alt Hacker NewsI love the Whole Earth Catalog. That era of techno-utopian optimism is so exciting. I'm too young to have experienced more then the tail end of it in the 90s going to computer camp as a kid, but it felt like anything was possible and everything was connected.
It is a bit sad to see where we have landed after all that.
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> It is a bit sad to see where we have landed after all that.
For a comically small amount of money I can listen to any song I want to, read any book I want to, watch any movie/TV show I want to. Then there’s the ad-supported videos and images and text. Then there’s the AIs that I use every day!
I’m in awe at how amazing where we have landed at is. Sure some stuff isn’t perfect but what fun is it to be sad about what is pretty cool?
If you look at the first 10 years of Whole Earth Review, starting in 1985, it's startling to see the similarities to the issues of today.
January 1985: Computers as Poison - "It is not our hand that we put into the computer, it is our attention."
July 1985: Digital Retouching - "The end of photography as evidence of anything"
Winter 1985: "Islam: Beyond the Stereotypes"
Spring 1986: "Peering into the age of Transparency" - about space surveillance
Summer 1986: “This text tries to explain how minds work. How can intelligence emerge from non-intelligence? To answer that, I’ll show that you can build a mind from many little parts, each mindless by itself.”
Fall 1986: The Fringes of Reason - Strange myths and eccentric science
Winter 1986: AmerRuss - Joining America and Russia into one country
Summer 1987: What is real & A No-Cash Economy that Works
Fall 1987: Doing Drag & Male Identity
Summer 1988: The Far Left & Far Right Converge Summer 1988: The Rights of Robots
Summer 1989: Is the body obsolete
Summer 1991: Electronic Democracy
Winter 1991: Questioning Technology
Fall 1992: Artificial Life