No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
1–10 of 79 posts
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#2Wow. Crovitz says that Ethernet was invented to "link different computer networks". How embarrassing for his argument!
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#3WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer.
Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#4Key quote: "Cerf: I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz' assertion."
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#5WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer. Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.
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.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#6The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." In this editorial this guy is hoping to convince people that the government was not responsible for setting the foundation of the internet.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#7A little funding for basic computer science research is not big government. Bailing out banks and giving private solar companies loans is big government.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#8Why 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 politicians, ideologues, and other interests who want to cut government spending.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#9The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…
Agreed.
I recall someone saying once upon a time (this is a personal anecdote, not something from public history) that it would be in company's best interests to educate employees and therefore we should let the private free market handle education while altogether abolishing public education. I can't comprehend why anyone couldn't see how public education (or at the very least heavily regulated, all-private education) is an ultimate benefit to society.
You think 'government indoctrination' is bad now? How about when these corporations funding the schools start insisting that curricula be modified toward their own agendas? Or perhaps when they decide indentured servitude is the best way to get a 'return on investment' (i.e. we educated you/your kids for the last five years, you owe us five years of employment at reduced wages)?
But that's not actually likely to happen if education were entirely privatized. No, because corporations are focused on returns now and their numbers for this quarter and spending on education cuts into the bottom line and the ROI doesn't happen for two decades. Then, the schools realizing that everyone needs an education and it needs to be funded, start calling for taxes to pay for universal education...
It's a similar problem for pure research. No one knows if pure research will pay off. Ever. Sometimes, it pays off in fifty years. On odd occasions it pays off in less than ten. It seldom pays off in the next twelve months. Someone has to insist on pure research to move technology forward. Or we could all just stay like we are, use up our resources, and go back to living in caves.
Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees
#10The article's focus is on the internet itself, which is the "inter-network" - the interoperation of individual networks. The first of these networks was ARPANET, which was developed by contractors by the request and under the management of ARPA (since renamed DARPA). ARPA proposed ARPANET in 1968. So the government's pioneering work in networking goes back further than this article discusses.
There is a complex history here; lots of people built on each other's work, inside and outside the US government and around the world. But it's silly to claim the US government gets no credit.
Of course, the government is always full of conflicting opinions. ARPA's funding of something so speculative and not specifically for military application had to be finessed and described in military terms to satisfy some congress members. But ARPA itself was created with the mission of advanced research after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, so computer networking was really quite well within its mission.
If anyone wants to learn more about this history, I recommend "Inventing the Internet" and "Where Wizards Stay Up Late." The former is a bit more academic and technical, but still easy to read, and the latter is a bit more focused on the people involved.