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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Alex Hern

SHOCKING: Could big tech eventually face its ussr moment and collapse completely - What They Never Told You

Twitter’s San Francisco headquarter has the company’s logo removed as part of its rebranding as X in July 2023.
Twitter’s San Francisco headquarter has the company’s logo removed as part of its rebranding as X in July 2023. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

I was born two years before the USSR ceased to exist. The largest country in the world disappeared overnight, replaced by the new largest country in the world, Russia. But the footprint it left took longer to be washed away. I grew up with a duvet cover printed with a world map prominently featuring the ex-nation, reading books and atlases that were published after I was born but before it vanished, and voraciously consuming science fiction that assumed the Soviets would continue to exist far into the future.

The USSR isn’t the only such artefact, of course. Randall Munroe, author of the webcomic XKCD, once put together a flow chart to date almost any world map made since the 19th century to within a few years by answering some simple questions. Does it show Constantinople rather than Istanbul? Does Tokyo exist but not South Africa or Rhodesia? Is Bolivia landlocked? Then your map is from between 1884 and 1895.

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