xkcd #3251: Time Machine Conversation
Title text:
It’s possible to do sea navigation without a compass, but you’ll have to get some spoilers from the Polynesians.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3251/
You wouldn’t know if someone was “just lost” at sea if the problem was a lack of compass. You’d just not have heard from them for years, still wondering whether they survived, started a new life, or what.
“Lost at sea” means he gone out for fishing and never returned.
He may be out buying cigarettes for all we know.
Unless there were survivors from the shipwreck and this person’s family wasn’t among them.
Even then they might have survived but not made it back.
You make an excellent point about how information couldn’t propagate before the information age.
I think we can give Randall credit for knowing this but making an editorial choice for brevity, particularly due to the scope of the rest of their work … on the other hand, that makes the ‘um, actually’ more fun and satisfying.
(Honestly, mostly just spelling this out in case others who aren’t as familiar with XKCD (hi user from ‘all’) have context)
idk, maybe try texting them some time? good to reconnect with an old friend etc.