Personally, I believe that the Internet, as we know it, is a product of the ARPANET, the BBS communities, the UUCP communities, and the divestiture of AT&T.
No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#32Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicia…
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…
What the WSJ is trying to do here, and what you're doing by carrying their water is incredibly insidious.
You can claim that there would have been a global communications infrastructure anyway, but that ignores the vitally important question of what assumptions that network would rely upon, and who would push its growth, and to what (or whose) ends.
There's a Deep Space Nine episode which touches on an alternative to the universe we live in where global communications terminals in 2024 are locked down and require a license to publish to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Tense_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Spa... ). What stopped that from being our internet, instead of the internet we have now?
I certainly do not take for granted the government's role in shaping what our network looks like.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fire him... Are you serious? Like the truth has ever mattered to Murdoch. This writer is exactly on message, they'll give him a bonus.
Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.
Who said it was limited to Murdoch-land? Nobody.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#34And Al Gore invented the internet. Seriously, he sponsored the legislation that set up and funded the internet as a separate entity from NSFNET and (D)ARPANET. More government meddling that benefited no-one.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#35Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicia…
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…
How is this not verifiable? The US government still has the receipts for the equipment they ordered and paid for through Arpanet. Most of the companies (BBN, Level 3) went on to be the very first companies on the internet.
And determinism is like religion, you really have to suspend belief to say this was going to happen because __??__.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
"BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?
Good thing that's not what I said, then.
Your comment seemed quite sarcastic, and looked to be trying to equivocate responsibility. Not that I'm above using sarcasm myself, obviously.
The fact is, that in this instance, a Murdoch owned media company is clearly distorting the truth to further a political agenda. So in this instance, it is perfectly reasonable to criticise Murdoch in particular, without having to resort to qualifications.
In my opinion of course.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#37Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicia…
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…
So it probably would have happened anyway, therefore what did happen didn't happen?
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#38Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicia…
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…
That's a completely different argument, though an interesting one to have. The WSJ editorial was not arguing that hypothetically the private sector could have created the internet, even though in actual fact it didn't. That's at least a plausible claim. But the WSJ instead argued, incorrectly, that the private sector did create the internet, without significant government involvement. The main justification seems to be a claim that Ethernet is an internetworking technology and was created by Xerox, and that ARPANET shouldn't be considered significant to this history. The article is very confused, and more or less just wrong, not making any sort of interesting point about historical contingency.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…
What the WSJ is trying to do here, and what you're doing by carrying their water is incredibly insidious. You can claim that there would have been a global communications infrastructure anyway, but that ignores the vitally important question of what assumptions that network would rely upon, and who would push its growth, and to what (or whose) ends. There's a Deep Space Nine episode which touches on an alternative to…
> what you're doing by carrying their water is incredibly insidious.
You lost points for assuming the worst possible motivation of my actions.
"Carry their water"? Meaning "To do someone's bidding; to serve someone's interests."
PLEASE!
First, this is tremendously insulting; it's not saying "you're wrong", but "I distrust you so much as a human being that I don't even trust that the words coming out of your mouth are your own - I ASSUME that you're on someone else's payroll".
Second, if you project this sort of thing on anyone who disagrees with you, you're committing a harm against yourself - you're assuming that you're on the force of good and light and those who disagree with your are not just wrong but are EVIL.
How likely are you to EVER correct an erroneous opinion of yours if you assume that everyone who disagrees with you is evil?
I've changed my opinions on tons of things (to ones that I think are more correct than my old ones), and a central tool to do that is not immediately assuming that the other side is made up of liars and stooges.
I've got an actual opinion, based on actual reading.
It happens to agree with something the WSJ says.
Go jump in a pond.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…
So it probably would have happened anyway, therefore what did happen didn't happen?
Correlation is not causality.
If it rains this afternoon, and you later tell me that you did a rain dance outside ten minutes before hand, why should I assume that you caused the rain?