5 ms·

Alan Kay on Marshal McLuhan and the Personal Computer

83 points by antoniuschan99 14y ago

networked 14y ago
A essentially similar view of technology's interrelation with media seems to be held by the computing pioneer Ted Nelson. He, however, frames it in a much more cynical way. In fact, the lack of care about its role as a medium with which the computer was (and continues to be) developed left him disgruntled with "technologists" as the social group responsible for this development. A frying-pan is technology. All human artifacts are technology. But beware anybody who uses this term. Like "maturity" and "reality" and "progress", the word "technology" has an agenda for your behavior: usually what is being referred to as "technology" is something that somebody wants you to submit to. "Technology" often implicitly refers to something you are expected to turn over to "the guys who understand it." This is actually almost always a political move. Somebody wants you to give certain things to them to design and decide. Perhaps you should, but perhaps not. This applies especially to "media". I have always considered designing the media of tomorrow to be an art form (though an art form especially troubled by the politics of standardization). Someone like Prof. Negroponte of MIT, with whom I have long had a good-natured feud, wants to position the design of digital media as "technology". That would make it implicitly beyond the comprehension of citizens or ordinary corporation presidents, therefore to be left to the "technologists"-- like you-know-who. [...] Hypertext is not technology but Literature. Literature is the information that we package and save (first just books and newspapers and magazines, now movies and recordings and CD-ROMs and what-all). The design of tomorrow's literature determines what the human race will be able to keep track of and understand. These are not issues to be left to "technologists". (Source: http://hyperland.com/TedCompOneLiners http://hyperland.com/TedCompOneLiners) Edit: What irks me somewhat about the above quote (and his other writings) is Nelson's choice of the word "technologist", which he sometimes shortens to "tekkie", to describe the kind of person who's too blinded by the shiny new thing and too oblivious of his/her users' needs to care about the designing whatever he or she produces for the long-term benefit of those users. I can't think of a better alternative, though. Care to suggest one?
- mjn 14y ago
  One thing I find interesting about Ted Nelson is that he developed some of those views as computers were just becoming widespread, not as a retrospective reaction to them. And, importantly, he developed them as a self-described fan of computers, not as someone who disliked them, as many technology-critical writers do. He was around when personal computers were just becoming available, and was keen on trying to ensure that regular people could harness their power for their own ends. His cynicism about "technology" as an industry and culture always seemed tinged with a utopian optimism about computers themselves, as encapsulated in his slogan, "You can and must understand computers NOW". So he was against the "tekkies", but not against computation, if regular people could get their hands on its power, bypassing the "computer priesthood" operating as gatekeepers. Here's something he wrote in 1974, in Computer Lib (unfortunately out of print, but there's an excerpt reprinted at http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf): > Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do. Unfortunately, due to ridiculous historical circumstances, computers have been made a mystery to most of the world. And this situation does not seem to be improving. You hear more and more about computers, but to most people it’s just one big blur. The people who know about computers often seem unwilling to explain things or answer your questions. Stereotyped notions develop about computers operating in fixed ways—and so confusion increases. The chasm between laymen and computer people widens fast and dangerously. > This book is a measure of desperation, so serious and abysmal is the public sense of confusion and ignorance. Anything with buttons or lights can be palmed off on the laymen as a computer. There are so many different things, and their differences are so important; yet to the lay public they are lumped together as “computer stuff,” indistinct and beyond understanding or criticism. It’s as if people couldn't tell apart camera from exposure meter or tripod, or car from truck or tollbooth. This book is therefore devoted to the premise that > EVERYBODY SHOULD UNDERSTAND COMPUTERS.
  - networked 14y ago
    His cynicism always seemed tinged with a utopian optimism I agree completely. In light of recent developments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5285627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5285627 you might say that his views are becoming better more widely accepted, even if their history is not acknowledged. In Computer Lib Nelson advocated what we today might call a "Wikipedia" or "Khan Academy" model of education. I'll allow myself to post an extended quotation from his reaction to dialogue-based learning systems because I find the entire thing fascinating and terribly prescient (keep in mind that this was published in 1974): "The alternative is straightforward. Instead of devising elaborate systems permitting the computer or its instructional contents to control the situation, why not permit the student to control the system, show him how to do so intelligently, and make it easy for him to find his own way? Discard the sequences, items and conversation, and allow the student to move freely through materials which he may control. Never mind optimizing reinforcement or validating teaching sequences. Motivate the user and let him loose in a wonderful place. Let the student control the sequence, put him in control of interesting and clear material, and make him feel good— comfortable, interested, and autonomous. Teach him to orient himself: not having the system answer questions, all typed in, but allowing the student to get answers by looking in a fairly obvious place. (Dialogue is unnecessary even when it does not intrude.) Such ultra-rich environments allow the student to choose what he will study, when he will study it and how he will study it, and to what criteria of accomplishment he will aim. Let the student pick what he wishes to study next, decide when he wishes to be tested, and give him a variety of interesting materials, events and opportunities. Let the student ask to be tested on what he thinks he knows, when he is ready, selecting the most appropriate form of testing available. This approach has several advantages. First, it circumvents the incredible obstacles created by the dialogue-item-sequence philosophy. It ends the danger to students of bugs in the material. And last, it does what education is supposed to do—foster student enthusiasm, involvement, and self-reliance. Under such circumstances students will actually be interested, motivated to achieve far more than they have ever achieved within the normal instructional framework; and any lopsidedness which may result will be far offset by the degree of accomplishment which will occur—it being much better to create lopsided but enthusiastic genius specialists than listless, apathetic, or cruelly rebellious mediocrities. If they start soon enough they may even reach adulthood with natural minds: driven by enthusiasm and interest, crippled in no areas, eager to learn more, and far smarter than people ordinarily end up being. Enthusiasm and involvement are what really count. This is why the right to explore far outweighs any administrative advantages of creating and enforcing “subjects” and curriculum sequences. The enhancement of motivation that will follow from letting kids learn anything they want to learn will far outweigh any specialization that may result. By the elimination or benign replacement of both curriculum and tests in an ultra-rich environment, we will prevent the attrition of the natural motivation of children from its initially enormous levels, and mental development will be the natural straight diagonal rather than the customary parabola."
david927 14y ago
This is a huge thought that will take me some time to digest. By the way, the link at the bottom is broken. Here's a working link to the paper: http://proteus.fau.edu/practicum/texts/kay.pdf http://proteus.fau.edu/practicum/texts/kay.pdf
nacker 14y ago
"I find McLuhan hard to understand partly because I’m just not that smart. Alan Kay on the other hand…" didn't understand him particularly well either, finding much of what he wrote "obscure and arguable". In that, he is hardly unusual: http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/introduction http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/introduction In fact, McLuhan put most of his emphasis on warning of the dangers of technology rather than being some design guru. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html
- antoniuschan99 14y ago
  thanks for this!
jgrahamc 14y ago
I think McLuhan's ideas are very relevant to the PC and services we use through the Internet. I've argued this before on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3836757 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3836757
vixen99 14y ago
"If you want to read the essay, you can access it here." Sadly, not!
- antoniuschan99 14y ago
  Hey, sorry about that! I fixed it. Here's the link http://meidosem.com/work/articles/kay1990.pdf http://meidosem.com/work/articles/kay1990.pdf

A essentially similar view of technology's interrelation with media seems to be held by the computing pioneer Ted Nelson. He, however, frames it in a much more cynical way. In fact, the lack of care about its role as a medium with which the computer was (and continues to be) developed left him disgruntled with "technologists" as the social group responsible for this development. A frying-pan is technology. All human artifacts are technology. But beware anybody who uses this term. Like "maturity" and "reality" and "progress", the word "technology" has an agenda for your behavior: usually what is being referred to as "technology" is something that somebody wants you to submit to. "Technology" often implicitly refers to something you are expected to turn over to "the guys who understand it." This is actually almost always a political move. Somebody wants you to give certain things to them to design and decide. Perhaps you should, but perhaps not. This applies especially to "media". I have always considered designing the media of tomorrow to be an art form (though an art form especially troubled by the politics of standardization). Someone like Prof. Negroponte of MIT, with whom I have long had a good-natured feud, wants to position the design of digital media as "technology". That would make it implicitly beyond the comprehension of citizens or ordinary corporation presidents, therefore to be left to the "technologists"-- like you-know-who. [...] Hypertext is not technology but Literature. Literature is the information that we package and save (first just books and newspapers and magazines, now movies and recordings and CD-ROMs and what-all). The design of tomorrow's literature determines what the human race will be able to keep track of and understand. These are not issues to be left to "technologists". (Source: http://hyperland.com/TedCompOneLiners http://hyperland.com/TedCompOneLiners) Edit: What irks me somewhat about the above quote (and his other writings) is Nelson's choice of the word "technologist", which he sometimes shortens to "tekkie", to describe the kind of person who's too blinded by the shiny new thing and too oblivious of his/her users' needs to care about the designing whatever he or she produces for the long-term benefit of those users. I can't think of a better alternative, though. Care to suggest one?

mjn 14y ago
One thing I find interesting about Ted Nelson is that he developed some of those views as computers were just becoming widespread, not as a retrospective reaction to them. And, importantly, he developed them as a self-described fan of computers, not as someone who disliked them, as many technology-critical writers do. He was around when personal computers were just becoming available, and was keen on trying to ensure that regular people could harness their power for their own ends. His cynicism about "technology" as an industry and culture always seemed tinged with a utopian optimism about computers themselves, as encapsulated in his slogan, "You can and must understand computers NOW". So he was against the "tekkies", but not against computation, if regular people could get their hands on its power, bypassing the "computer priesthood" operating as gatekeepers. Here's something he wrote in 1974, in Computer Lib (unfortunately out of print, but there's an excerpt reprinted at http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf): > Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do. Unfortunately, due to ridiculous historical circumstances, computers have been made a mystery to most of the world. And this situation does not seem to be improving. You hear more and more about computers, but to most people it’s just one big blur. The people who know about computers often seem unwilling to explain things or answer your questions. Stereotyped notions develop about computers operating in fixed ways—and so confusion increases. The chasm between laymen and computer people widens fast and dangerously. > This book is a measure of desperation, so serious and abysmal is the public sense of confusion and ignorance. Anything with buttons or lights can be palmed off on the laymen as a computer. There are so many different things, and their differences are so important; yet to the lay public they are lumped together as “computer stuff,” indistinct and beyond understanding or criticism. It’s as if people couldn't tell apart camera from exposure meter or tripod, or car from truck or tollbooth. This book is therefore devoted to the premise that > EVERYBODY SHOULD UNDERSTAND COMPUTERS.
- networked 14y ago
  His cynicism always seemed tinged with a utopian optimism I agree completely. In light of recent developments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5285627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5285627 you might say that his views are becoming better more widely accepted, even if their history is not acknowledged. In Computer Lib Nelson advocated what we today might call a "Wikipedia" or "Khan Academy" model of education. I'll allow myself to post an extended quotation from his reaction to dialogue-based learning systems because I find the entire thing fascinating and terribly prescient (keep in mind that this was published in 1974): "The alternative is straightforward. Instead of devising elaborate systems permitting the computer or its instructional contents to control the situation, why not permit the student to control the system, show him how to do so intelligently, and make it easy for him to find his own way? Discard the sequences, items and conversation, and allow the student to move freely through materials which he may control. Never mind optimizing reinforcement or validating teaching sequences. Motivate the user and let him loose in a wonderful place. Let the student control the sequence, put him in control of interesting and clear material, and make him feel good— comfortable, interested, and autonomous. Teach him to orient himself: not having the system answer questions, all typed in, but allowing the student to get answers by looking in a fairly obvious place. (Dialogue is unnecessary even when it does not intrude.) Such ultra-rich environments allow the student to choose what he will study, when he will study it and how he will study it, and to what criteria of accomplishment he will aim. Let the student pick what he wishes to study next, decide when he wishes to be tested, and give him a variety of interesting materials, events and opportunities. Let the student ask to be tested on what he thinks he knows, when he is ready, selecting the most appropriate form of testing available. This approach has several advantages. First, it circumvents the incredible obstacles created by the dialogue-item-sequence philosophy. It ends the danger to students of bugs in the material. And last, it does what education is supposed to do—foster student enthusiasm, involvement, and self-reliance. Under such circumstances students will actually be interested, motivated to achieve far more than they have ever achieved within the normal instructional framework; and any lopsidedness which may result will be far offset by the degree of accomplishment which will occur—it being much better to create lopsided but enthusiastic genius specialists than listless, apathetic, or cruelly rebellious mediocrities. If they start soon enough they may even reach adulthood with natural minds: driven by enthusiasm and interest, crippled in no areas, eager to learn more, and far smarter than people ordinarily end up being. Enthusiasm and involvement are what really count. This is why the right to explore far outweighs any administrative advantages of creating and enforcing “subjects” and curriculum sequences. The enhancement of motivation that will follow from letting kids learn anything they want to learn will far outweigh any specialization that may result. By the elimination or benign replacement of both curriculum and tests in an ultra-rich environment, we will prevent the attrition of the natural motivation of children from its initially enormous levels, and mental development will be the natural straight diagonal rather than the customary parabola."

david927 14y ago

This is a huge thought that will take me some time to digest. By the way, the link at the bottom is broken. Here's a working link to the paper: http://proteus.fau.edu/practicum/texts/kay.pdf http://proteus.fau.edu/practicum/texts/kay.pdf

nacker 14y ago

"I find McLuhan hard to understand partly because I’m just not that smart. Alan Kay on the other hand…" didn't understand him particularly well either, finding much of what he wrote "obscure and arguable". In that, he is hardly unusual: http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/introduction http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/introduction In fact, McLuhan put most of his emphasis on warning of the dangers of technology rather than being some design guru. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html

antoniuschan99 14y ago
thanks for this!

jgrahamc 14y ago

I think McLuhan's ideas are very relevant to the PC and services we use through the Internet. I've argued this before on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3836757 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3836757

vixen99 14y ago

"If you want to read the essay, you can access it here." Sadly, not!

antoniuschan99 14y ago
Hey, sorry about that! I fixed it. Here's the link http://meidosem.com/work/articles/kay1990.pdf http://meidosem.com/work/articles/kay1990.pdf