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Electricity was not just unfamiliar to people. It was not understood. It was magic, possibly not just good magic.

That was a time before electrical engineering as mature field really existed. The situation parallels software today.

It didn't help that Edison was electrocuting animals across the country to frighten people about AC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The mysterious workings of electrical gadgets were also the inspiration for Rube Goldberg's cartoons.

That was the electrical zeitgest a little over a century ago.