michael_nielsen

It's not clear how many of the authors had ambitions to write influential grand vision documents. Mostly, I think, they were obsessed with important fundamental problems whose time was nearly ripe - so obsessed that they stumbled on some very good ideas, which they then developed

More recurring themes: not just information management, but also memory, note-taking, association of ideas, and problem-solving. None of these problems have yet been solved well, IMO.

Satoshi stands out as different, being much more focused on co-ordination problems.

Another striking difference: all the later vision documents eventually led to working systems, and that was a big part of their success (especially the web and Bitcoin). Bush's vision did not. And yet it was hugely influential anyway.

It's fascinating that he's imagining this all through the lens of analog machines. In fact, Bush never really got into digital computing. It passed him by. But hardware aside, he was thinking about the right problems and at a great level of design abstraction.