Computer Lib/Dream Machines
Nelson writes passionately about the need for people to understand computers deeply, more deeply than was generally promoted as computer literacy, which he considers a superficial kind of familiarity with particular hardware and software. His rallying cry "Down with Cybercrud" is against the centralization of computers such as that performed by IBM at the time, as well as against what he sees as the intentional untruths that "computer people" tell to non-computer people to keep them from understanding computers. In Dream Machines, Nelson covers the flexible media potential of the computer, which was shockingly new at the time.
Stats for nerds
37recommend
100mentions
66people
2009–2026years
46% recommend54% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > People quickly assume that if jobs disappear, purpose disappears too. As if jobs were the only legitimate way to contribute to society or create meaning. In this article, I argued that we may need to expand our definition of work beyond the narrow container of a job. Care work, relationships, health, learning, creativity, community building, contribution - these have always been essential forms of work. Perhaps the future is about rediscovering all the forms of work we have systematically undervalued.
Only a few get to not only imagine a better future, but to create one. Yes, programming may have moved one step higher, something I have always wanted, but those who have the money and muscle to steer this ship are steering it in the direction of massive centralization and surveillance, the monsters that ate the internet.
I still believe, along with Kevin Kelley, and previously with Ted Nelson (Computer Lib/Dream Machines) that technology WANTS to liberate and empower people. I built computers from S-100 boards with thousands of parts, based on that belief.
Look at the dream envisioned above.
Care work, relationships, health, learning, creativity, community building, contribution
These are all under all-out assault from the forces bought by oligarchs to enslave people to their "company stores" instead.
It's OUR choice whether to further this slave state or to buck it; whether to help people adapt and grow or restore individual and group opportunity, access to education, unvarnished facts, health care and more, or to simply ban them as "communist". You know that's exactly the plan. If it doesn't benefit the mega-wealthy it's "communist." and due to the current popularity of un-thinking, a lot of people swallow that bait.
I carved out a nice career in optical and electronic engineering, aerospace, computer sales, support and system design, without a single course in optics, electronics, computing (there WERE no courses) or systems engineering. Not everyone can do that on their own, but those were the "communist" days when a person or small company could be creative and make exciting and liberating things (like Linux, for example) and not be just crushed in some insane land grab for a still-imaginary frontier.
There are real problems to solve, and rather than solve them, we are creating new ones on a massive scale.
The science fiction writers were right. We fix this mess or create a burned out rock for a planet.
- There is plenty on earth if wealth is not concentrated in the hands of very few. It takes a lot of energy to suck the entropy out of the system.
While I and others like Kevin Kelley and Ted Nelson of "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" (1974) see technology as liberative, distributive and empowering, others see it as a tool to concentrate power and wealth.
It's a choice, powered by the now universal philosophy of "Creative Destruction" though many will deny that. The wealthy get Creative, and the rest of us get some goodies (with strings attached) and live with the destruction.
- I'm retired from SV tech, and built early computers from S-100 boards and lots and lots of solder (hasn't affected my brain). Like Kevin Kelley, and Ted Nelson "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" and maybe even Jobs and Woz, always felt that computers should liberate people.
I've despised "big tech" even when it wasn't so big, as in a certain creep dumpster-diving to get the source code for BASIC.
I've written down ideas for liberating kinds of tech, but it occurred to me that they often just try to undo the damage that's been done by sociopaths leveraging technology, and some of the worst offenders with a brilliant new business model: Sell ads. Low hanging fruit at the expense of print media.
And I experienced the internet before ads.
> Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it: George Monbiot (2011) [0]
Still worth trying. The times demand it.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/24/advert...
- Walden, by Thoreau
The Myth of the Machine, by Lewis Mumford
Cloud Hidden, by Alan Watts
Computer Lib/Dream Machines, by Ted Nelson (Technology purpose and arrow)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer
Small is Beautiful, by E. F. Schumacher
- Ah, good old Ted Nelson. His "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" captivated and inspired me as a counterculture kid in the '70s, and played a big part in me becoming a graphics nerd today. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines)
"Everything is deeply intertwingled."
- Diary of an Early American Boy - Eric Sloane. This book spoke to my heart in a deep and profound way.
The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - Everything you want to know about the practice of electronics, as opposed to theory, once you're going to design electronics.
The Programmers Stone - https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/r0/index.ht... - Teaches the concept of Mappers and Packers, I'm a mapper, and I've worked with packers, once I knew this, and used it to help bridge the gap.
Flatland - Edwin A. Abbott - A bridge towards higher dimensional thinking from back in elementary school.
The Boy's Second Book of Radio and Electronics - Morgan, 1957. - https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/T... - This is the book that cold started me into electronics in 1973, in 4th Grade.
The Engineer's Notebook series - Forest Mims III - Once I was in electronics, gave a ton of useful tips.
What do you care what other people think - Richard Feynman, a good set of lessons about expectations and motivations of others, as told by one the folks on the Manhattan project.
Computer Lib / Dream Machines - Ted Nelson - A great exposition of what computers could be used to do, We're nowhere near catching up yet.
George Gilder: When Bandwidth Is Free - Interview in Wired Magazine - https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gilder-4/ - It was here (I think) that I first heard his call to waste transistors in pursuit of performance, that the BitGrid came into mind as a viable idea.
The Cluetrain Manifesto - Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger - Changed the way I view the internet and advertising.
Related
2009–2025
Dream machines
9 recommend · 25
2012–2025
Literary Machines
11 recommend · 30
Computer lib
10 recommend · 41
The Dream Machine
109 recommend · 199
The art of computer programming
336 recommend · 1,799
The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2
1 recommend · 5
Geeks bearing gifts
4 recommend · 11
