[Cuis-dev] Inventing the next Licklider

[Hernan Wilkinson]

Me neither, pls share the link

On Sun, 9 Jan 2022 at 03:19 Luciano Notarfrancesco via Cuis-dev <
cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st> wrote:

> Hi Casey,
> I’m not sure I’ve read the paper you’re talking about, could you please
> post a link?
> Thanks,
> Luciano
>
> On Sun, 9 Jan 2022 at 12:30 PM Casey Ransberger via Cuis-dev <
> cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st> wrote:
>
>> This is still somewhat off-topic but I don’t care about that anymore.
>>
>> There are a preponderance of people here who can understand Alan’s paper
>> and we have very limited time to make use of his insights.
>>
>> Also, look, I understand that hero-worship doesn’t jive with what we
>> think or what we do. I understand why my call for ideas about how to
>> “create the next Licklider” has been rejected on general principle. This
>> crap with the next “person X” is bloody tiresome.
>>
>> We have maybe ten years to sort ourselves out. Alan’s paper is worth
>> reading, but really: what are *we* going to do, as a global community, to
>> address these concerns?
>>
>> If we are to be the inheritors of the Smalltalk legacy, if that’s how we
>> want to style ourselves as a community: how many of us have read the PDF
>> file Alan Kay has been circulating?
>>
>> Can we pull our heads out of our asses and save our species? Because the
>> clock is ticking.
>>
>> I came to Cuis because Juan understood the goals behind Smalltalk. We had
>> a good time cutting Squeak 3 down to size. After I’d shipped Squeak 4.
>>
>> We’re out of time. The solution isn’t computer science. Maybe computer
>> scientists can contribute to the ultimate solution that ensures our
>> grandchildren will still have a planet.
>>
>> Please, do whatever you can.
>>
>> —Casey
>>
>> > On Jan 1, 2022, at 8:51 PM, Casey Ransberger <bahweep at icloud.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > We’re in an emergency.
>> >
>> > I’m not talking about the Pandemic.
>> >
>> > There was an amazing person once who probably coulda licked the
>> problem. (Sorry.) Just knocked it out. He assembled a huge team of
>> incredibly curious do-ers, people who said #doIt: a lot.
>> >
>> > 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.
>> >
>> > I think maybe we spend too much effort trying to groom “the next Alan
>> Kay” (and mostly without funding.) My view at last is that we were looking
>> for the wrong person. Tap a community with polymaths in it and you’ll find
>> a replacement for Alan Kay; what we need now is someone who can find the
>> research funding for “people, not projects” and this person has been
>> elusive.
>> >
>> > 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?
>> >
>> > 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.
>> >
>> > Sorry if this seems off topic, but I promise you that if you read
>> enough, it isn’t. We’re arguably a splinter group created when ARPA became
>> DARPA and funding for individual scientists dried up.
>> >
>> > We still have a whole planet to rescue. How should we go about that?
>> >
>> > —Casey
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>>
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Sent from a fat finger unaware device
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