richard on Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:45:19 +0100 (CET) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
Re: <nettime> On ARPA's 50th Anniversary |
Hiya, Ronda's article is very good as far as it goes, but it is telling that even smart leftie Americans provide only a partial account of the origins of the Net. Here's an alternative take on this history which summarises the analysis in my Imaginary Futures book: http://www.imaginaryfutures.net Enjoy! Richard ==================== Conventional History * America and Russia are fighting the Cold War; * Russia launches Sputnik - the first space satellite - in 1957; * American sets up ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) to carry out "blue skies" research; * ARPA appoints JCR Licklider to organise its research into information technologies; * Licklider prioritises computer networking for time-sharing mainframes and military communications; * ARPANET launched in 1969; * Marshall McLuhan, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Daniel Bell prophesise that the Net will create a new post-industrial stage of human civilisation; * After successive reiterations, the Net becomes either the triumph of dotcom capitalism or the advent of cybernetic communism - or both at the same time. Unasked Questions Why did ARPA appoint Licklider - an admirer of the socialist-pacifist Norbert Weiner - as its head of information technology research rather a more conservative warrior-academic-bureaucrat? Why did the US government generously fund research into computer networking in the immediate aftermath of the launch of Sputnik? Since computer scientists don't like sharing their equipment with members of their own departments, why did ARPA force them to link their precious mainframes into a common network? Why did ARPA claim that expensive and flaky computers would provide a more reliable form of battlefield communications than cheap and reliable switches? Was it more than a coincidence that McLuhan, Brzezinski and Bell identified the Net as the hi-tech harbinger of a new civilisation? Why have American academics and journalists airbrushed the cybernetic communist movement in Russia out of the story of the Net? Hidden History * America and Russia divide Europe - and the rest of the world - between them at the 1944 Yalta conference; * Norbert Weiner proposes meta-theory of cybernetics at the 1945-8 Macy Conferences in the USA; * America and Russia begin the Cold War in 1948; * Death of Stalin in 1953 leads to the gradual opening up of the totalitarian system in Russia; * Weiner's writings inspire the emergence of cybernetic communist movement in Russia which advocates the construction of the Unified Information Network; * Russia launches Sputnik - the first satellite - into space in 1957; * American sets up ARPA to carry out "blue skies" research; * CIA claims that America is threatened by a growing "cybernetics gap" with Russia; * ARPA appoints JCR Licklider to organise its research into information technologies because - like the Russian cybernetic communists - he's a disciple of Weiner; * Licklider prioritises computer networking under the cover of enabling the time-sharing of mainframes and improving military communications; * Marshall McLuhan predicts that the Net will create the global village in his 1964 best-seller Understanding Media; * US government sets up Towards Year 2000 commission under Daniel Bell in 1964 to devise the American ideological alternative to cybernetic communism; * ARPANET launched in 1969; * Daniel Bell and Zbigniew Brzezinski publish articles prophesising that - under American leadership - the Net will create a new post-industrial stage of human civilisation; * McLuhanism without McLuhan is embraced as the dominant ideology by both radical and conservative intellectuals within the American empire; * After successive reiterations, the Net becomes either the triumph of dotcom capitalism or the advent of cybernetic communism - or both at the same time. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org