Apparently all great luminaries have to come with complex moral baggage
Turns out Vannevar Bush - the fellow who helped corral multiple political powers & financial interests together to build the internet, and then proposed the visionary notion of a Memex in "As We May Think...
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...also worked on the Manhattan project building the atomic bombs, and then went on to found Raytheon.
Just great.
Enjoying getting a bit more foundational web history in while reading 'The Innovators' - maggieappleton.com/the-innovators
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Also the 'History of the Web' resource has created is such a valuable place to dig into specific parts of the historical timeline thehistoryoftheweb.com
Beautifully built as well.
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I would say this is partly why he wrote As We May Think. The world in a world war must have looked very different to him
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True, all morality is contextual to specific times and places. Not suggesting the moral norms of right now are legitimate grounds to make judgements of someone's research decisions in 1940. Just not something I expected...
Intro of AWMT situates it well as a response to the war
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My parents gifted me this book at Christmas, when I was 14-15
Forgot most of the historical details, but I realize that gave me a deep understanding of how Internet came to life, early on
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A fundamental life lesson I think. Everyone is human, even our heroes. We can celebrate humans without celebrating everything they’ve ever done or everything they’ve ever uttered.
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history is replete with problematic narratives for every "mover and shaker"
how much more intriguing, then, are those luminaries who never gained prominence or distinction?
knowing the manifold perils of "implementing true Vision"?
the lack of which,
can lead to Dire Ends.