[mvkel]

What feels "different" today is not necessarily risk, but visibility.

We now see every war, cyber incident, threat, and speech in real time. I have to imagine the Cuban Missile Crisis (for example) was a much more serious existential risk, we were just largely in the dark while it was happening.

Not to minimize the current crises, I just wonder if this isn't what has always happened, we're just more informed now.

[repeekad]

What you’re saying applied as far back as Vietnam, mainstream television allowed us to watch the war on video in mostly realtime, and we saw widespread protest

I don’t think access or visibility of the information is what’s changed, but how that information is being delivered today vs back then

“The medium is the message”

[graeme]

People were extremely aware of the Cuban Missile Crisis. My father mentioned at school they were doing active under desk drills in the event it escalated to nuclear war.

It is easy to underrate the past. The 20th century had mass communication, high literacy and an active and well funded press corps with committed newspaper readers and news watchers.

[mvkel]

There's no technical way people could be as informed as they are today. Newspapers are yesterday's news, tomorrow.

[hoytschermerhrn]

OP is specifically talking about seeing unfiltered, on-the-ground footage of what’s happening as it’s happening, directly by the people being impacted. This is very different than prior conflicts which have been ostensibly filtered for various reasons.