[Cuis-dev] Inventing the next Licklider

[Philip Bernhart]

Hi,

Casey Ransberger via Cuis-dev <cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st> writes:

> We’re in an emergency. 
>
> I’m not talking about the Pandemic. 

Yup. You are talking about the systemic crisis (climate, energy,
population, healthcare, mass extinction, etc) we are in. Which
reminds me on the guiding philosophy of Douglas Engelbart
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart#Guiding_philosophy)
where we never got around to fix the important problems.

Sadly his inventions only provided an additional way of entertainment
and dumbing down of humanity. Also increasing mass surveillance,
which is now laughable easy.

> One of the things we got out of it was the internet, which I used to
> find the other thing we got out of it, Smalltalk.

Yeah, the internet had high hopes. But in the end we are all now
living in convenient locked gardens with mass surveilance. Tinkering
which was in the original visions of any of the founders, was
politically removed by the people with the actual power of decisions.

> We probably have a decade (if we’re lucky) to identify and support a
> suitable replacement for JCR Licklider before our species is on an
> inevitable road to extinction. With each passing day, that person has
> less time to work with.
>
> So I posit this question: how do we forster, shepherd, and above all
> *teach* a human to think like Lick did? How do we fund it?

You don't want one heroish human person, leader figures are too
idealized and generally speaking are dangerous. What we would need is
that the average guy on the street selects the right future facing
choices. But what does this average guy select now? Obviously the
wrong decisions, as we are still facing that direction.

If he would choose the better ones, then powerful people would not
dare to put forward their current agendas, as they would fear the
backlash.

> I’m starting to get the idea in my head that we’re dead without a
> well-funded thought leader and I’m disinclined that it should be
> anyone with smaller ideas that Licklider’s.

We are dead because of politics. What good is a good leader, when
the results which he/she is pushing is in the end used as cow feed?

> We still have a whole planet to rescue. How should we go about that?

A good question. But the techniques, the knowledge is there. But
change is simply not wanted. Heck, even a teenager campaigning over
the planet didn't change enough. It only idealized a new kind
of activist "hero" and "leader".

Why the fudge do we even need a leader, a new kind of self sacrifizing
"jesus" who throws away his own life so the "dumb masses" come to their
senses? That's a rigged game, we as a species somehow need to get out of.


My ranty 0.02 EUR,
Philip

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