Small note: Chip Morningstar is now working, with many of the original team he worked with, at Agoric; Randy (Farmer) is currently leading the object capabilities non-profit Spritely Institute along with ActivityPub editor, Christine Lemmer-Webber.
You can't tell people anything (2004)
81–90 of 193 posts
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#82There's some pretty astonishing theory out there as to who you can tell things to, in a way that they'll understand immediately. It's pretty interesting and unfortunately very subjective. But one thing I learned from it is that if you can identify specific people who get you, generally speaking, you should then see if you can mold newly-discovered communication problems around this already-functional communications r…
Please tell me there is actually such a theory and that this is not an AI comment.
Funny that the GPT detector is giving 75-99 percent AI probability for that comment.
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#83This reminds me an edition of Byte Magazine from 1990 [1] with interviews of all big shots in the industry making forecasts for the next decade. No one foresaw the internet. At best they did expect things like "we'll have networks with bigger bandwith". But no one saw the economic and cultural boom ahead. [1] https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1990-09
> No one foresaw the internet. That’s because it was Byte magazine. If you were reading High Frontiers (1984), which became Reality Hackers (1988) and finally Mondo 2000 (1989), you would have thought otherwise. I used to buy them at Tower Records throughout California primarily to read about what the internet was to become. By 1990, Mondo 2000 foresaw and had a fairly complete vision of the nascent internet. A lot o…
Thank you! I did some digging and discovered an article from Mondo 2000 - "Hyperwebs" by Wes Thomas (1989). You can find it at https://archive.org/details/Mondo.2000.Issue.01.1989/page/n2....
I'm looking forward to exploring more of their archive:
Mondo 2000: https://anarchivism.org/w/Mondo_2000
High Frontiers: https://anarchivism.org/w/High_Frontiers
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems an odd claim that no one foresaw the Internet when the Internet existed at the time of the interviews, so why would they be predicting the existence of something which already existed? Unless you mean the Web? Reading through the forecasts I'm not seeing any that call out something quite exactly like became the Web, but there are a number of network-based predictions, and certainly better than "bigger band…
As I wrote above, no one mentions the economic and cultural impact. And yes, that was driven mostly by the Web.
There are a number of mentions of economic and cultural impact, but the majority of the questions asked of the interviewees aren't about networks and communication. They're about things like cost, availability, and capability of hardware systems. But if you read the magazine you linked, when communications come up the potential economic and cultural impact is discussed (though you end up with people forecasting it both ways, as a non-impactful thing, culturally, and others predicting major impacts like changing governments).
Check page 366 for a couple examples on both sides of the forecast.
And then there are the sections on Project Xanadu as well as hypertext and hyperdocuments that get a couple pages each.
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#85This article really frustrated me the last time it was posted, but now I think I have a clear enough idea why to put it into words. You absolutely can tell people things! But to tell someone something, you need to do three things: - Establish enough shared context that they can understand you - Speak about something they actually care about (or convince them to care) - Use a format that works for what you're trying t…
The whole point is that to create the demo in the first place someone has to approve it, so if they cannot understand the thing then it doesn't get approved.
> Well yeah - if someone stood up in a management meeting and told me to think about what I might do with an avatar, my first thought would be "What's an avatar" and my second thought would be "I'm already busy with other things". He hasn't said what an avatar is or why anyone should care about them. So people pay no attention
> And maybe the thing you're trying to communicate is so novel that you can't establish context or convince people to care without showing them a demo. But at least take the time to understand why you can't tell people about it
Forget novel ideas, even relatively simple ideas within your domain are hard to communicate to other people especially if they are outside your domain.
Add people being busy and you having limited time to explain things on top of that and it becomes extremely difficult to get anything done unless someone trusts you and does not require a full explanation.
Stack ambiguity on top of that (E.g. "we think there's something here but can't pinpoint it) and there's a 0% chance of it happening.
I'm surprised this guy's management actually let him build the thing given the way he recounts how things went down.
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#86This puts to clear words a nagging sensation I've had my whole life, that I (also) tried to tell other people but couldn't. Talking just doesn't work as well as people think it does. It seems so obvious once you start noticing, but almost nobody notices this. People are either just repeating memes each other basically already know, or else are talking past each other. When I overhear people having a conversation, alm…
I don't know if it's just stupidity, ignorance, or a lack of effort. Maybe a combination. But this type of deficiency is so prevalent, it makes me want to see fully autonomous AI. Even though I know it's an incredibly bad idea and would never actively work towards it until it becomes an irreversible trend. People are stupid. They will do it soon enough. Hopefully it doesn't immediately turn into a disaster. But GPT 4…
It works like this:
"Draw me a picture of a house"
You draw a picture of a house. Someone else also draws a picture of a house (but it looks different from yours, as they had a different idea in their head as to what a house should look like).
"That's not right, it's supposed to be on a hill"
You draw a picture of house on a hill.
"Still not quite what I had in mind. It should have 3 front windows, with a chimney on the left side, and a tree between the door and the driveway."
You redraw the picture again.
"Not that kind of tree... it should be pointier"
"You mean like a conifer?"
"What's a conifer?"
Words simply aren't very good at conveying a lot of information, so it can take many words to get a clear message across to someone. Additionally, there's often multiple ways to interpret words, which humor typically plays on. And then, with people not all sharing the same knowledge/understanding of things, it often becomes very difficult to tell someone something, especially complicated things. I mean just imagine how hard it would be to try telling tribal people who live away from civilization, who don't even know what a computer is, about ChatGPT... that is, if they even understand the language you speak.
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#87> When people ask me about my life’s ambitions, I often joke that my goal is to become independently wealthy so that I can afford to get some work done. Mainly that’s about being able to do things without having to explain them first, so that the finished product can be the explanation. I think this will be a major labor saving improvement. Agreed. The worst part is when they nod and pretend they got it and then that…
On the flip side, if you can't get people to get excited about the problem and solution now, what are the chances you're totally on the mark - and even if you are, whether you can get them to care after?
What do you think is the ratio of "they didn't understand my genius until I built it" to "I built it and nobody cared or used it"?
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#88Or maybe, just maybe, Xanadu wasn't as great idea as he thinks.
Xanadu is basically the web.
The Web is to Xanadu what a kid's go-kart is to a modern Formula One race car, if the Formula One race car somehow rewrote copyright law and solved the microtransaction problem through sheer weight of unadulterated technological awesome.
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#89> I’m totally convinced that a new idea or a new plan or a new technique is never really understood when you just explain it. > People will often think they understand, and they’ll say they understand, but then their actions show that it just ain’t so. Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead o…
> When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead of Bs and Cs) in my various math classes, physics, chemistry, etc. had I simply bothered to do my homework properly--or, to put it differently, had I only properly applied the knowledge which I passively acquired by reading the associated textbook sections. I took this realisation to the extreme and decided to…
> I often struggle with large classroom learning: the pace is either too slow and I get distracted or too fast and I can't keep up.
This is a problem for everyone. People may not experience the struggle directly, but it's there. It's the inherent problem with any group class.
> I feel like there's always the tendency for people to zone out and not raise an issue when they are either bored or did not keep up/understand.
Tight loops of interaction will make this nearly impossible. What you'll have to watch out for instead is overwhelming students to the point of distress (speaking from experience).
Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)
#90Now realize that this applies to everything, not just computers. Unless you've walked a mile in their shoes, you don't really understand the struggles of LGBTQ folks, the homeless, CEOs, assembly line workers... They will try to tell you, but you can't tell people anything, unless you're telling someone with good imagination and empathy.
I deeply appreciate your point that lack of understanding goes both downward (homeless) and upward (CEOs.) I think that's true.
But - unrelated to your point - I think there's more empathy (or understanding, at least) - unexpectedly - downwards. A CEO knows how to become homeless (quit job, give away house and money) if they chose to for some reason. A homeless person has no path to CEO.