From "Computer Lib / Dream Machines" by Ted Nelson

It is my belief that this new ability to represent ideas in the fullness of their interconnections will lead to easier and better writing, easier and better learning, and a far greater ability to share and communicate the interconnections among tomorrows ideas and problems. Hypertext can represent all the interconnections an author can think of, an... See more

The computer can look at every word on the page, every phrase, name, quote, and section of text, and show me a "map" of the words and ideas behind which lay the most interesting ideas I might want to know about. Links are no longer lonesome strands precariously holding together a sparsely connected Web, but a booming choir of ephemeral connections ... See more

In our reality, Ted Nelson served as a muse rather than the Internet’s architect. Legend has it that he conceived of Xanadu as an antidote (or amplifier) for his attention deficit disorder. He dreamed of a word processor that allowed users to surf through and freely explore associations, related material, and alternate contexts of any given piece o

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Nelson’s vision was to use computer technology to create a hypertext-based digital repository scheme for world-wide electronic publishing that is open to all humanity and to which anyone can contribute new content. You are free to use any content in this digital repository to create your work, paying only a small fee to its original author. You can... See more

This stems from the structure of the web — it’s a tangle of links, a jumble of interconnected ideas. It fractalizes our attention, nudging us to leave fragments of our mind trapped in open tabs like a thousand tiny horcruxes — open loops feeding off our attention until they wither away, replaced by our latest distraction.

There’s a bottleneck here:

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