Re: Telecommunications performance, the red telephone might also be a a discontinuity in practical terms.
The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis made the hotline a priority. During the standoff, official diplomatic messages typically took six hours to deliver; unofficial channels, such as via television network correspondents, had to be used too as they were quicker
That is, even though faster systems existed, they hadn’t been implemented in the area of communications between the Soviet Union and the USA (pretty huge blindspot), but could be implemented more or less immediately, once both regimes actually bothered.
Also of interest to readers might be: some other discontinuities, one in passenger ship length and the other one on time needed to circumnavigate the Earth. AI impacts also has a couple of other discontinuities on their webpage, not mentioned/linked above:
I’ve been following this with interest.
Re: Telecommunications performance, the red telephone might also be a a discontinuity in practical terms.
That is, even though faster systems existed, they hadn’t been implemented in the area of communications between the Soviet Union and the USA (pretty huge blindspot), but could be implemented more or less immediately, once both regimes actually bothered.
Also of interest to readers might be: some other discontinuities, one in passenger ship length and the other one on time needed to circumnavigate the Earth. AI impacts also has a couple of other discontinuities on their webpage, not mentioned/linked above:
Ship size (also pretty recently added)
From nuclear weapons
Altitude
...