Obvious things about a creative work you realize after the millionth time (OPEN SPOILERS POSSIBLE)

Fritz Leiber’s gonzo story,“The Creature from Cleveland Depths,” from the December 1962 Galaxy, has what are essentially smartphones be grafted to bodies so that humans are in such constant communication with one another that they form a collective mind. It’s what used to be called black humor when black meant darkly satiric. Nobody ever listened to black humorists, even though they were almost always right in their critiques of culture.