Pioneers: Howard Rheingold

Summary

このエピソードは、インターネットの歴史とその影響について霍华德・レインゴールドとの対話を通じて探求する。レインゴールドは、インターネットがまだ存在する前からの経験から、コンピュータを強化器として見なす視点を持つ。彼は、オンラインコミュニティの発生や、分散型ネットワークの社会的結果、そして技術的な進歩がもたらす社会的変革について洞察し、熱く語る。対話は、技術の発展と共に進化する文化的価値や、教育における新しいツールの重要性についても触れる。

Takeaways

• インターネットの基礎は耐障害性にあります。核攻撃に対して強韧であるために分散型パケットスイッチングインフラストラクチャが採用されました。
• パケットスイッチングはRANDコポレーションの人々によって発明されましたが、ARPANETが採用した理由は、電話交換ネットワークの信頼性にあります。
• コンピュータはネットワークを通じて他コンピュータと通信するルータとして機能し、これが今でも重要な部分です。
• コンピュータがパケットを受け取った際の動作は、通信がネットワークをスムーズに移動できるようにしています。
• ARPANETの創設は、大学間でのコンピュータ研究を接続することを目的としており、プログラマー同士がネットワークでコミュニケーションを取り始めました。
• インターネットの技術的な建築は、社会的な変化をもたらすことができ、新しいコミュニケーションネットワークを創造しました。
• インターネットが広まるにつれ、人々の間でのコミュニケーションの仕方や文化的形が大きく変わりました。
• インターネットは中央集権的なシステムとは異なり、誰もが情報を共有し、知識を拡大することができる構造を持っています。
• インターネットの文化は、人々の協力と共有の精神に基づいており、オープンソースやWikipediaのようなプロジェクトが成功を収めています。
• 技術の発展はソフトウェアの柔軟性と人間の社会的な要素の組み合わせによるものであり、オンラインコミュニティの形成や進化に影響を与えています。
• 教育においてもインターネットを活用することで、より自由な学習の形態が可能となり、学習者同士が情報を共有し、協働して学ぶことができる環境が整いつつあります。

Q & A

ハワード・ラインゴールドが初めてインターネットに接続したのはいつですか？

1983年です。

「仮想コミュニティ」という言葉を造ったのは誰ですか？

「仮想コミュニティ」という言葉を造ったのはハワード・ラインゴールドです。

ARPANETの設計の一つの目的は何でしたか？

ARPANETの設計の一つの目的は核攻撃に対する耐久性を持たせることでした。

パケット交換技術はどこで発明されましたか？

パケット交換技術はRAND Corporationで発明されました。

ARPANETがパケット交換技術を採用した主な理由は何でしたか？

ARPANETがパケット交換技術を採用した主な理由は、複数のコンピュータセンター間でプログラムを実行できるようにするためでした。

インターネット上の「端から端への原則」の重要な社会的影響は何ですか？

インターネット上の「端から端への原則」は、特定の利害関係なしに革新を可能にし、異なる場所にいる人々が共通の関心事で繋がることを可能にしました。

初期のインターネットコミュニティでのコミュニケーションの主な形式は何でしたか？

初期のインターネットコミュニティでのコミュニケーションの主な形式は、電子メールやフォーラムを通じたテキストベースのやり取りでした。

ワールドワイドウェブが発明されたことでインターネット文化はどのように変化しましたか？

ワールドワイドウェブの発明により、インターネットはマルチメディアコンテンツの共有が可能になり、より視覚的で対話的な体験が提供されるようになりました。

オープンソース文化が公共財の創出に与えた影響は何ですか？

オープンソース文化は、金銭的な報酬や直接的な関連性がない個人でも公共財を共同で創出できることを証明し、技術や情報の自由な共有を促進しました。

初期のインターネット開発者たちは、どのような意図でインターネットを創造しましたか？

初期のインターネット開発者たちは、科学研究や教育の進展を目的として、情報の共有とコミュニケーションを促進するためにインターネットを創造しました。

Outlines

00:00

🌐 インターネットの発展と仮想コミュニティの誕生

この段落では、ホワード・リーンゴルドが1983年にインターネットに接続し、コンピュータを増幅器として認識した最初の非プログラマーの一人であったこと、また「仮想コミュニティ」という言葉を考案した経験について語ています。彼は、オンライン上のコミュニケーションと協調に関する深い洞察を持っており、その歴史的背景とその意味を詳細に説明しています。

05:01

💡 インターネットの分散化とその社会的影響

この段落では、ARPANETの設計の1つの目標が核攻撃に対する弾力性を確保することであり、それがなぜインターネットが今日のような分散型のパケットスイッチング基盤を持つのかについて説明されています。また、分散型デザインの社会的影響についても議論されており、その背後にある歴史的事実や技術的な詳細が含まれています。

10:02

🌟 インターネットの創造と革新の精神

この段落では、インターネットがどのように創造され、どのように発展してきたかについて語されています。技術者の間でのコミュニケーションがどのようにその発展に寄与したか、また個人がネットワーク上で革新を起こす際に必要な許可やインフラの変更が不要であったことを強調しています。この段落は、インターネットの精神や、その背後にあった人々の仕事と努力について理解するための重要な情報を提供しています。

15:05

🤖 コンピュータの進化と人間の知能の拡張

この段落では、コンピュータが人間の知能を拡張するツールとして認識され始めた過程について説明されています。特に、ドуг・エンゲルバートとJ.C.R. リッカーの視点が強調されており、彼らがコンピュータビジョンを形づけた方法と、そのビジョンが現在も影響を与えていることについて語られています。この段落は、コンピュータ技術の発展と、それが人間の生活や仕事に与える影響について深く掘り下げています。

20:05

🌈 インターネット文化の進化と多様性

この段落では、インターネット文化の進化とその多様性について語されています。特に、技術の発展がどのように文化に影響を与えたか、またその文化が健康的な発展と不健康な発展の両方を示す例を挙げています。この段落は、インターネットがもたらした文化的な変化と、その変化が人々の生活に与える影響について理解するための重要な情報を提供しています。

25:07

🚀 ソフトウェアの柔軟性と革新の加速

この段落では、ソフトウェアの柔軟性とその革新の加速について語されています。ソフトウェアの変更が容易であること、そしてその変更がどのように技術の進歩を加速させているかについて説明されています。また、ソフトウェアの柔軟性がどのように新しいコミュニケーション方式や文化的な形の創生を促進しているかについても触れられています。この段落は、ソフトウェア技術の発展とその社会的影響について深く掘り下げています。

30:08

🤝 オンラインコミュニティと協力の原理

この段落では、オンラインコミュニティと協力の原理について語されています。特に、知識資本、社会資本、共感、そして共通体と共通体の原理がどのように機能するかについて説明されています。この段落は、インターネットが提供するコミュニケーションの可能性と、それによって生み出される社会的な価値について理解するための重要な情報を提供しています。

35:08

📚 自学とオンラインでの知識共有

この段落では、オンライン環境での自学と知識共有の重要性について語されています。特に、オンライン上での教育資源の活用方法や、自主学習の組織方法について詳細に説明されています。この段落は、現代の教育システムにおける革新的なアプローチと、オンライン環境が教育に与える影響について理解するための重要な情報を提供しています。

40:10

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 家族関係の変貌とデジタルネイティブ

この段落では、コンピュータとインターネットが家族関係に与えた影響と、デジタルネイティブに関する議論について語されています。家族間のコミュニケーションの容易さや、若者と年長者の間での知識の共有、そして新しい技術への柔軟なアプローチについても触れられています。この段落は、デジタル技術が家族生活にどのように影響を与え、そして世代間の相互作用についての理解を深めるための重要な情報を提供しています。

Keywords

💡internet

インターネットは、コンピューターがネットワークを通じて情報を送受信する世界的なシステムです。この動画では、インターネットがどのようにして今日のコンピューティングを形作ってきたか、その歴史と社会的影響について語られています。

💡packet switching

パケットスイッチングは、データ通信においてデータを小分けのパケットに分け、それぞれのパケットが独立して送受信される技術です。この方式により、ネットワークが柔軟になり、効率的かつ信頼性が高まります。

💡virtual community

バーチャルコミュニティとは、コンピューターを通じて形態化的された仮想的なコミュニティのことを指します。ホワード・レインゴールドは、早期のオンラインコミュニティの経験からこの言葉を考案しました。

💡social consequences

社会的影響とは、ある技術や現象が社会に与える影響のことを指します。この動画では、インターネットの分散型の設計が社会に与えた影響について語られています。

💡collective action

集団行動とは、複数の人々が共同の目標を達成するために協力することを指します。この動画では、インターネットが集団行動を可能にし、新しいコミュニケーションの形を作り出したと説明されています。

💡end-to-end principle

エンド 투 엔ド原則とは、ネットワークのどのノードも他のノードと直接通信できることを指す原則です。この原則は、インターネットの発展や、今日のオンライン文化の形成に大きく影響しました。

💡innovation

革新とは、新しきを創造することを指します。この動画では、インターネット技術の発展がどのようにして革新を促進し、新しいオンライン文化を形成したかが語られています。

💡online culture

オンライン文化とは、インターネットを通じて形成される文化的な現象や価値観のことを指します。この動画では、技術の発展がオンライン文化にどのような影響を与えたかが探求されています。

💡permissionless innovation

許可なしの革新とは、既存のシステムに新しいアイデアや技術を適用するために、事前に許可を得る必要がないことを指します。この動画では、インターネットが許可なしの革新を可能にし、個人が自由に創造活動に取り組めるようになったと強調されています。

💡tragedy of the commons

コモンスの悲劇とは、共有資源が個人の私的な利益のために悪用され、結果としてその資源が枯渇するという現象を指します。動画では、Facebookがインターネット全体を独占しようとする姿勢が、コモンスの悲劇に似ていると批判されています。

Highlights

Howard Rheingold, one of the earliest pioneers on the internet, discusses the social consequences of the internet's decentralized design.

Rheingold explains the origins of packet switching and its adoption by ARPANET, highlighting the misunderstandings around its invention.

The importance of the end-to-end principle in allowing nodes on the network to communicate freely, fostering innovation and cultural exchange.

Rheingold's perspective on the internet as a tool for collective action and coordination, emphasizing the role of online communities in social change.

The discussion on how the internet has evolved from a text-based medium to a multimedia platform, influenced by technological advancements and user behavior.

Rheingold's insights on the democratizing nature of the web, where individuals could create and share content without the need for permission or centralized control.

The impact of the internet on education and learning, with Rheingold's project 'Perigogy' showcasing collaborative online learning without traditional teachers.

Rheingold's thoughts on the role of social media and online platforms in shaping internet culture and the challenges they pose to the original ideals of an open web.

The importance of 'view source' in the early web, enabling users to learn from and build upon each other's work, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.

Rheingold's reflections on the evolution of online culture and its amplification of certain human behaviors, both positive and negative.

The discussion on the role of the technical architecture of the internet in enabling social changes and the potential for new forms of communication and cultural expression.

Rheingold's personal experiences with the internet, from his early days at Xerox PARC to his observations on the changing dynamics of human relationships in the digital age.

The significance of the 'rough consensus and running code' philosophy in the development of the internet and the trust it required among its pioneers.

Rheingold's views on the potential of the internet as a mind-amplifying technology and the need for literacy in using these tools effectively.

The exploration of how different individuals use computers and the internet, challenging the notion of digital natives and the value of intergenerational learning.

Rheingold's advice for those intimidated by new technology, emphasizing the importance of play, exploration, and learning from mistakes.

Transcripts

[Music]

hello i'm devin and you're listening to

the ninth episode of tools and craft a

series of conversations with the

designers engineers writers and

inventors who are shaping computing as

we know it

today i'm talking with howard reingold

howard first plugged into the internet

in 1983 before the world wide web even

existed

he was one of the first non-programmers

to see computers as mine amplifiers

rather than just computing or word

processing machines and he coined the

word virtual community through his

experience as a member of the well one

of the first online communities and he's

thought in depth about collective action

and coordination online

he's been on the web for so long there's

a lot of other things that he has done

on on computers and but that's just a

quick taste and i'm sure y'all will get

a better sense that as we dive in

so howard thank you so much for taking

the time to chat i've been really

looking forward to this me too

so one goal of the arpanet design was to

be resilient to nuclear attack which is

why the internet today has a

decentralized packet switching

infrastructure enabling it to avoid a

single point of failure what were the

social consequences of this

decentralized design

i could be wrong about this but my

understanding from my conversations with

bob taylor was that packet switching

had been invented by some people at rand

corporation

in order to create a decentralized way

of communicating during a nuclear attack

that was not the reason

that arpanet adopted it arpanet adopted

it because i guess it was a t or bell

telephone the the

switched

network

that existed at that time was the

telephone network and if you remember

old movies of switchboard operators

making connections

a switch network literally

creates a circuit between the the

listener and and the speaker and

what i was told by bob taylor was that

the switch network people the telephone

people

didn't

didn't believe that that packet

switching uh would work

for this they adopted packet switching

the network was really enabled by the

understanding that they could create a

computer on the network that would speak

to other

computers on other networks i guess we

call that a router

these days so i'll have to tell you i'm

not much of a

technical

expert but actually when i first started

out writing i talked myself into a job

at xerox park doing some some writing

there they gave me assignment of helping

some of their scientists publish who

were good scientists but were

procrastinators on on publishing and one

of the first jobs i i had was two people

wanted jim white and yogan dalal and i

think yoga dela later became a

a venture capitalist and they had a

paper on

the the way

that the packet encapsulated the

structure of the network

and

helping them write that i i spoke to

them and we made recordings and i did

transcripts and we talked about the

transcripts i it was like

being given a a paper in greek and a

greek and a latin dictionary and

speaking either of those languages but

what stuck with me was the the the way

that the structure of the packet enabled

communications to move through this

network very fluidly in that when a

computer received a packet the the first

it would unwrap it and the first thing

it would read would would be about where

that pack was headed and if it wasn't

headed for that computer it would throw

it in that general direction of that

computer

etc

etc so packet switching is really an

essential

part of the

the arpanet but

as i was told the reason for creating

the arpanet was that arpa was sponsoring

computer research at a number of

different places at university of

california

at the university of utah at mit

and the and they met in person a couple

of times a year the the computer science

researchers and they began wanting to

run the the programs on on one computer

center

from another computer center and so

that's

how they started it was really to

connect to these disparate projects

technically

what happened along with that was that

along with the technical connection the

programmers started using the network to

communicate with each other and i think

that the real genius of of jcr lick

lighter and bob taylor who were running

the the project was that instead of

saying you guys shouldn't be talking

about science fiction one of the first

lists was about

sf lovers about science fiction um you

should be talking about your work

they understood that they were creating

a new kind of communication network and

in fact they wrote a paper that i

recommend called the computer as a

communication device and in fact lick

lighter called it the intergalactic

network and they and they

mused about what would happen when

most of humanity is online

we'll definitely have to include a link

to that in in the transcript i'm sure a

lot of people will want to read it

there's a quote that i think you you

quoted in something that you wrote from

john gilmer where he said the net

interprets censorship as damage and

routes around it which i thought was

like a very evocative way to describe

the the architecture of the net how has

that played out in practice and like

what sorts of interactions have people

had as a result that maybe wouldn't have

been possible in like a bell telephone

centralized system

gilmore disavows being the person to

have invented that and it's unclear who

actually invented that phrase and i

think it's pretty clear now

that it turned out to be wrong i mean

you've got the great firewall

in china but the end-to-end principle

that any node on the network can

communicate with any other node on the

network really led to a lot of the

innovation that that led to the web and

the online culture we see today

i thought of it when i first started in

in terms of the social

dimension which is that you could

communicate with someone who shared a

particular interest

whether you knew that person before or

or even whether they were on the same

side of the the planet

as you and and that is enormously

important today

if the example i often use is if you

have a disease that one in a million

people have there are 2 000 others and

you can connect with them

we're also discovering that if that

rising tide lifts all boats it lifts the

the pirate ships as well as the hospital

ships so um you can have medical support

groups and you can have nazis

who are able to connect with each other

in ways that they weren't able to

connect with each other before and i

think that's one of the most important

aspects of of the end-to-end principle

the other one being that

you

you don't have to ask permission and you

don't have to rewire the network in

order to innovate as long as whatever

you're doing on your node you can take

your computer and and plug it into the

network and

disseminate

the world wide web for example if it's

if it speaks the protocols of the

internet if that moves the packets

around technically the way they're

supposed to then no you don't have to

get permission to do it the you know the

the google guys didn't have to ask

permission to create a new search engine

from their their dorm room and and tim

berners-lee didn't have to rewire the

the web in order to disseminate html

so i think that

those are the

to me the the two most important aspects

of

you know just the the technicality of

what they call the end and

uh principle which i think illustrates a

way that a technical architecture can

result in

enormous social changes absolutely when

i first went to college i was planning

to study mechanical engineering but as

soon as i took my first programming

class i realized oh man this is the real

stuff because i realized that i didn't

need permission to do anything i could

just put up a website and it would just

start working and maybe no one wanted to

go to it and that was my problem but i

didn't need any permission to make it

happen and so i quickly changed my major

because of that that feeling of like man

it's just it's just me and my computer

and then suddenly i've like potentially

done something that tons of people can

use or not in most the cases of most

projects these days in terms of the

the giant monopolies a lot of people

have forgotten or never never learned

that the web as we know it was really

created by people like you and i who

just put up our websites and linked to

our friends websites and put up pictures

of our our pets it was not

a corporation in fact if you said i plan

to make money on the internet before

before netscape people would would laugh

at you and it certainly it wasn't the

government the government enabled the

technology and supported the creation of

the technology enabled the transition of

the national science foundation network

to the internet but it wasn't really the

government didn't create the web what

are the pockets of communities that

still view the internet in those ways

like where do you see that spark of

people still viewing the web as

something that can be co-created as

opposed to something that facebook has

to make a web page for you well i think

that's one of the big issues of the day

is when you're talking about the tragedy

of the commons or the commons there's

the enclosure of the commons the literal

common land that that the peasants were

able to graze on in england was

was fenced in and if you you tried to

use it you were you were shot or hanged

and that's called enclosure and

i feel that facebook is trying to

enclose

the internet it's trying to make people

believe that it is

the internet but we've got

all kinds of conversations

going on in all kinds of places you know

just reddit itself is is a ecology uh

full of uh communities of people who who

share a particular interest so you know

it's like the the big companies uh kind

of own the loaf but there's lots of lots

of raisins inside it and a lot of little

communities inside it you know i

mentioned medical support communities i

wrote about that back in 1987 it was a

uh to us

in the well

when we formed a support community for a

parent whose son had developed leukemia

now of course that's not surprising i

mean who has not googled their symptoms

and people who have diseases or

are caregivers for diseases they know

how to contact

support groups online and you know the

same thing goes for engineers

we probably wouldn't have the internet

as we know it today

if the companies then in silicon valley

had realized that their engineers were

using the network to talk with engineers

at other companies and

and solve problems together to share

lore and knowledge so i think sharing

lore is

another thing that that people do

without even

thinking about it i i think there are a

lot of these

threads that connect people either you

know through their their

personal lives like medical support

groups or through their professional

lives with sharing sharing lore you know

long before linkedin that was how you

found out about where jobs were i think

that

when the web first started everybody who

was putting up a website understood that

we were creating it nowadays you know

people who

were born

into an age where the where facebook

dominated don't i don't think all

understand that that they have that

capability that that anybody can can

innovate and create something new they

can create a new tumblr or they can

create a new reddit as as as people have

done and of course things are spring

things spring up new ways of

communicating spring up and people

invent

new art forms new cultural forms around

them tik tok

didn't exist a few years ago i can

remember when video online was extremely

slow and

only nerds used it so i have a lot of

faith that it's sort of like water will

always find its own level if there's a

new way to communicate

people will find it and invent new forms

that

quite often in fact almost always the

people who invented the technical means

of communicating did not have in mind i

have this ongoing group chat with some

of my friends on facebook messenger

and something we we talk about on and

off is how

it feels very impersonal like in

facebook messenger

imessage whatsapp all of these they all

look more or less the same for for every

group

and that has its uses because you know

it makes it means that you have a

standardized interface and like everyone

knows how to use it but in the on the

other hand it doesn't really feel like

it's your place it feels like you're

living you're like living and

communicating in this like institutional

setting as opposed to this shared space

that you like create together like a

studio you might have with your friends

and so something we we daydream about is

often like making our own mess messaging

chat just for ourselves not to like sell

or something but just for ourselves for

our own uses

uh to make it almost more like a

scrapbook and this is this is something

i'm always tempted to to go off and

build but it actually is hard to build a

chat app that is good and useful so i've

held myself back up until now but i

think the more i think about it the more

i'm gonna have to do it one day i think

i wrote a short essay on patreon in

response to this idea of facebook and

closure

you know if you want to start a forum

or you want to start a

chat group or you want to start a

mailing list the tools are there you can

create your own communities people

can make

their their own substitutes for facebook

for their their small group i just i

don't want that to be lost i i i don't

want that skill of just taking what's

available online and rolling your own

when slack came along a lot of

old-timers said

wait this looks like a irc it's irc with

you know a little bit of a fanciness in

the in the interface and i think

certainly there

it's proven to be value in in taking the

technical skeleton of things that have

existed for a long time and make them

make them

look a little a little friendlier yeah

so on that note actually how did the

internet culture change when the world

wide web was invented in 1989 well um

you have to remember that the internet

was

almost entirely text

there were people exchanging images

most of them pornographic on newsnet and

that had to do with transmitting

long

passages of gibberish that you had to

decode

so

the idea that you would have

pictures

or video or

or sound

was was

kind of it was it was so distant as to

be invisible to most people i think

people who understood where moore's law

was taking technology

knew that eventually the internet would

be a

would be multimedia in fact allen k in

1977

in scientific american in an article

called microelectronics in the personal

computer

talked about the internet being a

meta medium the the ability to link of

course hypertext has been an idea for

quite a while since ted nelson and

doug engelbart but when you put the

multimedia together with the hypertext

you get a basis for all all sorts of

things

the idea that people would use the web a

to make money really uh exploded after

the internet after the net netscape ipo

i was involved with starting hot wires

which was wired magazine's

online venue and and and we put ads i

think

in just a uh a short period of time i

don't know whether it's hours or days

more video was uploaded to youtube than

in all the history of broadcast

televisions

and you know we knew that that

we would be able to manipulate images

but nobody really dreamed of a photoshop

when we saw mac paint so i think that

the

the technology

enabled

accelerated evolution people saw oh we

can we can put a picture up what what

can we do with pictures oh you can

upload videos what what can we do with

video and of course we've seen that's

that's gone in so many different

directions and and none of them not all

of them healthy ones so

again

sometimes uh

people ask has the web become is it good

or bad and i think well are humans good

or bad you know

at the point where you've got a

significant portion of the human race

online and not just uh you know

technical experts and and

scientists and academics you're gonna

get the full

spectrum of human behavior and some of

that is not not so pretty and

you know previously

you could hide a lot of that not so

pretty stuff it wasn't visible to

everybody but again every every node can

talk to every other node if if you want

to

seek out the the ugly stuff or if the

youtube algorithm believes it will cause

you to be more engaged you can swiftly

get get involved with some some very

nasty stuff online so you asked about

culture you can't really leave that out

i think you know the uh inventiveness i

i understand that that pornography has

driven new technologies for a long time

that not long

after the

uh printing press became widespread

there was uh pornography about the the

the uh french french royalty and again

the video recorder was was driven by

people who didn't want to go to the

store to buy porn so i you know i think

humans are

a mixture all all humans are a mixture

and so so is our culture and so is the

online culture i think the online

culture does amplify

some things and things like for example

the youtube algorithm

does drive people towards the unhealthy

content

what you said about evolution of culture

online and evolution of technological

advancement online has

got me thinking one of the reasons why

the evolution has sped up in

certain dimensions is because software

is so malleable you can kind of like

poke at it and fiddle with it and if it

breaks it's actually fine because you

just like rerun it or you press undo

versus i don't know if you want to

innovate on building a house or

something if you mess up like someone

might die

and so i feel like it makes software

and software tools much more playful

because you can just kind of poke at it

until it does a thing that was

interesting as opposed to

having to worry about the consequences

now certainly there are consequences and

you wouldn't want like the software that

i don't know accepts credit card

payments to to be fiddled with in that

way but photoshop you can just kind of

like apply some filter over something or

some algorithm and be like oh wow that

made a really interesting like visual

effect on this piece of art or oh man

that didn't look good at all i'm gonna

undo it

you know there's a french word for that

they call it bricolage a bricoleur

is someone who just throws a lump of

clay onto the table and messes with it

until a form emerges

in my experience

when you're trying to create something

there are usually two different

approaches to it and some sometimes

quite often you have people embody both

different approaches there are people

who want a blueprint and a timeline and

milestones and objective measures of

every step and there are people who just

want to mess with this part of the code

and see what happens and i think the the

most interesting

uh developments are when those those two

mindsets

uh collide and they have to find a way

that they they can they can work

together and either side can do things

that the other side can't and if they

have to agree on something then they

need to find something that that fits

both both ways of doing things but but

certainly we wouldn't have the web today

if it wasn't for

view source

i remember

not not being a coder at all that i

could find a web page that did something

i really liked and i could view source

and i could copy that source and i could

find all the places where it mentioned

that specific website and just changed

the mention to my stuff and bang i had

something there and i think that that's

one of the reasons that the web

has spawned so many different cultures

is that ability to build on what other

people have done even if you're not

entirely knowledgeable about what it is

they did

yeah definitely i mean i remember some

of my first experiences programming were

wordpress sites and i had no idea what

was going on with any of it but i did

know that like if i saw the word red and

i wanted to replace it with the word

purple suddenly my page would be purple

and that was cool

and you know from there you start

pulling the thread and you start

realizing like oh this the place where

it says on click maybe that has

something to do with clicking

and you kind of like you pull the thread

until it all unravels in a good way well

you know the great thing about wordpress

is that there's a

very large community and

if you've got a problem or you have an

innovation that you wanted to

incorporate

the skill of finding who knows what is

really important and um and in terms of

programming the site where if you've got

a programming question you put it up and

oh stack overflow yeah stack overflow

how did how did programmers work before

stack overflow i mean think about that

it's the

this again

that ability to connect with the person

even though you don't know who that

person was in this case it's who is the

person who's encountered this particular

programming issue oh my god you put put

it up not only do people answer your

questions

in most cases they've already answered

the question

and i think that

that ability to

lean on a

community of of people who are not only

knowledgeable but willing willing to

share i think they're willing to share

part was really built in not to the

technical infrastructure but cul culture

that developed out of the early internet

in the early web this is something i

find even my i surprise myself with

where like i contribute to this open

source

tool called log seek and i sometimes

just like sit in their discord and when

i say sometimes i mean like a few days a

week i'll just sit in their discord

channel

answering questions about it and i don't

know why i do that it's just fun but i

would not expect that i would

spend my time that way if that makes

sense from an outside view but i kind of

get pulled in and i feel very happy when

i get to explain things people

that is a key question when i was

writing my book the virtual community in

1991 1992 i found it very hard to find

academic experts who could answer my

my questions i did find a graduate

student at ucla by the name of mark

smith and i asked mark

why

do people spend time

giving information to other people they

don't know

and he said knowledge capital

social capital

and communion and i think that he was

right and in fact when i i taught social

media

issues and social media literacies uh to

college students i had a a week that was

devoted to social capital online and you

know most of these formal terms i

discovered after trying to find out what

people said about what what i knew

what was happening and i became

excited about life online when when i

discovered that if i freely gave out

uh information to people who are looking

for it i would get ten times as much

back when i asked for it and and that's

essentially

uh social capital it's people

accomplishing things together outside

the formal frameworks of

contracts or laws and and it's essential

to to human life you know with with

farmers if you break your leg and it's

harvest season and then if you have good

relationships with your neighbors they

will take in the harvest and you know

the classic is that the amish

barn racing so i think that that's

another essential

part of online culture and

reciprocity is part of it is i

discovered called

diffuse or indirect reciprocity so

you have a question

i give you the answer even though i

don't know you and you may never

reciprocate to me directly but we both

belong to the same community in which we

know that others are going to answer my

question even if they don't know me so

in fact that's a deep principle of how

human cooperation

has come to evolve so i i think that

there are both

there's both a technical architecture

and

some some principles of the way humans

operate that have combined to create

things like that again i learned all

these things because i was interested in

why

why does it work this way there was a

sociologist by the name of manker olsen

who wrote a book called the logic of

collective action

and that was considered the last word on

the subject and in which he he pretty

much

declared

that that public goods things that no

one in particular is responsible for

like well i don't know keeping the

sidewalk clean are not going to be

created by groups of people who are not

financially compensated or related to

each other or are very large at all and

of course open source came along the

wikipedia came along and the web came

along and those are all

whatever the opposite of an existence

proof is it proves that the the logic of

collective action needs to be revised

that people will

create public goods

together

there's a book by stephen weber called

the the success of open source in which

he he actually dealt with some some

surveys of open source uh contributors

and the reasons i may not get this

exactly right the the number one reason

was learning how to program

a number two reason was monetizing their

ability to program and number three

reason was contributing to a public good

and the fourth reason was sticking it to

microsoft so it turns out that when

you're dealing with public goods online

having a couple of characteristics makes

it more successful and one of them is a

number of different motivations for

doing it

and another one that works very well for

open source programming and wikipedia is

self-election i may be obsessed with a

particular kind of south american ant so

that's when i'm going to decide to write

about on on wikipedia or i think

interestingly i am a programmer and

there's a new printer and nobody has a

driver for it so i've got to create that

driver i might as well contribute that

driver to the to the public so that

other programmers who need to connect to

that printer can use it but also i'm

signaling that i'm a cooperator and when

i need help someone will help me

all of this is may is enabled by the

technical architecture but it's really

driven by the the

human social factors yeah i think

the the self-election is a big part of

why people are motivated and

it is i think a very powerful positive

force i think it all has some gaps

though too which is like some projects

are just more charismatic than others so

you know i'm i imagine that the

wikipedia page for kittens has probably

been updated more often than like snails

i don't know i haven't actually checked

if that's true but i i would i would

hazard a guess and there's probably some

much more obscure animal that i've never

even heard of that very few people pay

attention to that like has very little

information written about it or

similarly with open source software i

think

a lot of software tools get a lot more

attention and work

on them when they are at sort of the top

of the stack the ui layer the the part

that actually

interacts with humans where the p people

actually see it as opposed to the

transitive dependencies that that

software might rely on so i think that

is one of the like

one of the limitations of that but it

doesn't make self-election bad it just

means that we need

other types of reasons to work on

something that fill in those gaps

who are those people in the early days

of the internet and then of the world

wide web well you know the in the

creation of the internet a lot of it was

done through email they had

they called it rfcs

requests for comment and so people would

you know as you know programmers have

strong ideas they would argue about

things technically but there was a

fellow who kind of ran the mailing list

who died a few years ago by the name of

john postel and everybody trusted him to

not be in a particular faction faction

so i think the philosophy behind the

people who created the

internet was rough consensus and running

code and so

rough

consensus is important because anyone

who's participated in

consensus based activities that are that

are strict consensus finds that they go

on and on and on and there's always

somebody who's going to stop it

oscar wilde said of socialism it

requires too many evenings

consensus requires too much meta

conversation so having someone that

everybody trusted was was really

important i think to that it's really

useful in a group uh in advance of

having to approach big decisions is to

sort of make the meta decision of who

will just make a call when it comes to

it it's an incredibly valuable thing

that you can do because otherwise if you

don't do that and you all respect each

other and want want everyone to agree

then you end up in this situation where

you don't do anything at all you know i

think it's important to go back to your

original question to to understand that

it was really the extraordinary

leadership of jcr lickliner and robert

taylor who were at arpa when all of this

business started

taylor was i think in his 20s and had

been a nasa administrator and jcr lick

was was older and he had done some war

work at mit and so when arfa was created

they had this little office called the

information processing techniques office

it was really a a tiny thing but he

understood where interactive computing

was going and he hired taylor and they

did things like fund doug engelbart and

they funded

ivan sutherland who invented computer

graphics who later succeeded them at

arpa and they funded alan kaye

there came a time when the u.s congress

said

this arpa

that's supposed to be for the defense

department this is during the vietnam

war now if you're not working on things

that the military can use right away we

don't want you to do it so a lot of

people quit

and bob taylor was hired by the xerox

company to invent the information

architecture of the future and they gave

him a hundred million dollars and ten

years with no interference and he went

and hired all of those arpa engineers

who were all you know pretty young

graduate students from the university of

utah and university of california and

all over the place and brought them to

palo alto and put them in the same

building and the architecture of the

building was organized in these pods

where if you had to get from one place

to another you had to go through a place

where people were having conversations

and they had bean bag chairs all over

the place and white boards all over the

place these were people who had been

used to working

with the old

technologies of of you know getting on

the airplane or getting on the train and

getting together and working with

blackboards now they had this this

integrated

facility i think that that it would not

have happened if it had not been the for

the extraordinary trust that that people

had in bob taylor from that and these

were all very strong personalities if

you've ever talked to or read anything

by allen k you know that that he was a

very strongly opinionated person and

there were a lot of others there as well

and they of course built on the the work

of doug engelbart and they and they were

the ones that led me to doug engelbart

if you're interested in this part of the

history bob taylor

and john markov did a video at the

university of texas at austin a few

years ago that's completely fascinating

you know taylor's a a texan and he has

this kind of down-home way of talking

about things and he's got lots of great

stories uh about where the the bodies

are buried so and that's that's where i

came into the the picture was that i

had been professional writer trying to

make a living as a writer for

some years and

i was tired of typewriters you know you

you type out a page and then you mark it

up and then you have to retype it it's a

pain and i heard a rumor that you could

use computers and screens and move words

around without having to retype them

i went to apple which at that time

was in two buildings i talked to jeff

raskin who later was kind of the

initiator of the macintosh project he

said no you can't really do word

processing on

on on apple twos because the hardware

only supports uppercase because

the founders believe that that people

are

almost exclusively going to use these

computers for playing games and writing

code in in basic

so that's when i came across alan k's

1977 article

and

i thought

xerox park must be the coolest place to

work if you're interested in the the

future of this technology and i i talked

my way into into a job there and and

part of that job was interviewing

people when i interviewed

bob taylor he turned me on to doug

engelbart and when i met doug engelbart

that's when i really understood that

this was

not just a far better typewriter this

was a mind amplifier or as he called it

augmenting human intellect and that

the future

of

mind amplifiers was going to to

explode as the technology did as alan

kaye said back then everybody knows

where the silicon is going so if you can

if you can put a pixel on a screen

in not too many years you're going to

put a million pixels on the screen

you're going to enable them to move

around so what does that

have to do with how we think and and

communicate and and then i i still

believe is the

the most important aspect of the of the

technology you know engelbart had a a

hard time getting people to to listen to

him it took him 10 years he got he had

this vision actually in the 1950s of

people using screens and computers to

to collaborate but the computer

uc berkeley said and there were about

four or five computers on the west coast

then uc berkeley said well you can study

computer science here but don't talk

about these mind amplifiers is it's

crazy and he went to hewlett-packard and

they said that they were never going to

get into digital technology and so

finally he understood that people did

not

understand that computers which were

used exclusively for scientific

computations and business data

processing were

as alan turing said many years ago a

universal machine said you could get

them to do

lots of

other things so he wrote that paper on

augmenting human intellect which i

taught to every class that i taught and

which i still recommend to people and

particularly engineers who are trying to

build things today because they call it

the unfinished revolution although the

paper was published in 1962 everything

that he foresaw

has not really come to pass yet what are

the gaps

well he had this framework he called

hlamt humans using language artifact

artifacts methodology and training and

in the years after that engelbart often

pointed out that the artifacts the

computers and the networks

evolved to something

literally millions and billions of times

more powerful but how much progress has

been made in the

language methodology and and training

part of that now and i think that that

applies to the future of thinking tools

i think it's going to have

less to do with the technology and more

to do with how people learn and how

people learn to to use it and how they

learn to extend their minds and i'm sure

you have the same thing i do which is i

offload an awful lot of my memory to

google and it's it's

outboard brain i use it a 100 times a

day sometimes

i can't remember something exactly but i

know a couple of characteristics of it

and i search on them and i find it

the the book goes into a lot of detail

about the three aspects one is the body

and some fascinating scientific research

about for example stock brokers don't

even know that stock brokers who can

hear their heart beat you know some

people can hear their heartbeat some

people

can't that people who are more tuned in

to their bodily sensations make more

successful decisions

even though they don't know that that's

the aspect of it so the the body has

part of it gestures are a big part of

thinking for example so body is part of

it the environment is part of it and

then again the technological

extensions that like the computer and

the network so i think we're only really

beginning to learn

the literacy

of

mind amplification that the tools are

all there i mean i think one thing that

i've only come to really appreciate in

the last few years

is

how physical thinking is uh or or should

be

in the sense that

i think one of the things that attracted

me to software to computers to the

internet was how abstract and like in my

head it felt that was really really cool

because i could have a whole little

world in my head but i've come to

realize that actually a lot of the

intuitions that you have for how

something works are physical intuitions

and also having a space that is sort of

an extension of your mind or almost a

not a visualization but um i'll give an

example i i have a friend who has his

own personal uh gaming arcade so he has

like a separate apartment that he rents

out and he has like ddr machines pinball

machines that kind of thing in there and

this space you go in and you just feel

like you're inside of roger's brain it's

awesome

and it's something where as soon as i

saw it i was like oh man i can see how

this place helps him think it helps him

think the types of thoughts he wants to

have it's also a very fun place to be

and so

something i've been worrying about is i

think that a lot of the

tools that we have are very contained

within uh little little rectangles and

they're very powerful but i think

there's probably limitations there i

don't know a lot of a lot of the

greatest scientific discoveries have

happened because of

scientists who sort of felt things in

their body you know i've heard stories

of uh feynman like who was a scientist

at los alamos like rolling around on the

ground like grappling with problems and

like feeling it in his arms and stuff

like that which you know i don't think i

understand physics enough to understand

exactly what he was going through but it

helps him solve problems and helps him

wrap his mind around it so like how do

you approach

teaching these skills to your own

daughter pretty recently

if you're talking about the history of

education

you've got youtube you've got wikipedia

you've got search you've got uh

forums and and chat you've got open

educational resources

why can't a group of people get together

and learn something together

even though they don't have a teacher or

an educational institution what's really

missing is

is knowing how to do that how do you how

do you you want to learn a subject how

do you find out what are the best

sources on that subject how do you

arrange those sources into a syllabus

and what media are you going to use how

are you going to assess your learning

how are you going to divide the the work

of being the being the teacher for the

day so i started a project called

perigogy p-e-e-r-a-g-o-g-y

and it's interesting because i was

invited to give a lecture about about

learning at berkeley at the end of my

lecture i called for creating a handbook

for

learning online without without a

teacher and part of this invited lecture

was i was supposed to meet with the

faculty and graduate students

in a face-to-face seminar for uh several

times after the lecture and i did but i

brought my laptop and i opened it up to

a video conferencing system uh circa

2011.

after a couple of months all of the

people of the

faculty and the graduate students i met

with face-to-face have dropped out of

the project

but educators from

mexico and brazil the uk germany japan

had come in online and had uh created a

community and it's still going i think

the periodic handbook is in its fourth

or fifth edition you can go to

piragaggi.org and and get connected to

it for free

there's a an ongoing community that

anybody can join so i think part of the

what people need to learn is not just

how to to find information online

but how to use these amazing resources

to learn together online and of course

schools are quite resistant

to this when i was at stanford i was i

was

concerned about the fact why why are

there so few of the faculty using

forums and

and wikis and i i went to someone who

was in charge of a center for

innovations and learning

and he said well that the answer to that

is easy this is a knowledge factory and

people are hired here because of their

publications their contributions to

their field and if you're supposed to

teach a class and you never show up

that could be a problem but there's no

positive

incentives for innovating in in

teaching

in in that system and i found

when i was actively

involved in digital media and learning

that the real innovators were not at the

knowledge factories

they were at

some small liberal arts school

university of mary washington i think a

lot of people may have never heard of

that but that's that's where i found

some great innovations in open learning

and i i in fact over a period of years

uh interviewed

more than a hundred innovators in

digital media and learning and i'm

afraid that that what happens in most

fields has to happen in education is

that the the old people have to retire

and the young people have to take over

but an awful lot of them are flying

under the radar now and using

you know not just the face-to-face

elements that go back to you know

ancient samaria but the the media that

students live in when they're not in

school as well

how did computers and the internet

change your relationship with your

family

oh well that's actually when i started

writing about it was uh

uh i think the opening line of my book

the virtual community is uh

my daughter's saying mommy daddy is

laughing at his computer again i had

been writing for quite a while before i

got a computer and a modem and it was

just a miraculous to me to discover that

there were all these interesting people

saying interesting things and i could

uh talk with them and in fact it was

kind of writing as a performing art

instead of waiting for the thing to be

published and printed and maybe someday

somebody would say something to you

about it it was moving that into real

time and i was spending hours a day on

it and so finally my wife became

concerned about that so i started

i started writing articles about it i

wrote uh virtual communities for the

whole earth review in 1987. so okay

that's legit so i really

i don't think of myself so much as a

pioneer as a early participant observer

not only was this fascinating to me as a

writer but the tools were something that

a writer's dream it's like i started out

with a horse and buggy and now i have my

own spaceship it's you know amazing to

think what's you know of course i use

search uh 100 times a day but they've

got things like divan think and the

brain and all kinds of other kind of

knowledge management

tools and thinking tools and

online concept mapping

i think the large end of the funnel for

a writer has gotten so big that you can

gather so much more information that

this causes some problems at the small

end of the funnel how am i going to

integrate all of this and you know tools

that take all of the little snippets

that you've you've gathered and

show you ways that they could be

organized or which ones might relate to

each other are our tremendous help i

think that there's you know there's

still a long way to go in that you know

you still

have to take

everything that you have discovered and

arrange it in serial order if you're if

you're writing a book

uh or you're writing you know an article

uh

it's it's still got to come out in that

that serial order i know this is a

little off topic but i remember when we

were first starting hotwired we were

very

aware that we were creating a new medium

and that

you know whatever we did people would

would follow and i remember a meeting

that was strictly about we need to have

a feature in which people write essays

in which they include links

stop for a second that sounds so weird

doesn't it i mean don't we all naturally

in

include links when when we're writing

these days it's part of the the literacy

of writing back in those days

it was something that you really

had to to think about so anyway back to

family it really helped when i was

traveling when i did a lot of speaking

and traveling to be

in touch with with back home i mean

being in touch

was a lot harder back in the old days

you know there was a time when if you

were in a different country and you

wanted to make a call to the u.s you had

to have

the people in your hotel set it up and

call you when it was

was ready to go

of course able to communicate with my

daughter when she was in college and

when she was away and you know we still

communicate every day

how many families have the the the

family um whatsapp uh chat uh going on

or even you know some some people have a

uh like a walkie-talkie app so you can

have people all over the world i

remember in the early days talking to a

waitress in sweden about this and and

she said well i have a one one sibling

in australia and another one in in in

thailand and if it wasn't for email it

would be very expensive for us to to

stay in touch so there's a negative side

of that which is when you went to

college you used to kind of

go you were on your own

and maybe you would call mom and dad or

write mom and dad but nowadays like uh

back before uh online maps uh my

daughter would call and ask

i'm i'm trying to go to so and so a

dress how do i get there and so

you know that so many so many things

have changed in human

relations including that of the family

and i think you know in some ways being

able to be in touch all the time is a

great innovation in some ways

it's harder for young people to to

form their their own personalities and

detach leave home

don't really leave home so much anymore

one thing i think

i don't fully appreciate and i won't but

every time i've learned about it i've

been more impressed is how

differently different people use

computers uh when i whenever i sit and

watch a friend using a computer or my

parents or anybody they always use it

quite differently than me uh sometimes

it's like small things like the text

size on their phone is different than

mine and i forget that like you can even

change that um or you know sometimes

deeper things like how did a friend set

up their

text editor or their terminal things

like that

i i think it's really fun to see the

rise of tools like twitch for like

video streaming and those sorts of

things where we can get a little bit

more visibility into how other people

use these tools because i think

everything i know about computers really

has either been from poking around

myself or by incorporating things that

i've other like sort of folk practices

that i've seen other people use um so i

think it's

it's also about just like seeing other

people use computers in ways that you

didn't think of or

and also being able to transfer your

knowledge to them directly and it's very

much like a peer-to-peer type of

learning environment well again um

when i was at

hotwired i was 49 and

my intern was 19

and

i just surrendered the computer to him

and let him configure it and let me show

me how to use it and i i think it's

really

i'm not a believer in the digital native

i don't believe that just because you're

young you know everything other

especially the social and political and

ethical implications but i believe that

a young that young people have a lot

more time and that they have this kind

of peer network to learn whatever is the

new way to

to communicate and i think we need to we

need to older folks need to listen to

the younger folks more i think there's a

general myth of fluency both for digital

tools as well as language around youth

where

i think a lot of people think like oh

because i didn't learn a language when i

was young i'll never be able to pick it

up and it might be true that it might be

hard to pick up certain sounds when

you're speaking or in the case of

digital tools you might not have certain

intuitions but i think that the

experience that you bring to the table

can give you different types of

expertise in that space so to like

stretch the the language analogy i've

been learning spanish and i'm like

almost fluent but

every once in a while i will

invent a word without realizing that i

invented a word and my boyfriend who's

argentinian will often go

hey that's not a real word but i like it

you know and he's like i know exactly

what you mean but also that's not a real

word i think similarly with digital

tools like sure

maybe if you didn't grow up with it you

might not have quite as much

certain types of the fluency but in

other ways you're going to understand

the system better and you might have

like a better mental model of like

actually what's going on technically as

opposed to just sort of leaning in so i

think

it might be true like it's not that you

come to the table necessarily with the

same skills but you come with different

different strengths

well and also i think nobody

of any age is able to encompass the kind

of cultural cornucopia of innovations

that are happening i when i started

teaching college students in 2005 i was

pretty sure that i knew more than they

did about life online by 2012

none of us

knew

everything there was about um social

media and so we started a kind of show

and tell where every week a couple of

students would show us what they were

doing online that was really interesting

and most of the class learned something

from that you know whether it was you

know

tumblr or

or youtube

or reddit

people were

really into something and really

understood it and other people may have

known it existed but didn't know much

about it and i think that we're never

going to be able to encompass it i think

we just need a culture of

not being ashamed of learning from each

other

there is a certain part of internet

culture i think where it's very

self-reflective and i i don't mean to be

offensive but like naval gazing around

people who sort of say like i'm an

internet person and i i know more about

internet culture than other people do

and that that's always sort of gotten on

my nerves because i think it's like

you know a certain part of internet

culture and it just happens to be the

part that

like is self-reflective about the fact

that it's on the internet but you know

we're actually all on the internet and

we all we all know different things

about it and i think that there's a

certain moral superiority that some

people come with which i don't

personally think is warranted

well i i think socially if we were just

able to accept a a new behavior of

saying wait what can you can you teach

me what what what that's about i have no

idea and

the other person saying oh sure it works

like this i think we'd

be a lot better off i don't think you

can learn all these things in school i

mean you don't learn about cultural uh

habits

in school many people who didn't grow up

with computers or the web are a little

intimidated by this technolo these

technologies i see this amongst some of

my friends and some of my family members

as well

by conscious it seems like you pick up

new tools and ways of interacting with

them with a lot of enthusiasm you know

actually when we were entering this uh

zen caster recording i think you

figured out the audio before i did

what advice would you have to people who

are a little intimidated by the

prospects of diving into new technology

you know there's

an enormous value in just playing with

things and i think that if we

we valued

fooling around with a new tool and just

seeing what what it might do rather than

you know i don't know being embarrassed

by not knowing how to work it we would

all benefit

from that again i think this is just

it's social and and cultural i think

that if we had a culture of learning

from each other if the if this

periodicity business got

embedded in everything and people

weren't i think what stops you from from

messing with something or asking

something

how it works is it's because you're

afraid of the unknown and you're going

to make a mistake and you're going to be

embarrassed in front of people are you

going to break something i think that

that if we if we did away with that and

just enabled people to to play as they

learn and i think this applies to

everything from k-12 to universities to

you know learning how to operate a

computer we we would advance our

learning a lot better well that's a

perfect place to stop thank you for

taking part of your day to talk with me

this has been a super fun conversation

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