6 ms·

Stewart Brand Changed the World, Twice

95 points by tysone 8y ago

rmason 8y ago
Actually I'd wager that Stewart Brand has changed the world more than twice. I was a huge fan of both the whole earth catalog and the Well. Both Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle have mentioned him as a mentor and influence. Though it wasn't mentioned in the article he's also along with Kevin Kelly behind The Long Now foundation http://longnow.org/about/ http://longnow.org/about/
- wpietri 8y ago
  They also have an excellent set of lectures. They're in SF, but available remotely to members: http://longnow.org/seminars/ http://longnow.org/seminars/ Stewart Brand usually interviews the speakers after, and he's fantastic at it. I strongly recommend seeing him in action.
amasad 8y ago
Stewart Brand is a phenom. Not mentioned in this article but he started The Long Now Foundation (http://longnow.org/ http://longnow.org/) to "foster long term thinking". I've been a member for over a year and their seminars are absolutely fantastic.
- malloreon 8y ago
  there's a podcast of those, called "seminars about long term thinking" that is amazing.
mmastrac 8y ago
Fun fact: Stewart's catalog is also the origin of the iconic "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" tagline. http://ailiangan.com/post/50201060795/the-origins-of-stay-hungry-stay-foolish http://ailiangan.com/post/50201060795/the-origins-of-stay-hu...
Cyph0n 8y ago
I quickly read through the article, but I was unable to see how Brand changed the world. I've lived outside the US for most of my life and I'm probably a bit too young to have been directly impacted by Brands work. Based on the article, most of his work involved combining the spiritual and technological into a cohesive whole. This sounds really cool, but seemed to only be limited to US culture. Honestly, I think the usage of the phrase "change the world" involves a much larger impact on the world than this article describes. I'd be grateful if another user could perhaps expand upon the article and help me understand what made Brand so great here in the US.
- tacon 8y ago
  There is something delicious about such a comment on Hacker News. There is a direct link between The Well and Hacker News, and you would probably feel quite at home back on The Well in its heyday. What is the old saw, that fish can't grok the concept of water? Someone had to invent these online forums that attract smart people and intelligent discussions from around the world. For a wild ride with Stewart Brand polymath of polymaths, I'd recommend the Tim Ferriss podcast episode[0]. [0] https://tim.blog/2017/11/21/stewart-brand/ https://tim.blog/2017/11/21/stewart-brand/
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    What's the Well-HN link?
    - jtmcmc 8y ago
      The Well was a bbs for tech nerdery, futurism, science fiction, etc... in the 80's. It was massively influential in creating the cyberpunk literary genre and many tech people from the time were on it and influenced by it. There is a direct line of ancestry IMO between the well and places like HN.
      - dredmorbius 8y ago
        I'm aware of whatvthe Well is. And that it pressages much present online discussion (though Usenet predates it). But I'd suspected some specific individuals or group.
reneherse 8y ago
What must have been a side project for him, the book "How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built", was hugely influential to me as an architecture student. His observations of built works continually adapting to the evolving needs of users have obvious parallels in the world of software, and helped form the basis of how I approach UX and product design.
- alexpetralia 8y ago
  The mental model of "pace layers"[1] is a really insightful one. I've found it extremely useful to think about problems from a systems perspective - eg. what layer am I operating in and what layers may I encounter in the future? What might I expect from this layer (eg. dynamic, spontaneous vs. cautious, calculating), and how does that inform the decisions I should make? [1] https://alexpetralia.github.io/2018/02/19/NL-2018-02-19.html https://alexpetralia.github.io/2018/02/19/NL-2018-02-19.html
- steveeq1 8y ago
  video documentary of the book with Stewart Brand hosting for anyone that's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0 Saw the documentary and now reading the book, it's good.
carapace 8y ago
He's also the fellow who wrote this: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." Source of the "information wants to be free" meme. I carried around a copy of "The Next Whole Earth Catalog" in my backpack in high school one year instead of books. Yes, the big one.
bradneuberg 8y ago
Funny coincidence: Stewart Brand was actually the camera man filming Douglas Engelbart's Mother of All Demos as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos Evidently he helped advise the team on how to present the demo.
- gdubs 8y ago
  There's a good story about this in his interview on The Tim Ferriss Show.
masswerk 8y ago
Notably, Stewart Brands turn to computers was heavily influenced by seeing people playing Spacewar! at Stanford in Fall 1962. "What I saw was an interaction around computers that was as intense as anything I saw around drugs or anything else that I knew. People were absolutely out of their bodies playing. It seemed that computers were doing everything that drugs had promised. Drugs were much more self-limiting than computers: the hackers had found something better than drugs, but theirs was the same bohemian frame of reference." http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/04/artsandhumanities.highereducation http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/04/artsandhuma... Ten years later, after editing the Whole Earth Catalog, he wrote "Spacewar – Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" (the famous Rolling Stone piece), which may have helped immensely in popularizing the idea of computer games.

95 points by tysone 8y ago

Actually I'd wager that Stewart Brand has changed the world more than twice. I was a huge fan of both the whole earth catalog and the Well. Both Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle have mentioned him as a mentor and influence. Though it wasn't mentioned in the article he's also along with Kevin Kelly behind The Long Now foundation http://longnow.org/about/ http://longnow.org/about/

wpietri 8y ago
They also have an excellent set of lectures. They're in SF, but available remotely to members: http://longnow.org/seminars/ http://longnow.org/seminars/ Stewart Brand usually interviews the speakers after, and he's fantastic at it. I strongly recommend seeing him in action.

amasad 8y ago

Stewart Brand is a phenom. Not mentioned in this article but he started The Long Now Foundation (http://longnow.org/ http://longnow.org/) to "foster long term thinking". I've been a member for over a year and their seminars are absolutely fantastic.

malloreon 8y ago
there's a podcast of those, called "seminars about long term thinking" that is amazing.

mmastrac 8y ago

Fun fact: Stewart's catalog is also the origin of the iconic "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" tagline. http://ailiangan.com/post/50201060795/the-origins-of-stay-hungry-stay-foolish http://ailiangan.com/post/50201060795/the-origins-of-stay-hu...

Cyph0n 8y ago

I quickly read through the article, but I was unable to see how Brand changed the world. I've lived outside the US for most of my life and I'm probably a bit too young to have been directly impacted by Brands work. Based on the article, most of his work involved combining the spiritual and technological into a cohesive whole. This sounds really cool, but seemed to only be limited to US culture. Honestly, I think the usage of the phrase "change the world" involves a much larger impact on the world than this article describes. I'd be grateful if another user could perhaps expand upon the article and help me understand what made Brand so great here in the US.

tacon 8y ago
There is something delicious about such a comment on Hacker News. There is a direct link between The Well and Hacker News, and you would probably feel quite at home back on The Well in its heyday. What is the old saw, that fish can't grok the concept of water? Someone had to invent these online forums that attract smart people and intelligent discussions from around the world. For a wild ride with Stewart Brand polymath of polymaths, I'd recommend the Tim Ferriss podcast episode[0]. [0] https://tim.blog/2017/11/21/stewart-brand/ https://tim.blog/2017/11/21/stewart-brand/
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  What's the Well-HN link?
  - jtmcmc 8y ago
    The Well was a bbs for tech nerdery, futurism, science fiction, etc... in the 80's. It was massively influential in creating the cyberpunk literary genre and many tech people from the time were on it and influenced by it. There is a direct line of ancestry IMO between the well and places like HN.
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      I'm aware of whatvthe Well is. And that it pressages much present online discussion (though Usenet predates it). But I'd suspected some specific individuals or group.

reneherse 8y ago

What must have been a side project for him, the book "How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built", was hugely influential to me as an architecture student. His observations of built works continually adapting to the evolving needs of users have obvious parallels in the world of software, and helped form the basis of how I approach UX and product design.

alexpetralia 8y ago
The mental model of "pace layers"[1] is a really insightful one. I've found it extremely useful to think about problems from a systems perspective - eg. what layer am I operating in and what layers may I encounter in the future? What might I expect from this layer (eg. dynamic, spontaneous vs. cautious, calculating), and how does that inform the decisions I should make? [1] https://alexpetralia.github.io/2018/02/19/NL-2018-02-19.html https://alexpetralia.github.io/2018/02/19/NL-2018-02-19.html
steveeq1 8y ago
video documentary of the book with Stewart Brand hosting for anyone that's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0 Saw the documentary and now reading the book, it's good.

carapace 8y ago

He's also the fellow who wrote this: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." Source of the "information wants to be free" meme. I carried around a copy of "The Next Whole Earth Catalog" in my backpack in high school one year instead of books. Yes, the big one.

bradneuberg 8y ago

Funny coincidence: Stewart Brand was actually the camera man filming Douglas Engelbart's Mother of All Demos as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos Evidently he helped advise the team on how to present the demo.

gdubs 8y ago
There's a good story about this in his interview on The Tim Ferriss Show.

masswerk 8y ago

Notably, Stewart Brands turn to computers was heavily influenced by seeing people playing Spacewar! at Stanford in Fall 1962. "What I saw was an interaction around computers that was as intense as anything I saw around drugs or anything else that I knew. People were absolutely out of their bodies playing. It seemed that computers were doing everything that drugs had promised. Drugs were much more self-limiting than computers: the hackers had found something better than drugs, but theirs was the same bohemian frame of reference." http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/04/artsandhumanities.highereducation http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/04/artsandhuma... Ten years later, after editing the Whole Earth Catalog, he wrote "Spacewar – Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" (the famous Rolling Stone piece), which may have helped immensely in popularizing the idea of computer games.