Hi everyone! My name is Duncan Rheingans-Yoo, I am a freshman at Harvard, and welcome to my blog. This semester, I am taking the course “Freshmen Seminar 50N: What is the Internet, and What Will it Become?” taught by Michael Smith and Jim Waldo. This blog, published weekly on Tuesdays, will be a reflection on both the class and my changing perspective towards the Internet. I will assume no prior familiarity with the Internet; indeed I have very little idea of what it is and how it works going into this course. However, I will not necessarily give full and complete history lessons, only some things I’ve learned and my thoughts on them.
At the dawn of time—*ahem* I mean the 50s and 60s—computers were all different and disconnected. They were certainly useful for computation, but everything was self-contained. The Internet, in its most basic conception, was about connecting these machines.
The reasons for wanting such a network are varied. One belonged to Bob Taylor. Taylor one of the first Directors of the Information Processing Techniques Office at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (a government-funded organization dedicated to technological innovation). He saw that as computer research became more popular, the costs were growing exponentially. Everyone wanted their own computer, and any research done on one computer had to be completely redone if another group wanted to replicate the result. Taylor saw a network between the computers as a way to cut the costs and speed the pace of innovation.
J.C.R. Licklider had a grander view. A behavioral scientist turned computer geek, Licklider envisioned a future where humans and computers were engaged in a symbiotic relationship, with computers heavily integrated into everyday life. The coupling of human and computer brains would be able to think in ways humans never could on their own and process data in ways that computers never could on their own. Establishing connections between computers would be a vital part of realizing such a future.
Paul Baran’s motivation was probably the most grounded in the politics of the time. He knew that the US communication system was fragile, and in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack, the US’ ability to counterattack could be compromised. He wanted to develop a robust, reliable network that could not be easily broken down, even by total nuclear attack. There would be no way for the Soviets to attack the US and avoid counterstrike. The second part of Baran’s vision was to give such a system to the USSR so that the US would also be unable to attack freely. This would cement the political state of Mutually Assured Destruction, and reduce the risk that nuclear war would actually occur.
Donald Davies was independently doing research that was similar to Paul Baran’s, but all he was looking to do was make something cool. He just wanted to create a new public communications network where someday one person could sit down at a computer and interact with a different machine in a different location.
This reminds me of Eliezer Yudkoswky’s essay “Why Truth? And…” which outlines three reasons for pursuing truth. While truth and the Internet are certainly not the same thing, they both channel an idea of building towards something greater: better beliefs and a network of computer connection respectively. The first reason Yudkowsky gives is curiosity, which seems to align with Davies’ motivation. The second is the pursuit of a specific goal, which corresponds with Taylor and Baran and Licklider, though all of their goals were different. The third reason is morality, that truth is a moral end in and of itself that should be prioritized, which I am suspicious of (and to be fair so is Yudkowsky). Carrying the metaphor, certainly few people would prioritize the Internet as a moral end in itself.
A second thought is that the existence of so many different people with different motivations for creating the Internet was probably very necessary for its creation. We have such a bias towards the status quo that changing the way people do something is hard. Even a few years ago, people complained about the removal of disk drives from Apple computers, unable to see that they were becoming obsolete with the rise of online Netiflix and HBO. The original idea of the Internet, for its part, was met with resistance by AT&T, who said it could never work and even if it did would never be useful for anything but hardcore computer network research. Only through the concerted effort of many individuals and the necessity of such a network on many levels could something like the Internet actually come to fruition.
I hope you enjoyed my first blog post. Join me next week as I talk about the initial approaches to and challenges of connecting computers!
Good work on your first post! I loved your connection to Yudkowsky’s work. Keep those thoughts on connections and reflections coming!
I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. I’ve been on the look out for such information.