Counter Currents: Are.na on Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib/Dream Machines

I was thinking about all the time spent browsing with no real aim, and how even as a 12 year old, there was some small intuitive sense of the things I was drawn to.

“We could wind up with networks that have the principal effect of fostering addiction to a new generation of electronic narcotics ... their principal themes revolving around instant gratification ... their uses and content determined by mega-corporations pushing mindless consumption of things we don’t need and aren’t good for us.”

--Mitchell Kapor, ... See more

In October 2014 the online journal GIZMODO published an article heralding The Great Web 1.0 Revival. Its author Kyle Chayka observed: The booming size of today's mainstream social networks and the constant level of noise we have to deal with has inspired a sudden return to a time when the internet was quieter, safer, and more intimate… We're nostal... See more

When I picked up this WIRED, it wasn't just about computers. It was about this world. On the other side of the computer world you could get to from anywhere, and that world was full of knowledge and ideas and people.Dave Hughes who was working on wiring up the Internet. And there's this quote, “My life's mission is to hook up the 5.5 billion brains... See more

Many values of the early years of the internet, including openness, creativity, and connection, are deeply appealing now.

We’re lost in the garden of forking memes, and the idea of linear progress along a single historical time line seems like a quaint artifact from a much simpler era. Grand visions of the future are few and far between; the pop cultural landscape is littered with post-apocalyptic dystopias. If we want to make sense of how we got here, we have to unde... See more