Libertarian ideology at work. "Fuck you, I have money" or "I dont want poor gay or black people dying in the streets cause they are black or gay. I want them dying in the streets cause they're poor."

That'd work, but Sagan opted for portable fax.

Or, and hear me out, you could say "portable fax" and be done with it. YOU are making it complicated by not being culturally acclimated to the timeframe when it was written. Everyone knew what faxes were, no explanation was necessary.

Portable fax: thing that sends and receives messages

Portable Fax IS how you describe SMS in the 80s.

I dont mean that your understanding is unimportant, but that you inherently understand what's being described to a degree that to hear it described differently than you expect you reject what you hear in favor of assuming the folks in the 80s needed more than "portable fax" to understand what you are on about.

How would you describe SMS to people in the 80s?

Virtue signaling. Its easy to look good running a nonprofit.

Read depot as despot and was like "now that's an escalation!"

I love me some IPA, right up till you start adding adjectives... Hazy? Juicy? New England? West coast? No. Beer, hops, yum. Get the rest of that nonsense out of here. As a home brewer I refuse to get my Adjective IPA palate.