June 1, 2026 (PM Edition)
THE DAILY McLUHAN DIALOGUES™ — McDialogue™
An Exploration of Technology Ecology as an Anchor in a Sea of Change™ and Tactical Training in Counter-Propaganda Science
by Nelson S. Thall, Former Director/Chief Archivist, Marshall McLuhan Center On Global Communications, Ross, Ca.
When Did the Control Tower of Human Navigation First Surface?
A Student of Technology asks:
Mr. Thall, when did the Control Tower of Human Navigation first surface?
Nelson S. Thall replies:
One might even trace the earliest outline of the Control Tower of Human Navigation to the ancient story of Babel. In that account, mankind existed in a unilingual condition and sought to build a tower reaching toward the heavens—a symbolic effort to centralize human coordination, direction, and control.
Whether viewed as theology, metaphor, cultural memory, or myth, Babel represents an early intuition that communication and navigation are deeply connected. The story suggests that mankind once imagined a single center from which human affairs might be coordinated before communication became dispersed among many languages, cultures, and perspectives.
The Control Tower of Human Navigation was not consciously designed by mankind, nor was it created by any government, institution, corporation, or inventor. Rather, it emerged as an unintended consequence of mankind’s inventions and the extensions they produced.
Before universal global communications, the Control Tower of Human Navigation remained largely submerged beneath the undergrowth of human awareness, perception, tradition, memory, and culture. The navigational mechanisms of civilization certainly existed, but they were distributed throughout society and largely invisible to those who depended upon them.
The great technological inventions did not create the Control Tower. They revealed it.
With the extension of the central nervous system through the telegraph, the hidden outlines of the tower began to emerge.
With radio, the nervous system became wireless and global. The tower became planetary.
With television, the tower acquired eyes.
With the computer, the tower acquired a brain.
With the Internet, the tower acquired memory, connectivity, and continuous feedback.
With Artificial Intelligence, the tower acquired automated cognitive functions.
No single inventor intended this outcome. Yet each invention extended a human faculty outward into technological form. As these extensions accumulated, they gradually cleared away the undergrowth and revealed the hidden Control Tower of Human Navigation that had always existed beneath the surface of civilization.
The history of modern civilization can therefore be understood as the progressive surfacing of the Control Tower of Human Navigation.
The central question is no longer whether the tower exists.
The central question is who occupies it.
Since we have already reached a consensus in previous McDialogues with Media Scientists that the robots have seized control over the Control Tower of Human Navigation, we now find ourselves living through the consequences of that occupation.
The inventions revealed the tower.
The extensions furnished it.
The robots now operate it.
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All intellectual property contained herein was conceived, originated and authored exclusively by Nelson S. Thall. Artificial intelligence aka a pseudo-conscious machine (PCM) was not employed. We hired a stenographer. No intellectual contribution or creative authorship is attributed to the AI tool. All rights of authorship and ownership vest entirely and exclusively with Nelson S. Thall.
I can be reached at nelson@themediumisthemessage.com