[ih] New Republic Article - "How We remember the Internet’s Origins"

[John Day]

You are looking for reasons to object. 

The point is that “open protocols and infrastructure built by the ARPANET” was part of its founding. Nothing could be further from the truth.  If anything, it was more a product of benign neglect.

Also keep in mind that the ARPA before the Proxmire Amendment was a very different place than it is now.

And like Brian, I don’t hold this style of thinking in high regard.

My lack of specificity is minor compared to what is in the article.

> On Nov 1, 2019, at 17:10, Darius Kazemi <darius.kazemi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > It presumes the “open protocols and infrastructure built by the ARPANET” precluded the effect of ex-hippie whatever.
> 
> John, how am I supposed to understand your argument if you hand wave the subject of your criticism? I take it by your use of "whatever" in place of "neoliberalism" that you either are unfamiliar with the term or don't consider it valid or useful. But to me this is like when I see humanities scholars handwave the difference between, say, ARPANET and NSFNET in favor of a pet theory. It's important to learn terms on both sides of the humanities/tech fence, otherwise we are just ships passing in the night. 
> 
> On Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 4:57 PM John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net <mailto:jeanjour at comcast.net>> wrote:
> This suffers from ’the effect of TS Eliot on Shakespere’ phenomena.  It presumes the “open protocols and infrastructure built by the ARPANET” precluded the effect of ex-hippie whatever. It assumes the ARPANET as the author knows it now was in existence at the beginning.  And has Brian points out, that there were a lot of people involved in that early development that would have been classed as ‘hippies’.
> 
> I always tell the story of 4 of us leaving Champaign to fly out to Philly on our ARPA project. As we got off the plane in Chicago, the flight attendant said with a breath of excitement, “Are you guys in a band?” I replied (trying not to disappoint her too much, “No, we are crypto-fascist-lackeys of military-industrial complex.” As we had been referred to by demonstrators.  We were probably further left than they were.
> 
> > On Nov 1, 2019, at 15:15, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com <mailto:brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> > "But when the publicly funded open protocols and infrastructure built by ARPANET entered the Californian crucible of nascent ex-hippie neoliberalism, the windows of possibility narrow."
> > 
> > Um, meaningless drivel from someone with a liberal arts degree?
> > 
> > Neoliberalism didn't *actually* arise from hippiedom; it arose from rich people endorsing a particular stream of thought in academic economics. You might as well say that the Postel principle arose from hippiedom, since Jon had long hair. It would make as much sense IMNSHO.
> > 
> > Regards
> >   Brian Carpenter
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