“Englebart’s most famous invention is the computer mouse, also developed in the 1960s, but not used commercially until the 1980s. Like Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider, Englebart wanted to use technology to augment human intellect.”
Bootstrap Institute
“In the spirit of Engelbart’s lifelong mode of working ever so fruitfully, keywords here remain pragmatic, experiential, evolutionary.”
Linked to Englepart in the previous post as I had an inkling of the depth of his work – see the idea of open hypertext at work here, and the notion of augmenting intelligence. Of course it is patially implemented here too with the “permanent link” on each item. Blogs have that! Which is an easily overlooked factor in their value. Interesting site, on the edge.
In the bootstrapping process does pragmatic come before soulful or is it the other way around? Anyway, experiential, evolutionary resonate well with me.
A presence that disturbs
Wordsworth, William. 1888. Complete Poetical Works.
“… And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”
Free Software Politics and Advocacy
Free Software Politics and Advocacy
“I’m interested in linking the free software movement with the struggle for social justice and developing the synergies between them, and in connecting free software with freedom of information issues in other areas.”
YES
There are good reasons for free software… free as in that it can freely flow through cyberspace and develop and grow as it moves without it becoming proprietory and closed source on the way. The GNU Licences can make it so.
- it can evolve more flexibly and be more functional – it develops according to USE value – it is better
- it can be available to more people – poorer people
- it prevents the alienation of the people creating the work from the ownership of it
- it’s inner workings are visible, hence the learning is inherent in the product – the tools are at the same time educational tools and toys
- it is a model of how cooperation is possible and an inspiration for people working without the constraints of the profit motive
- anyone can re-build any program anyway they like and hence it enhances creativity
- it is an example of how technology changes the relations of production – and bodes well for the future of production
So much for the social and political…
Psychologically… the virtual world, the mindspace, the context for the expression of out thoughts and feelings, the context for their *meaning*, feels and is different and better without a company brand name on it. Do we enter a Microsoft world – a Disney world – a neon lit suburbia – when we enter psyberspace – or can it be a national park? The commons? If we win this we will have different dreams and the anti-technology people will no-longer be right when they say there is no soul here.
Yes, we do social/political things for psychological ends (alluding to)
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Ivan Illich Transcript
WTP – Ivan Illich Transcript van Illich with Jerry Browe We the People, KPFA – March 22, 1996
“Brown: This hour we have a very special privilege and opportunity. We have here in the studio in Los Angeles Ivan Illich and Carl Mitchum, two friends of mine who I hope you’ll enjoy our conversation. Listen in. You’ll find it instructive. Ivan Illich is the author of a book, very famous in the 1970s, called Deschooling Society, another book called Medical Nemesis. He’s also the author of Celebration of Awareness, Tools for Conviviality, Gender, and now his most recent book called In the Vineyard of the Text, a commentary on a 12th century scholar and saint, Hugh of St. Victor. Along with us here in the studio is Carl Mitchum, a professor of humanities, presently Visiting Scholar at the Colorado School of Mines and on a more permanent basis a professor at Penn State where Ivan Illich and his friends and fellow scholars meet every year for a few months to study these ideas that over the next hour we’re going to do our best to elucidate and share. Ivan, why don’t we just start with the book that I first encountered when I became aware of you, and that is the book Deschooling. Can you reflect on what you were thinking about when you wrote it and how you might see that reality today because we’re still struggling with schools in this society. There’s still a dependency on professionals that seems to have control of how we learn or don’t learn and I just have to wonder have we made any progress in creating the context where people get the sense that they are in charge of their own learning?”
Interesting discussion. Does the world a context sensitive help? Not in schools which subvert that. Xenos – Zeus and hospitality? Acedia the inactivity which results from seeing how enormously difficult it is to do the right thing – is it a sin?
There is also insight into the interface – the pupil of the eye which takes in with its psychopods the other person. But they do not really grasp the potential of the medium for – conviviality and friendship.
Later Saturday, 7 May, 2011
I don’t understand a word of my own comments either.
The link above does not work, but I’ve put the whole item below. Found here:
http://www.wtp.org/archive/transcripts/ivan_illich_jerry.html
Continue reading “Ivan Illich Transcript”
GNU Free Documentation License
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Silicon Valley | 03/27/2002 | Journalistic Pivot Points
Dan Gillmore writes:
” Yesterday at PC Forum, I was part of a key moment in this evolution.
“I was blogging a session on wireless technology, and wrote something about SkyPilot, one of the presenting companies. Duncan Davidson, SkyPilot’s CEO, finished his presentation and sat on the podium, reading on his laptop, while other people talked.
Then, in the Q&A, he corrected something I’d written in the blog. In other words, he’d caught this in near-real time and had better information (he should). I immediately posted another paragraph, which began, “I’ve been corrected….”
Whoa. I’m still not entirely sure what happened. But I do know this. My journey in journalism hit a pivot in that moment. Maybe journalism itself hit a pivot point, as pretentious as that sounds.”
How interesting to hear this from one who was not only there but in it, doing it. This links in of cousre with an earlier post I made here from Esther Dyson The conversation continues… THE WI-FI PEANUT GALLERY
All I know for sure is that I’m jazzed that it happened, and I’m going to think about it, hard.
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Look what the search engines found for me!
Curriculum Vitae Walter Logeman
“I did some primary school teaching in the sixties. In 1974 I founded ”Four Avenues” a state funded secondary school based on the principles of Ivan Illich. Taught in the school for four years.”
hehehe
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“Illich’s radical anarchist views first became widely known through a set of four books published during the early: Deschooling Society (1971), Tools for Conviviality (1973), Energy and Equity (1974) , and Medical Nemesis (1976). Tools is the most general statement of Illich’s ideas. The other three volumes expand on examples sketched there in order to critique what he calls “radical monopolies” and “counter productivity” in the technologies of education, energy consumption, and medical treatment. This critique applies equally to both the so-called “developed” and the “developing” worlds, but in different ways to each.”
Illich came to mind during these last few months while I have been learning GNU/Linux (I hate being this purist using this name for it, but I think the underlying GNU ideas and WORK are vital
The reason is that i have this memory from the seventies of Illich philosophy which advocated tools that people could fix. Car engines that one could get into, even valve radios because they were modular. Well, did it work for technology in the world of matter? Perhaps the success of the PC is an example. But in the world of software it is *imperative* to keep access open. When one person fixes something it can be available to all, instantly. Making that impossible is so wrong. It is worse than dumping food while people are starving… information is of a higher order and knowledge could lead to a better world. Dumbing down the world for profit – that is not only MS but all closed software projects. How can this be prevented?
I’d like to revisit Illich on this…