social networking of course!
As a convict, Isaac happened to have the good fortune to be assigned to work for a chap named George Johnston, one of the leaders of the Rum Rebellion – that’s the famous ousting of Captain Bligh as Governor if you recall your history well enough. Isaac escaped flogging this time.
Our Isaac had the wit and good sense to be on the winning side of the argument.
He played the game to the satisfaction of all – including the new Governor Macquarie.
Hey presto! He’s in control of one of the most beloved “social media channels” of his time – the postal service.
Thief and opportunistic convict he may have been but Isaac was no heretic.
Even a convict back in dim light of the candlelight age did thrive by means of social media.
They gifted him 50 acres. He became a successful businessman and sent his sons to England to be educated so as neither would become heretics.
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