4 ms·

The reason for the downfall of SRI, the company led by Engelbart to develop NLS, can be discovered in The Network Revolution – confessions of a computer scienti

by teddyh 3y ago

The reason for the downfall of SRI, the company led by Engelbart to develop NLS, can be discovered in The Network Revolution – confessions of a computer scientist (1982) by Jacques Vallée, specifically in chapter 5, “Knowledge Workers of the World, link up!”: <https://books.google.com/books?id=6f8VqnZaPQwC&pg=PA97 https://books.google.com/books?id=6f8VqnZaPQwC&pg=PA97> It contains a partial and anonymized (all names have been changed) retelling about the initial decline of SRI. To summarize, they all became entranced with the cult-like Erhard Seminars Training, except the smart people, who left because they didn’t like it.

wisemang 3y ago
Interesting! This is the same as the “EST” sessions depicted in the TV series The Americans, for those familiar with it. Didn’t realize it went back so far.
mikewarot 3y ago
>Erhard Seminars Training My understanding of EST training was that it gave people permission to be self centered assholes, and had no redeeming value. No wonder SRI went downhill. 8( [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training
- leoc 3y ago
  The well-funded (and comparatively highly sane) Xerox PARC also specifically set out to scoop up people from SRI from its beginning. EST seems to have been influenced by other, slightly older post-war groups with their own kinds of struggle session such as the drug-rehab community gone bad Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon and our old friend Scientology, and in turn to have influenced later "large group awareness training" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-group_awareness_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-group_awareness_training orgs like the "wilderness training" camps. At least Synanon helped to make the name of one fairly-big jazzman, Joe Pass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon
bmitc 3y ago
Thank you. I wasn't aware of that particular book and will check it out.
KerrAvon 3y ago
Interesting. The seminal personal computer history book __Fire in the Valley__ blames IMSAI’s downfall on EST. Basically substituting wishcasting for business sense.
- api 3y ago
  Virtually all this type of nonsense goes back to a few places: New Thought, Norman Vincent Peale, and spinoffs like the I AM cult and prosperity gospel. The latest iteration is “The Secret” and all that woo you hear about “manifesting.” Fun fact: Trump is a devotee of Norman Vincent Peale. This is why he constantly repeats superlatives and refuses to admit any form of failure or loss. He’s basically “manifesting.” You could sort of say he was our first New Age president. The mass conversion of a bunch of New Agers to the Q cult makes more sense if you look at it that way. Also I highly recommend finding a good history of the I AM cult. It’s some of the most bonkers shit. This intellectual lineage gave birth to a bunch of looney cults like Church Universal and Triumphant, Synanon, EST, and some alien channeling cult I forget, but I AM was the OG. I think NXIVM belonged to the same family too. It’s all this will creates reality stuff, sort of like a religion that worships con artistry as a holy path. Doesn’t surprise me one bit to hear that this stuff was around SRI. It had a big moment in the 70s.
  - spacechild1 3y ago
    Oh wow, this is some really interesting stuff! Apparently, Trump used to regularly attend Peale's sermons as a child and Peale even was the priest at Trump's first wedding.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
kragen 3y ago
engelbart was never the head of sri, and sri didn't have a downfall; they're still around and extremely highly respected. i worked on a darpa contract last year where sri was another performer on the contract, delivering http://spw20.langsec.org/papers/parsley-langsec2020.pdf http://spw20.langsec.org/papers/parsley-langsec2020.pdf and related work
- jacobolus 3y ago
  Engelbart was the head of SRI's Augmentation Research Center. My understanding is that after the ARC was sold off in the mid 70s, the new corporate owner tried to commercialize the work, stopped funding new research, and most of the researchers left. Disclaimer: I know very little about this story.
  - seltzered_ 3y ago
    This comment jogged my memory of a Ted Nelson video subtitled 'It all went wrong at Xerox PARC' : https://youtu.be/c6SUOeAqOjU https://youtu.be/c6SUOeAqOjU
    - dav 3y ago
      Tangent, but since there are mentions of history books in these comments, I highly recommend Ted Nelson’s autobiography. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10673124 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10673124
jart 3y ago
The same thing happened at Google. Company started falling apart around the time the SWEs got obsessed with Braco.
- drno123 3y ago
  This is interesting? Can you share more information on that?
- api 3y ago
  Braco? Not the guy who heals by staring at you…?
mitchbob 3y ago
The story of Engelbart's group and EST also appears in the very detailed history of Engelbart's life and work, Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini [1]. [1] https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=308 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=308

by teddyh 3y ago

wisemang 3y ago

Interesting! This is the same as the “EST” sessions depicted in the TV series The Americans, for those familiar with it. Didn’t realize it went back so far.

mikewarot 3y ago

>Erhard Seminars Training My understanding of EST training was that it gave people permission to be self centered assholes, and had no redeeming value. No wonder SRI went downhill. 8( [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training

leoc 3y ago
The well-funded (and comparatively highly sane) Xerox PARC also specifically set out to scoop up people from SRI from its beginning. EST seems to have been influenced by other, slightly older post-war groups with their own kinds of struggle session such as the drug-rehab community gone bad Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon and our old friend Scientology, and in turn to have influenced later "large group awareness training" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-group_awareness_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-group_awareness_training orgs like the "wilderness training" camps. At least Synanon helped to make the name of one fairly-big jazzman, Joe Pass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon

bmitc 3y ago

Thank you. I wasn't aware of that particular book and will check it out.

KerrAvon 3y ago

Interesting. The seminal personal computer history book __Fire in the Valley__ blames IMSAI’s downfall on EST. Basically substituting wishcasting for business sense.

api 3y ago
Virtually all this type of nonsense goes back to a few places: New Thought, Norman Vincent Peale, and spinoffs like the I AM cult and prosperity gospel. The latest iteration is “The Secret” and all that woo you hear about “manifesting.” Fun fact: Trump is a devotee of Norman Vincent Peale. This is why he constantly repeats superlatives and refuses to admit any form of failure or loss. He’s basically “manifesting.” You could sort of say he was our first New Age president. The mass conversion of a bunch of New Agers to the Q cult makes more sense if you look at it that way. Also I highly recommend finding a good history of the I AM cult. It’s some of the most bonkers shit. This intellectual lineage gave birth to a bunch of looney cults like Church Universal and Triumphant, Synanon, EST, and some alien channeling cult I forget, but I AM was the OG. I think NXIVM belonged to the same family too. It’s all this will creates reality stuff, sort of like a religion that worships con artistry as a holy path. Doesn’t surprise me one bit to hear that this stuff was around SRI. It had a big moment in the 70s.
- spacechild1 3y ago
  Oh wow, this is some really interesting stuff! Apparently, Trump used to regularly attend Peale's sermons as a child and Peale even was the priest at Trump's first wedding.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

kragen 3y ago

engelbart was never the head of sri, and sri didn't have a downfall; they're still around and extremely highly respected. i worked on a darpa contract last year where sri was another performer on the contract, delivering http://spw20.langsec.org/papers/parsley-langsec2020.pdf http://spw20.langsec.org/papers/parsley-langsec2020.pdf and related work

jacobolus 3y ago
Engelbart was the head of SRI's Augmentation Research Center. My understanding is that after the ARC was sold off in the mid 70s, the new corporate owner tried to commercialize the work, stopped funding new research, and most of the researchers left. Disclaimer: I know very little about this story.
- seltzered_ 3y ago
  This comment jogged my memory of a Ted Nelson video subtitled 'It all went wrong at Xerox PARC' : https://youtu.be/c6SUOeAqOjU https://youtu.be/c6SUOeAqOjU
  - dav 3y ago
    Tangent, but since there are mentions of history books in these comments, I highly recommend Ted Nelson’s autobiography. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10673124 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10673124

jart 3y ago

The same thing happened at Google. Company started falling apart around the time the SWEs got obsessed with Braco.

drno123 3y ago
This is interesting? Can you share more information on that?
api 3y ago
Braco? Not the guy who heals by staring at you…?

mitchbob 3y ago

The story of Engelbart's group and EST also appears in the very detailed history of Engelbart's life and work, Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini [1]. [1] https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=308 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=308