The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet (Critical Cultural Communication)

The Net Effect Romanticism, Capitalism, mld and tl,c the Intcnlct Interuet

Thomas Streeter

\Villiam Blake's 179,/circa 180, Sl;ienrist Isaac isaac WilIi:lm Bl:J.ke's l7!:ls/circa 179s/circa 1805 180s print "Newton," ·Newton,~ represents the S(:ienriS[ Newton in :Ia W:lY way that expresses Blake's view of the limits of the dle calculared calculated scien£ill, tific ft:J.soning reasoning for which Newton Newton was bmous. famous. The colors and texwre texture of rhe the rock and rhe the body body loom over ovet the brighr bright but small page of measurement in the lower right right hand corner, expressing Blake's belief in the primacy of rhe the creative imagi-. narion. nation. Or :IS as Blake wrore wrote himself in Tlw 11]( Marriagr of Hcalltll Healltll alld and Hdl, "'vVhar ~\Vhat is now proved was once, only imagin'd." . imagina:

III NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2011 by New York University All rights righrs reserved

References ro to Internet websites (URLs) were accunuc accur;l.[e at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Cauloging-in-Publication Dara Streeter, Thomas. The net effect: romanticism, capitalism, and the internet interner / Thomas Streeter. p. em. - (Critical cultural communication) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8J47-4115-3 (cl : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-8147-4116-0 (pb : alle paper) - ISBN 978-0-8147-4Jl7-7 978-o-8147-4Jl7-7 (ebook) 1. Computers and civilization. eivili:;:;ation. 2. 2. Computers-Social aspects. 3. Information tedlllology-Social technology-Social aspects. aSpects. 4. Internet-Social aspects. l. Tide. QA76.9.C66S884 2010 303.48'33-clcn 2010024294 303.48'33-dc22 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free acid·free paper, and their binding ma,erials materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manurncrnred Manufactured in the United States of America c 1098765432 p 109876543 2

To my childhood friends The Hacks, with whom [I discovered the boyish pleasures of technological fiddling long ago and who understood hJcking rerm hJd had been byered layered wirh political connorations. h:lcking before the term I thank them for their rheir dedicated friendship over the decades.

Contents

A,kllowl~dglllel!t'

illtroallaiol!

nSelf-Motivating Exhilaration"; On rhe Cultural Sources of Compurer Communication

3 Missing rhe Ner: TIle 19805, Microcomputers, and the Rise ofNeoJiberalism

69

.9

4 Networks and the Social Imagination

93

5 TIle Moment of Wired

119

6 Open Sou tee, the Expressive Programmer, and rhe Problem of Property

138

COllclusion: Capita/i'lIl, Passiolll, DWlOrracy

168

Notes

189

Illd~x

213

Abolltthe Author

221

c

E

" "•

:~

vii

44

+

Romanticism and the Machine: The Formation of the Compurer Counterculture

+

~

17

Acknowledgments

long in cOnling. coming. as I grappled with a moving rartarget ordin.ary surprises. surprises, Here I em (.an only mention some of get while adjuSting adjusting to life's ordinary ehe the individuals individu.als who helped me along .along the W3Y. way, LiS:! Lisa Henderson gave me excel[ellt parience, and mon of all wondernll wonderful affinnarion affirmation lent critical critical readings, discussions, patience, \Vllile chis Sylvia Schafer for suggesting the while this book finally finally came Clme together. Thanlu Thanks to Sylvia tiele and providing encouragemenr badly needed it. Excellent tide encouragement at a time rime when I b;adly advice, ;advice, criticism, and inrc:lJigent inte~igent discussion came from many. m;any, including Michael Michael Curtin, K;athy j:ox, Fox, Tarleron Tuleton Gillespie, Mary Lou Lou Currin, Chriuina Christina Dunbar-Heuer, Dunbar-Hester, Kaehy Christian Sandvig. S2Jldvig. Ross TIlOmson, Thomson, and and Kete, Beth Beth Mintz,John Mintz, John Durham Peters, Christian Kere, Fred Turner. Turner. TIlanks Thanks to Ben Peters and RumWl Kleis Nielu:n for their enthuFred Bell Rasnlus Nielsen lor siasm and and for inviting me me to some uimulating stimulating seminars. semin2rs. Thanks ro to the principrinep.als of the Key Key Centte Cultural Policy Studies in Brisbane:, Brisb;l;ne, Australia, Austr.ilia, for a Centre for Cultural Policy Srudies pals in the summer stimulating fellowship in summet of 1999. I am grateful gr.ueful to to the Institute for fot rhe &culcy, especially Advanced 1000-1001 3nd ;l;nd to ro the fieulry, especially Adv:anced Study Study for supporr support during 1000-1001 Clifford Gccm: Geeru: and Joan Joan Score, ScOtt, and and all the members of the School of Social Science rhar thar year for smart smarr and 2Jld helpful helpful comlllellrs, commentS, criricism, criticism, conversation, cOlwersation, and encouragement. TIlanlc! SOlirah Baner-Weiser Ban«·Weiu:r and OlInd Kent A. Ono, Thanks to series u:ries editOrs editors Sarah to NYU Press editors, reviewers, 2nd 2Jld staff, st:df, and 2Jld ro to copyediror copyeditor Jay Williams for rheit m)' foibles. I am grateful to ro che the their excellent help, suggestions, 2nd and ro[er3nce: tolerance of my rhe Universiey Universiry of Vermonr, Vermont, United AC3demics, Academics, which soaked up faculty union of the my time bur but also ;also provided provided me a window ontO onto what whar a0lI mature m;l;ture approach OlIpproOlich to democratic but by no means leasr, least, trade decision making might aCUlally actually look like:. like. And last lUI but thanks to my my son Seth, who m3kes makes life a;I; constanl constant surprise: surprise and a;I; joy, no matter his music. music. how dark his THIS WORK WAS

ix

Introduction 'Communication" is a rtgisrry ·Communic:nion"'s r~giS[ry or of mootrn mod~rn longings. - John Durham Pertn' Per~n'

IT IS STILI. STILL commOn common in some circles to assume Ihat that rarionaliry, rationality, fundamentally differrechnology, modern are tcdmology. and the modem are somehow opposed to or funcb.ment:lJly rhe imagilUltion. imagination, nature, TIlis book srarrs srans from &om ent from culture, the nature. and and expression. This is not so and that the internet is prima facie evidence of the premise that this so and the rhe thar. h:u been wirh all manner of human that. -nle The internet inurnet ius bun tangled tangled up with human longings, longings. in both obvious ways-for example. example, the internet stock bubble-and more more subtle ways. cert:l.in aspects of ofits design and rrends rrends in in its ways, sueh such as certain its technical design irs regulation. In In hopes orbetter ofberter understanding both technology and longings, longings. this book gives thar that entanglement a dose close look. entanglement in looking at rhe the internet inl'ernct this way is our networked Part of what emerges in the giant desktop desktop computers computers are not so so much direcr direct descendants of the giant computers computers of the 1960s 1960S as they are reactions reactions againsr against those compurers computers and whar what Ihq they represented, 1960S, engisented. a reaction rea.crion thar that was ro to some degree degree cultural. Beginning in the 1960s, neers neers who had different impulses for how ro to build and and use computers began ro to draw on romanticism to construct justifications for their their on what whar is properly called romanticism alternative the 19705 1970S :llld and 19805, 1980s, skilled popular writers like Stewart Stewan alrernative designs. By the Brand, Ted Nelson, and Steven Levy joined them [0 to elaborate these these gestures into a more fully articulate vision. TIle The original giant giant computers were often associated aSso03ted with misguided efforts dlOns to somehow calcul:ue human dilemmas: to control the horror of calculate our way out of human nuclear nuclear warfare, for example. example, or or to win the Vietnam war, or to industrialize industrialiu secsec" retarial ret:lrial work, or to turn rum school school children into studious and obedient users of elece1ec" computers to control tronic encyclopedias. Sensing the folly of these these plans to use computers human complexiry complexity and and to frame it in a predictable grid, increasing numbers of the act of computing as a form of expression, individuals began to reinterpret the exploration, exploration. or art, to sec see themselves uas artist, rebel, or hoth, both, and to find commuthat interpretation. imerpremtion. People nities with similar experiences that would reinforce thM need to express themselves, it was said, people wanr want and need spontaneity, erccreativity, or dragon-slaying dt:lgon-slaying heroism, :md and direer, direct, unplanned illteracrion interaction with com:ltiviry, puters offered a kind of enticing. safely limited unpredictability thar chat would fulfill

those goals. l11at 11,at is why we need small ,ompute:rs computers instead of of mainframes, the argulllenr computers instead of dedicated word proargument WClJ(, went, why we need personal ,omputcrs cessors, why we need the open, endow-end end-to-end distributed networking of the internet inStead instead of proprietary ,0rpOrate cOtpOrate systems, why we: we should invest in 1990S dotcoms, why we need need open source software. These 11,ese discursive habits, I have found, had con5Cquenccs. consequences. For uanlple, eJtample, nc:oliberalism's neoliberalism's quarter century reign as a hegemonic politkal political economic ideology owes much w to the linkage of romantic tropes to netbecome an important colworked computing. At the same rime, the internet has b«ome lective thought thought objcct object for considering new ways of thinking about democracy. None of this is causc:d caused by romanticism alone. Causes are ;Itt: complicated, compliatcd, and in any case romanticiSm,:IS romanticism,;IS I undersrand undersr:md it, is always a reaction reacrion 10 something; it ir is in trwds, we will see, iliat the specific dynamics of irs its interacrion interaction with other tremis, that romanricism ticism can have consequences. Bur But whar what this book book suggests is that the specific forms of the rhe life-shaping digital machinery we have surrounded ourselves with of sOl11e kind are ut not the produer product of.some kind of rechnologicat technologic:al necessity; necessiry; it is not that we once mistaken idea had a misraken idea about what computers were for fOr and and now have discovered disccwercd is this "the their"true" their-true- uses. Nor is -the matket" marker- at work alone; alone; most of what is described in this this book book t:lkes takes pl:lce place in in situations where whete buying and selling arc are not the operaopen.tive ti\'e forces. fOrces. The poinr point is clur, that, while economic economic and technological forces of course have ha\'e played plared a role, role, the internee's internet's consrruction COnStruction is peppered peppered with profoundly cuiculrural tural forces: the rhe deep deep weighr weight of the remembered pasr and the the related, related. collectively organized pressures pressures of hurnan human passions passions made atticulate. articulate.. 111is with computer This is a book, book, then, about America's America's romance with compUter communication, communiation, a history history of of rhe the dense dense inter:lccion interactiOn of rhe the American social and political imaginarion imagination It is a look ar with the development of with of internet internet technology. technology. It at how how culture cultute has influenced the rhe consrruction construction of the internet and :md how the structure structUre of of the rhe internet has pbyed played :l.a role in culmres cultures of social and politica[ political thought. In rhar that sense, ir it is a case case Nrt Effrel srudy study in ~how -how innimtions instirutions think.~· think.-' TIlt 1I1( Ntt Effrrl explores various ways computer conllllunkation communication has been conceived o~"Cr O\1:r the years of its dc:vdopmem, developmenr, wirh with a focus on conceptions rhar that have have influenced influenced policy. Beginning with the 1950S, when machilles for fOr r:apidly rapidly solving complex computers were primarily imagined as machines mathematical mathematical problems, rhe the book rraces traces the appearance and character characrer of orher other notiOns notions of what connected computers might be for: as means for fighring fighting nuclear wars in the 1950S, for example, as sYStemS for bringing mathematical eX:lmple,:ls m:lthematical certainty to the messy complexity complexity of social soci:ll life in rhe the earl)' early 19605, 1960s, as automated writing and teading reading machines machints for enlightening enlighttning individuals in rhe the bte late 1960s. 1960s, as counterculrural countercultural pbygrollllds playgrounds in the 1970S, as an icon for fOt what's good about free markets in the 19805, 1980S, as a new frontier ftontier to be conquered in the early 19905, 1990S, and, by the late 1990S, 1990S. as the rranscendence utopia. 1he rr:lnscendence of markets markets in an an3rchist an:lrchist open source utopia, 11,e book is not JUSt 3bout rhe truthfulness of these v;lriouS :lbollt the various conceptions-inaccutacies conceptions-inaccuracies arc 2

[lltroduction Introduction

often re\·ealing-bur about their rffrets q{e![$ accurate or nOt, llot, their impact both on the often revealing-but conStrUCtion and on 011 its receprion reception in in other parts oflife. consrructioll of the internet and Approach: How the Feel Feel of Modern Life Shapes Modern Living Instud internet as a h3rbingc:r harbinger of the fumre, future, Tht Thr Nct Nrt Effrel Effullooks InsrC'3d of looking at the imernet looks at itit more mote as an expression of the times. This is nor not a book about the road rQOId ahe:td, OIheOld, inventing rhe next big thing, in\'enting the future, the thing. or the fumre future of ideas, creativity, creOitivity, or the wartling about might happen or economy. Nor is it a warning Wout whar what mighr Or what might be lost if we do nor not ace. aer. Sometimes exploring rhe the complexity of what has hu actually actu.a1ly happened pened offers more useful useful insighr insight [han than rhe the urgent urgenr gropings gtopings of prognostication. So, backwards ratber [;Jlher like Walter 13e,~amin's Benjamin's angel of history, -nIt n~ Net Nrt Effect Effm looks b.tdcwarth on ways that soci.tl and cultunl trenth more than forwards! It focuses as much social and cultur:ll trends mote forwards.' Ir have shaped the interncr and it finds internet as as on on how the internet has shaped shaped trends, trenth, .tnd nnth preinternet past in places where others have seen the imprint of themes from the preintemer rhis by by mixing historical sharp historical breaks. Ir It docs does all this histotical storytelling with discussions of philosophical and theoretical issues.' issues." And it is written with a sense eye towards of inquiry, of inquity, with with 1II0rc more of an eye towards answering answering questions than winning winning arguments.• ments. . This book began, then, with several sevenl seu sers of of questions. questions. One One set came out our of 111is my the Air my earlier work. .....ork. [n In ScI/iug &Iling tlx Air I found rhat thar the devc:lopment development of broadcast as mind-blowing in rhe internet interner was in 199",-can technology-easily rechnology-easilyas in 19ao 19:10 as as the 1994-can be seen seen as a01 kind of social philosophy philosophy in practice, practice, as something something rhat that was W:l..S 3S as much a product of social visions as :IS of technical or economic necessities. necessities, Over Ovet the long long term, ttrm, I found found that thOit broadcast policy was neither neither a blueprint for reality realit')' nor just an ideology that .tn rhal legitimates or emlbles enOibles decisions made elsewhere. Rather, Rathet. policy's contradictions and misrccognitions misrecognicions were themselves a key parr part of the social (onsrruetion COnstruction of the institutions and and tcchnologies technologies of bro3dcaning; broadcasting; the focus was on rhe the productivity of policy discourses, even when they were contradictory.' contradictoty,' As the internet grew in shape shape and and force fOrce in the 1990S, I was struck by rhe the parallels between berween the 19aos 19:10S and rhe the 1990S 3nd and wondered wondered how the the visions associated with the internet mighr might similarly similarly be shaping policymaking. As I watched watched developments with these p3tal1cls pOirallcls inl11ind, in mind, however, I was struck by two tWO rnore nlOre things: first, rhe the rCI11:lrk3ble remarkable revival of the nlarket-enamored market-enamored political cal economic pr:lttiees practices of neoliberalism in the mid-1990S and, second, the often noted but not nor fully explained exrent extent to which $omething something as :IS dry and seemingly technocratic a$ as cornputer computer network policymaking waS was riddled riddled wirh with odd momenrs mOmentS of passion, often in ways that thar seemed to confound the received ideas abour about the natute nature of cotporate corporate capitalism. Beginning with wirh an essay first nrSt published in 1999,' 1999," I 3

Incroducrion Introduction

soughr to develop an explanation of how rebellion, self-expression, and rechnoltechnology and market policies seemed to be harnessed together in a historically unique way, including in places where one would leasr expeer expect it, such as computing systems funded by the military. And, the more 1 thought about all of these concerns, the more they seem~d intertwined. Understanding one of them depended on understanding the others. So, finally, the book expanded into an exploration of how the feel of modern life shapes modem modern living. an inquiry into the imeractions interactions of subjectivities or personal experiences with technological, political, and economic relations. My initial observations about the internet became the basis for a case study that helped understand larger questions aboUT about culmre, culture, society, and modern life.1 How do broadly shared habits of thought change over time~ Some writers work through the history of ideas, as read through the lives and writings of famous authors. We inherit our ideas about rights, liberty, and markets from John Locke and Adam Smith, it is said, or the role of the'sixties counterculmre counterculture in computing in the nineties can be understood by a dose look at the life and work of Stewart Brand, whose influential career spanned both periods. Others look more to culmre and find zeitgeists or worldviews in cultural forms. Jacob Burckhardt saw a Renaissance spirit in the art and architecture architecmre of sixteenth-century Italy, for exanlple, example, and more recendy scholars have seen postmodern celebrations of the malleable self in the cyberpunk-influenced advertisements, novels, and films of the 1980S.' \Vhile I have borrowed from work in both these traditions, my own approach tackles issues on a more sociological level. Traditional intellecrnal intellectual history tends to ro carefully trace ideas over time through the biographies of individuals who rake take up those ideas and assumes rhar that the ideas have meaning and coherence through those biographies. This has the advantage of linking the development of ideas to real individuals and their direct contacts contaers with others; it is an approach thar that eschews overgeneralization or a hand-waving approach to ideologies. Yet locating the coherence of a system of thought in the biographies of individuals also risks a false clarity. John Locke atticulated articulated an individualist theory of property rights, but the analogies between what he wrote and the intellectual habits of "'possessive "possessive individualism" central centtal to Western capitalism do not explain the popularity of the idea or why his theories of rights and property are referenced but his views of religion are as often as not ignored. 9 Stewart Brand's ideas from the 1960S were indeed carried into the cyberculture in the 1980s and 1990S, bur but that does not explain why that importation was successful or why some aspects of his work gOt got :menrion attention in the 1960S (for example, environmentalism, envitonmentalism, a distaste for the singular pursuit of wealth) and orhers others in the 1990S (for example, computer technologies and a libertarian liberrarian inclination cowards towards markets). There are ,ases cases where famous authors in the field of computing someSOnle4

Introduction

times changed their minds or said things that rhat in retrospect seem incoherent or irrelevant. Similarly, drawing broad conclusions about society at large from films, novels, and advertisements risks assuming coo toO mu,h. much. Does Apple's 1984 TV ad for the Macincosh Macintosh computer, broadcast nationally narionally only once, tell us about the culture at large in the 1980s, or just about a small subset of that culturd A CentUry's century's worrb wOHh of scholarship in the sociology of knowledge suggests a few principles for understanding the place of ideas in sodallife. social life. First, ideas do nOt exist as isolated bits that can be picked up and discarded separately. Rather, they live and die inso(,r as they are sustained by their place in broad patterns patrerns of thought, in paradigms, in systems of value and belief that provide general visions of the world. (The main limitation of Richard Dawkin's popular notion of "memes" is precisely that it treats ideas as singular bits, as if they existed aucollomously autonomously from larger systems of thougllL)'" rhoughL)'· \Vhen 'When digital pioneer Douglas Engelbart first proposed in the 1960S that computers might be controlled interactively by a keyboard and a mouse through a windowing intcrfa'Cd pla.yed :1a key role role in and in which in broad policy policy and sought OUt internet has figured figured in design chaires. design choices. 111c The intern« in many ways in culture-in movies, for example, dating habits, even in religion-bur religion-but I have pursued those example. or novels, or daring even in instances m.:lde a:I difference difference in the cOnstruction construction inst:mces where culmre culture has demonstrably made of internet itself. TIl is book's approach to rhe of rhe the intern« This the question of causality, causalif)', then, isis to to process of undetStand understand tht the internet not as a thing thing that has an effect but as itself:l itself:ll process soci:ll is in the making of it." social construction. constTuction. TI1C The Ilet net cffect effect is Culture, Selves. Seh'cs, Power Who arc are }"OU rQU when, on an an ordinary ordinary day, }"Ou you sit dOWll down to use a computer? computer? Arc Are you a citizen? A consumer? consumer~ A manager? A ttchnici:lll? technician? An :trtist? artist~ Arc Are you looking looking for for the familiar, or are you hoping to be surprised? Arc Are you you trying ro to reaffion reaffirm who you are, your sense of self? Ot Or are you perhaps hoping to break out of your rouexperience something something different. different, a better self? tine, to cx~rience 11lis that the different answeu answers to these questions questions offered by This book suggeSts suggests that culture, that is, shifting varieties of learned self-understanding or selfhood, have m.:l.de a difference in the development of the rhe internet and that the ways this has made happened tells rells us something abom about the rhe character of modern life. Multiple forms of seIf-ullderst:lllding self-undetstanding :ue are at play at ar anyone time: time; in the rhe last half-centuty half-century in the United States; for exarnple, example, utilitarian and managerial constructs constructs of the self have played at the role of the romantic self, where the self is , :Ia key role. But 1[ also look :u understood :IS as the source of a dynamic, inner experience that rhat calls on us to ro live 9

Introduction

Ctc~tively beyond the bounds of predictable rationality. We ate creatively are romantics even, even. face of high technologies. and perhaps especially, in rhe :md especially. the From Locke thtough through Butckhardt Burckhardt to Tocqueville to ponmodernism, postmooernism. rhe the quesrheme. In panicular, tion of how societies imagine the self is a recurring rerorring theme. particular. the traditional history of ideas teaches the impon:mce t~e importance and deep complexities of the historic:al evolution of what Ian Wart W:1tt called caJled "th:at ~that vast vaSt complex of interdepenimerd~n­ historical dent f:actors denoted by the U:t11l 'individualism-'o and what poststructuralists posrstrucruralisu dem factors term 'individualism-" waS the study of the process suggested was ptocess of the I in history. Thc The idea here is not that the not that ~societ{ [hat me self is an illusion, nor ~sociery- mechanic.ally mechanically detetmines determines our identities, nor that mat the ~lf self has h:u suddenly become. in the postmodern postmooem era, infinitely malleable. maJIeable. Rather, Rather. as Christina Dunbar-Hester has argued. ~the "the benefit of using parts of human experience that are moving [the category of identity] is to get at paru yet'real. cOnstructed, and yet'real...... targets, slippery, constructed, To get at the "slippery. subjectivity, rI find ~slippery. constructed, yet yer real" dlaracter character of subjectivity. Frow. who has written writren of"rhe of~the imaginary forms of selfsclfit useful to follow John Frow, experience rhe the world and our Ollr relation to it:'" it."» Forms of hood through which we e~perience selfhood, in this sense, arc are forms, fonns, nor not types of individuals. They are discursive pattems institutions and historical hisrorical processes that become available available patterns embedded in insritmions co sense of who they arc are in in given contexts. One to illdividuals individuals as ways of making sense never simply ij a utilirari:1rl utilitarian or Ot rOlllantic romamic or genderI'd gendered self. Rather. Rather, most of us find find ir it necessary neccssary or useful useful to adopr adopt roles, to think think and speak spe:Ut of ourselves in in various established ways, to think of ourways. at various various moments momems in in our lives. We often have to selves, selves. for for example. example, ;\$ as alternately passionate passion2te and as administrators, administrators. one moment moment as as caring caring parents parents or or partners partners and the the next as self-interested self-interested rational rational actors actors in in a marketplace and ~Imaginary and after after that th2t as competent professionals pro&ssionals with resumes. "Imaginary forms forms of selfhood: selfhood.~then. then. are 2re neither neither fixed fixed identities identities nor nor complete or or determinate detuminate in in some kind kind of mechanical mechanicaJ way. They are plural and and RUid, Auid. bur but not not infinitely so; so: there there are typically rypically several several forms forms available available to any any given given individual in in any any given given concontext, possible, and and probably probabl}' sometimes sometimes necessary. neces.s.ary, to to move among among them." them.·J text, and it isis possible, the tensions inherent in this situation in our own We all regularly negotiate Vole all regularly negotiate the tensions inherent in sirua.tion in own ways. ways. of course. but the social process and ofcourse. the contingencies contingencies of ofsocial 2nd history history provide provide us us a shif1:ing shifting set of available avail:.tble strategies straregies for for accomplishing accomplishing that th2t negotiation." negotiation.'· set of Are there there particular particular forms foons of of selfhood selfhood associated with with computing~ wmputing! There There cercerand Wiml containly has been speculation along those lines. Software engineer tainly has been speculation along those lines. Software engineer Wired contributor tributor Ellen Ellen Ullm:m, Ullman, for fot example, example. has has written written evocatively evocatively about about what what she she calls calls "a "a male male sort sort of of loneliness londiness that th.at adheres .adheres in in programming." programming." Yet Yet she she hints hints at at the the laylay"Fifteen years ers of complexity complexity in in rhe the phenomenon phenomenon when when she she quips, quips."Fifteen years of of programprogr.amers of ming, ming.. and and I've I've finally finally learned le3rned to to rake take my my loneliness londiness like like a2 man:'" man...•• One One of of rhe the problems problems with with some some of of the the original origin.al work work on on the the history history of of indiindividualism vidualism was was aa tendency tendency to to imagine im.agine aa sil\gular, singular, European European or or Western Western sel£ self, as as if if m

"

rear

10

Introduction

everyone in a given time and place experiences rhe world in the same way. Rhetol-but me the mode of using these computers uniquely involved :I.a ntdar· exchange'"-but call intel'2crive. interactive. Thus cathode ray tube or CRT. SAGE was what people now ca.l.l like athode firsr people to experience·playing experience ~playing" with a compUter computer did so in the it was that the first manage the unmanageable unm:anageable possibility of nude:ar heart of the cold war effort to man.age nuclear W

war. :addictive This was the technology with which Licklider first experienced the .addictive direer computer incel'2ction. interaction. Some who noticed the holding power of quality qualiry of direct direct interaction with the computer no doubt treated it as odd but insignificant, yOIl might notice nocice but then dismiss with :I.a shrug while you go one of those things you lll:ay h:l.ve h;tve lain l:lin in his effort on to other matters. Licklider's intdlectllaluniqueness intellectual uniqueness may mr ships.HI • And imporram :md published in Tht 17u ArI4/l/j, AI/ul/tie Momhly Mouthly in then, in ill a piece first drafted in 1939 and Out a famasy fimrasy office machine called the "memex" "Illcmex" that would 1945, Bush sketched OUt information, peruse indexes, take automate whar what one does in a libr;try-look library~look up infonnarion, automare embcdded in a desk. on~al1 at the push of a few buttons embedded notes, and so on-all The memex, memex. as Bush described dcscribed it, was nor Ilot digital, nor not networked, networked. and not hs resemblance to the modern personal computer is in mosr most ways wotkable, Its even workable. F.!.ct. has h;ts called c.:.llled into question the idea rhar that it Ihrdini, in fact, ir was superficial. Thierry Bardini, .:.In F.!.ctor in the development of modem modern personal computing.» computing.1> Bush an important factor gCt credit, that a machine like the should perhaps get credir, however, for advancing the idea rhar memex could have the capacity to construct"trails" construct''rrails between documents and other lnemex bits of information. information, 111is TIlis was likely the first firsr melltioll hyperlinks. mentiOll of something like hypcrlinks, bit's The originality originaliry of the idea of a hyperlink should not be exaggerared, enggerated. 111e 'Ole idea ide:l of 111e a trail or hyperlink is jUst a variation on the idea of the cross-reference. perform.:l JUSt rhe cross-reference, ing:la similar function (0 to the foomote, footnote, the file card, c:lrd, or the index. It is not nor the ing c:lSe that thaI before hypertexr hypertext.:.lll re;td linearly, lineuly, from front cover to back, b:lck, all books were read case H

36

"Self-Motivating E"hibution" Exhilaration" ·Self-Motivaring

anenlion lO without any attention TO interconnections, No one has ever read books contain. h ""ny II1llt 0 leg:ll information has long .ing Ilr:ga.l =.1 documents from cover to cover, for example; legal Ing~ .. trails lllto into other docu· docubeen organized in a way that allows one to follow a web of traIls rdevant precedents, argumentS, arguments, and ;tnd so forth. fotth. Bush simply added 3dded ments find relevant ments to 6.nd 3UlOll1ate the process of cross'referencing cross-referencing and the thought that a machine might aUtOmate that such a machine might put that power in ill the hands of readers as 3S suggested thar ....ell as 3S writers and editors. So to an important degree, Bush and Engelbart Engelbarr were well the traditions of the Enlighrenment Enliglltenment encyclopedic ideal, continuing 3nd extending rhe r;onrinuing and not departing from it. W'hat Engelbart and Bush's memex proposal clearly share, however, is a belief What the key problem was not the murk of medieval superstition and traditions, that me the philosophes. plJilo50pht$, R:IIther, R;tther. the problem problelll was roo too much IIluch inforinfotthe chief bugaboo of me dream, macion, poorly organized. organi:z;ed. This was their new twist on the encyclopedic drt2m. m:lltion, footnotes, libraries. indexes, and :lIld file cards, cuds, in other The traditional :IIppararus appat:ltus of footnotl:$, won.is, h:lld had not produced the world of enlightened clarity the philo$(/p~s philo$opJ1($ had words, ti,e original encyclopedic project had h:ld been re:l!ized, reaJi:z;ed, but it imagined. In a sense. the the modem world was chod:.-full chock-full of. not JUSt just encyclopedias, encydopedi:l.S, but not work; rhe did nOt entire libraries bursting with indexed knowledge, knowledge. and yet human folly was as With the memex :lind and irs its trails, Bush was offering the tantalizt:lnulizpervasive as ever. \Vith m.:.lt a m:llchine machine could allow individuals ro to cut through the hah scientisrJoseph Wei.:enb;rum's Wei2:enbaum's tensions ofthe time is evidenced in MIT computer 1976 book, umpult,. Compurrr PoU.'tr POwrr and lllla Humllll HIIlIlan Rtason, RrllSou, a sweeping critique of the use usc of American sociery." society." Like his coUe.ague collugue Norben Norbert "'"einer Weiner before him, computers in Americm c.areer, h.ad grown concerned over Wei2:enbaum, midw.ay midway in.a in a suo:essful successful sciemilic scientific ClrCer, \Vei.:enb.aum, Ihe scientific scielltinc community to to the destructive desrructive uses of their disthe indifference of the coveries .and and inventions. If Weiner's :lrclletypal scienrinc sin was the rhe :ltom atom bomb, 2CCherypal scientific shadow of the Viernam War. And, in rhe case howe\'er, Wei.:enb.aum Wei2:enbaum wrote wrOte in the sludow however. Vietnam \V.ar. the cue of Viemam, Vietnam, the problem was less .about about horrifically horrincally effective weapons and more about .aa kind of structured blindness or indifference that enabled horrors to be .about Wei2:enbaum cites, for aample, example, the usc committed using conventional weapons. \Vei.;:enb.aunl ~operated by officers who h.ad had not the slightest idea of wh.at what of computer systems, ·oper.ued zond' within which "pilots had wcnt on inside their machines," to select "free-lire well( m.achines,·free-fire .:ones·pilors h.ad evcry living thing.thing." And he cites the notorious notoriou,~ ase case of Pent:lgon Pcnragon 'right' to ro kill cvt:ry the 'rigll(' computcrs th.at that listed bombing strikes inside C:lmbodia computers Cambodia as occurring in Vietnam, compmer to ro mislead members of Congress about thus using the mystique of the compUter abom acrion." this arguably illegal action." compurer scientist, Wei.:enbaum Weizenbaum was nO! not critical of computers themAs a computer but of what he saw as a general weltanschauung weltansch:lUung that had become becomc :assoassoselves, bur Wcizenbaum's criticism critici~m was broad and targeted at ar ciated with computers. Yet Wei.:enbaum's of his MIT colleague~ had devoted their C.:l.reers. concepts towards which some concepn colleagues Cl.reers. He saw the notion that human beings could be understood along the model of compurers-the core conceit of the field of artificial intelligence-as of computers-the of:la piece narrowncs.~ of mind, the rhe instrumental reasoning tC:lsoning that th:ar separated means with the narrowness associated with the from ends, and the inhuman grandiosity grandiosiry that seemed to be associ:lted computing weltanschauung. not. Yet Yer Wei2:enbaum's critics sometimes dismiss him as a Luddite.'o Luddite." He is noe. Wei.:enbaum's readers might get this impression, not JUSt doubr abollt about just from his expression of doubt 50 SO

Romanticism and rhe the Machine

certain aspects aspterS of computing. bur bec:l.use because of his loosely romantic romalllic understand(fl'fain p.:l.rt associing of human hum.an creativity, which through the 1970S was for the most part nature set against :lgainst technology. Wei.:enbaum Wtizenb:lutll began his book ared with a vision of n:l.ture ated ~obviolls idea" that "science is creative, creativt, that the creative act with what he calls the "obvious equivalent to ro the creative Creatlve act in an, art, [hat th:l.t creation springs only from in science is equiv.alem artis.utonomous individuals:'" The assumption assumprion that the archetype ofcreation autonomous individua1s.~" of creation is anisric crurion creation and that such cre:l.tion creation -springs "springs only from autonomous :lutonomous individuals· individu:lls" is tic nor.a but it is an orthodox element of romantic individualism. And, not a Luddite one, bur on-en than not, romanticism is thought of:l.S of:IS :l.ntit«:hnological antirechnological beC:l.USC because of its more often of a vision of narure nature comr.asted contrasted with a demeaning. t:l.tionalizing privileging ofa rarionali.:ing indusIhe oiali2:ation. From \Vorclsworth Wordsworth finding truth ttllth in the natural simplicities of the tri;rlization. Thoreau in his C:l.bin cabin at Walden W.alden to [0 1960S 1960s hippies Ilippies building English countryside to Thorea.u Eng!ish movel11cnrs often define themselves themselvcs Vermanr, rom.antic romantic movemems communes on farms in Vermont, against whar they perceive as the blinkered t«:hnica.l technic.al ration:l.!ity rationality of the indusrri:ll 3g&inst industrial on-en COntrast contrast with agrieultur.l.l agricultutal forms of life. By the first hill half world. which they often world, rwenrierh century, cenrury, chis this strain of thought developed in the rhe of the twentieth thought had been fully de\oe1oped work of humanist humanisr critics like Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford (the uttet latter cited an important influence) inRuence) who :l.nributed :lttributed many ofthe of rhe ills of the by Weizenbaum Wei.:enbaum as m wilh technology. modern world wotld to ro the forms of consciousness associated with modem aJld HUmlln Hllmalt RrllsoN Reaso'l indeed belongs in the Ellul/Mumford Computer POlWr POwtr lllld of its romanric understanding of the human as in ill mdirion, principally because tradition, principilly bce:ausc roffi:l.lltic cre.aDve md and beausc because of its Hegelian an.alytiCllI an:llytical merhod method of identifying a essence crC ''I ' f thoughtful style a nonlinear, playful form of presentation that mixed lible desc' . sry e a no mear, p.....yru ronn 0 present;arion that mixed toilets with politiC:.l1 political tracts, novel. :.lnd and iconocl:.astic iconoclastic T1ptlOns of nonRush toilelS traclS. a novel, •descriptions journalism: it was in the CllIalog ::,malism; Cilla/og that most of the United States finally learned how astronauts to t~e the bathroom. b:lthroom. On the olle one h:.and, hand, the style expressed the .~ aSt~"~utS wenr went~1O -everything related" holism of Batesonian BateSOnian syslems systems theory. But Bur the Cilia/og Catalog was also rythlllg is IS rdared alao made for browsing. Ceminly, Certainly, the accessible, accessihle, cluttered style sryle of the Cali/log ~ade CDtillog abared consumer culture; re:.ading reading the Who something with the general style of the COnSumer Whole Earth CilIll/og Calalog in the early l1luch the S;lme same way th It Ellrt.h e:.arly 1970S was probably fun in much char browsmg browsing the Sears Se:lrs catalog was rhe 1890s. Bur But when it if first appeared appeared, ~t w:.as in the Whole Earll, Cnlalog stood aparr from the resr of the consUl1let culture in the Un Wi,Die Eilrth Catalog :.apart rest consumer i~ images, it w:.as was infonnainforl1l:lUnPOrtant f!Onant ways; printed in black and white with wirh grainy im:.ages,

53

Romanticism and the rhe Machine

I ,

tion ddiber.ately lacked nOt about consuming products for don rich, rich. deliberately I~c:ked glitz, glin:, and was nor leisure time dnu: 2criviries aCtivides but-in its own mind at leau-about least-about understanding undersnnding and building things for everyd:lY everyday life. To a whole generation generacioll of readers, and still to [0 frankness and some extent today, today. this kind of writing is a breath of fresh air; its fnmkness condescending, amiandw:u an antidote to thoughtfulness was co the breezy, breezy. sUg:lrcoated, sugarcoated, condescending. intellectual tone mne of much of the pop media, whereas its irs accessibility contrasted with the jargon-ridden, mystified styles that thar pc.rmeatt: permeate our academic, :academic. government, and corporate bureaucracies. probably the that disseminated It was probilily me Whole EMIl, Earth Ce the opinion of the ~uthor. Well me :luthor. h.:.vc nothing noching [0 to do with the silly compkzitia complexities of ;lUtortu.nc ~UlOmaric typing. Iyping. It will}w.", will have will h2vc wid. !:he

I

screens. :l.nd SCrttnl, and

kcyoouds. and possibly outgoing [c!ten ... All }'OU' }'OUf krybc=ds. pouibly"a printer prinrer for outgOingkm:n business infomu.cion informarion will be callable [0 the scrun lieTecn inst:llntly. inst::lnrly. An all.cmbn.cing aJl.cmbt::lcing data darn c:oJl:oble to

III

structure will hold evay ItJltuaJ-in:l. c;l.r'. uriStructure every form of informuion-numcricaJ informacion-numerical and tCKtual-in:l cDdk dHnk:l.ga; and you, the U$ef, whatever your job tide. rove your cndlc oflink:ogu; rh... liS«. ride. may quickly ~

ITom Licklider's comfol'f2ble comforrable slaying iconoclastic stance ~ying st;lnco: sharply distinguishes him hom association with the military-industrial associ:lcion milit;lry-indusrrial complex. And Nelson pokes fun at the tho: artificial builders"; for Nelson, computers arc artilicial intelligence community as "God builders~; are not machines that think on On their own but tools cools that people use usc to pursue theit their dreams-"Dream Machines." clreams-"Dream Machines."

Kreen rhrough through the endre arC cncidcd cnridcd to scc:. ICe. You will h.:a~ have screen entire infornl:l.tion-Jp:l.cc infomwiolHp3CC' you arc

II

to ttl

1"11i5 prognosdcation. He even :mricipatts This is :m an extraordinary bit of prognostication. anricipatu bU7;% bU2;2; words; eighteen years b,-Jote before the phrase web surfing swflllg spread throughout the culture, Nel8If compUters rhe future. surfbo;trds.~" son wrote, "If computers are the wave of the future, dispb.ys displ:l.Ys arc are [he the surfbouds,"4' grandiose notions about computers' liberato,/, potential And Nelson articulates OIrticulOlCes gr:andiose Iiberatory potenri:1i that later became standard. stand:ltd fare thatHknowledge, underunder· dur f.are among netizens, nemens, claiming (h;.u"knowledge, standing and freedom can all be advanced by me the promotion and deployment of computer display consoles {with (with the right programs behind them):" them).~"' 11le Compufcr Lib shares much with both B:l.teson Bateson and the Whole Wllole The style of Computer EnrtJ, Cualog. Catalog. The book cridcizes criticizes and pokes fun :U at the mystifying mysrifying jargon in Earth which computers were then typically described. ~I believe in calling a spade a sp2de-not a personalizcd. personalized earth-moving eareh-moving equipment module,~ module: Nelson quipped." spade-not quipped."' The language is deliber.luly deliberately playful and !\On-Latinate; non-Larinate; computers are described as "wind.up Br:Uld, Nelson frequently uses me the colloKwind_up crossword punles." puzzles." (Like Brand, quial particularly effectively to soften grandiosity, rhereby thereby disarming quia! particulatly disanning the reader's ~When I saw my first computet.~ computer,~ he recounts. recounts, ~l ~J said skepticism: ~\Vhen &:lid 'Holy smoke, this is the desriny counterculmtal destiny of humankind:")·' humankind."')"' And a loose sympathy symp,uhy with counteTCulturai boaSTS of having been at Woodpolitics and iconoclasm is also present; Nelson boasts stock,·' srock,'" associates his critique of the computer profession with the feminist cri· critique of the medical profession in Our Bodies, Bodiel, Ourst/vo,1O Ollrsdvel,l'> inserts a solemn pae:1ll paean to no-growth no·growth economics,11 2nd putS puts a black'power r:lised fist on the cover. economics," and black-power style raised And the hand·drawn graphics. graphics, paste-up style, and self-published self.published originme book's hand-drawn antiestab· Nelson brags about eschewing mainstream publishers-all bespeak an anoestab-

lislullent lishment senriment. sentiment. "Spacewar~ piece, the filct that people enjoyed el~oyed playing rhe simple &ct In Brand's ~SpacewarK with computers was an :uronishing ide.1. Nelson's Computer Lib gready asronishing enough idea. exp:lIlds assoei.1ting ~self-motiV:lting "self-motivating exhilaration" (wh:lt (wh.1t Nelson ails clills expands on this, :lssociating ~fiendish fascination"), nOt JUSt with pl:ly, play, but wim with ~imagil\2tion "imagination and cte:loon creatiOn at "fiendish f.ascin:ltion~), not clearly suggest that dlat computercompurer' the highest level." level_KNelson was wu perhaps the first to dnrly virtuality was, not nOt JUSt system for rational exploration in the Enlighten· enabled virruality jUSt:la syStem Enlightenment sense, but potentially :In an ecstatically pleasurable activity. Nelson's emphasis emphasiS lUll brellk on play and personal expression thus allowed for a full break from the stiff sriff Cw Cartesian mechanistic rationality that Engelbart was wu still rooted in, and his dragon58

Nelson and the tI,e Romaneic Ted Nelron Romantic PUSOIJa Persona of IIJ( Rebd Hero the Visionary Rebel

do no prognmming." programming."

Ronunrici5m and the che Machine Ronunricism

someone's life~ No book about the course of someone'slife~ How could a slim hook ahout computers change che doubt there is something comic about the idea of people sitting at ac computer conwles imagining themselves as Byronic heroes; one has to approach the notion of soles :os to romanticized computing with a sense of irony. But one way to to make sense of this ronunticized is to rhink chink of rom:.lnticism :.Iesrhetic or a phiphi. is romanticism as a social fonnation, fonnaoon. not JUSt juS[ an .aesthetic lo.ophy. We can think, not nOt just of people like Byron and other romantic figures, losophy. ligures, but of the readership of Byron, were in a sense bored By ton, more than a few of whom wete burc:.lucrats, people widl with relative material s«uriry security suffering from alienation in bure.aucrats, their narrow, speci:l1ized, lind rechnical technical professions, lifespecialized, and profes.sions, dreaming of a different lifo:looking recnchantment. One might be able to trace ioolcing for teenchantment. rr.ace .aa fairly f.airly direct line from hom lOme literature-Goethe's young lOITIe of the earliest masculine heroes ho:roes of romantic literarute-Goethc's Werther, say-onwatd say-onward to to the protagonists of cyberpunk novels, typically midlevel technical employees who've who'vo: spent a large pare parr of their lives sitting at com. computer consoles engaged in nurow, rasks and then in the COUtR course of the narrow, technical tasks leory advelltures. srory have dramatic adventures, It's Jr's entirely appropriate that m:u Nelson dubbed his proposed ideal hypertext I)'Item Xanadu, XOInadu, after the imaginary pleasure palace palaec in the romantic writer -rstem Khan.~K Nelson's style and approach Coleridge's opium-induced poem ~Kubla Khan. Coletidge's malc rhe emphasis on truth discovered in makee heavy use of romantic tropes. tropes, From the to personal exploration, to ro the me celebtation celebration of dreams, visions, and revolution, ro to the Straregic strategic use of vernacular the suspicion of technical rationality, and ro vernaculat language, crafted his own version of onhodox orthodox romantic style. Nelson's guage. Nelson has cr.lfto:d Thoreau or enthusiasm for technology certainly ccrtainly disringuishes distinguishes him from, say, Thoteau Wordsworth (who famously wrote in "Timurn natlltC chen/To then/To me "Tinturn Abbey;"For Abbey,""For nacure \!fas all in aIL") originlll romantics were never opposed to technological 'Nas all.~) But the original advances in me the same fashion mshion :os. as, say, the Amish." 1he The original romantics were ProductS the emetging tc
1

rions. By 1980, p~cket packet switching was established as:l. as a practical pracrical means of commu_ X.:15 networks that nication both on the experimental internet and the working X.1; connected banks and research labs. Ethernet (as well as competing token ring and ARCNET) local :\rea area networking technology became commercially viable, and protocols for today's roday's interner, internet, TCP/IP, TCP/II~ were pur put into place, the basic underlying prorocols Compusuvc tested, and heavily developed. Commercial computer networks like Compuserve and Prodigy were 1000unched, launched, small computer CQlIlpurer bulletin board systems st:lrted started co :l.nd to spread, and many university computer scientists began to COllllnunic:!.rc spreOlld, communicOllte over the Uscnct system. France led the world into consumer use of computer low-cost Uunet Minitd system, launched by the French post POSt office, networks with its nationwide Minitel information on terminals in the homes of that allowed emailing and looking up inronnation of computer engineers, net· netsubst:tnti:tl segment of the community ofcomputer citizens. For a subStOllntiOllI cemer of thdr their attention in the 1980S_ 1980s. working was near the center not enru enter thl!: the broader public eye Because these events did nor Beause I!:ye in the U.S. until a happened in thl!: the 1980s occurred decade larl!:r, latet, however, howevet, OIla broad discussion discussiol\ of what luppe:ned deade aher the faCt. And, as people have looked back to 6gurl!: figure out where this thl!: fact. only after amazing thing called the interner imerner came from, the effort dfort became an :tn opportunity :unazing :l.nd not a little political mythmaking, mythmaking.. both intentional intentionOllI for much hagiography and nor. For example, in response to the common (if :l.bsurd) absurd) mid-1990S habit and not. attributing the rise free market,' marker.' Michael OIInd and Ronda of Oltrriburing rise: of the internet to the fTu Hauben published a uries series of OIIrtides articles and a book that th:lt the HOIIuben thOlt made a strong case that antill1arket, communitarian communirarian principles consistent rise of the internet was due to antimarket, Howud Rheingold and omen; others in Srewart StewOlln Brand's cin:le circle with the 1960S New Left. Howard OntO the New Communalism. Commullalism. And numerous pot· pOtgt:lhed computer gr.tfted compurer networking OntO red histories OIInd :md omelines timelines of me the internet OIIppe:ared appeared in print prim and on the internet tl!:d their sdection selecrion of detliliis. details. itself, often reAecring various political polirical inclinations in thdr Since these early efforts, hiseffortS, the discussion has mawred, matured, :llld and OIla more serious his· rhe internet and :tnd computer communication communic:l.tion toricalliterarure on the I!:volurion evolution of the toricalliter.l.lure appeared. Works Wotks by Janet Jallet Abbate, Paul Ceruzzi, and James Gillies and Rob· Robhas appeOllred. h:.tve provided much finer detail and careful :tnalysis.' BIIt one of the ert Cailli:.tu I!:rt CailliOllu have nner analysis.' But not to rush to literature is that', that>, while it is careful nOt striking things about this newer Iiten.ture ontO the hiSTOrical historic:.tl detOlil, detail, political questions keep impose political assumptions onto resurf.acing. tbe internet has h:.ts been so large, and its origins so disdis· resurf:l.cing. -Il,e The impact of the tinct, implic:uions of this course of abour the implications tiner, that th:lt one cannot help but wonder :about events for undersranding understanding politics and social relations. eventS Here I will focus on a few, illustrative episodes in the evolution of networking in the tl,e 1980s, whar makes them politically politiCllly unusual unusu:al and therefore 1980S, with an eye on what scver:al important points. First, the Ptevious work has demonstrated several intriguing. Previous was not nor created by two !WO guys in a garage, by small entreinterner most ccrtainly certainly W:l.S entre' intcrnct It was developed inside Hughes's preneurs operating in a:t classic free market. It 94

Networlu Networks :tnd and the Sociallrnaginatioll Social Imagination

ptilitary-industrial-university complex-at a moment when that complex was tylilitary-industrial-universiry ch:tnges. This fact alone serves an important rejoinder to undergoing significant changes. marker fundamenulisrs imporrant that the larger tnatket fundamentalisTS and libertarians. But it is also important established by Vannevar Ptiv:tte corpoVannev:l.r Bush. Private development framework was that eStOlblished e:l.tly on and were for rhe the most pan p:trt .uways alw:tys rations were involved in the internet carlyon imagined to be cemral take:ts central to whatever form the technology would take 0lS it matured; jsnagined docs early internet development was funded by tax revenues does the simple faet fact that euly Lefl position with tegard regard to corporntions. corporations. not by itself confirm, say, a New Left DOl early internet devdopment development h-om from .uteralterSecond, part P:lrt of what distinguishes the arly Second. nlltive networking efforts e/fons in the 1980S 1980s is an unusual culrure culture of infonnal, informal. open, aarive coopet:ltion-that \'ery very distinct diStinct set of pn.ctices practices that are incompll!:tely incompletely horizont:tl borizonn.1 coope:ration-mat code,H tummarized today under phrases such as "rough consensus and running code; summarized and "end-to-end design.-· design:-4 The 1he role of these practices in the history of the inrernet internet and-end-to-end mese pr.tctices has become something of a political football; blessed by their genealogical relabas (Q one of the major rechnological technological success Stories of the twentieth century, tion to Don they are :Ire claimed as supporting evidence by dusic classic corpon.te corporate liberals, libertarIbq :tnarchists .uike. alike. It is important to get beyond the ians, democratic socialists, and anarchists has made the important timplistic \'ersions versions of these appropriations. Fred Turner hOlls simplistic th:lt friendly horizonral horizontal coUaboration collaboration among engineers is hardly by itself OIla point that conStrued, and it is in fact faCt historica.1ly historically guarantor of political democracy broadly construed, parantor a:msisrent StrUCtures, like the cold consistent with autocratic a.utocratic and highly oppressive political struCtures, effons of the 1950S. And the history is dar dear that, to the extent there is a poli' poliwar effOrtS tics to internet development, it is not nor something that can be ra.d read off offof the politi. politiofthe particular engineers; right- and left-wingers, hawks and doVl!:S, doves, all cal concerns of parricuw contributions, often in coopen.tion cooperation with one anothl!:r. another. made important conrributions, reAects on two instances of a new and unusual set of ptlilctices practices This chapter 'Ibis chaptu rl!:Rects OIl a.nd 1980, ways of social OIInd and technological [ecllllological organization that in that emerged around t980, dw retrospect sttm seem relatively politically politic:llly satisfying s:ltisfying and praerically practically effective. eflcctive. First, it rurospe:ct development of new chip design methods in the late 1970S, which led looks at the devdopment to VLSI (Very Large L:lrge Scale rhe 1980s. 1980S. Whill!: While not nOt ScalI!: Integr:uion) Integration) microprocessors in the ch:lin of devdopmenrs developments that led to the internl!:t, internet, thl!: the VLSI chip always listed in the chain the Sl!:t thl!: design process was key to maintaining the momentum of Moore's Law and set ever-improving microprocessors and graphics chips conditions for the paradl!: p:lrade of I!:ver.improving on top of which thc the internet was built. For my purposes, it nicely illustrates the rhe sheer technical value of attelltion attention to to cnginct:ring of che discovery inside computer engineering SOCial process and to to open, networked, horizontal relarions. Second, the chapter aocial horizoncal relations. discusses the much more cle:lrly dearly political economic moment during which ti,e the ARPANET efforts effortS were split off from the military and quietly tr:lnsferred transferred to to is. nor nOt just the NSF funding. What is distinct about this remarkable moment is, to urefully carefully spirit of openness, but the use of that kind of open coll:tboration colb.boration to .pirit 95

:tnd the Sod:l.! Soci:tllmaginarion Networks and lm:l.ginarion

~hepherd a developing network as ir passed outside of the cocoon of DARPA funding into a wider, more fraughr world of funding by an ever-growing variery of users and sponsors, Theoretically, packer-switched global computer networking could have come to us in any variety of insrirurional packages, but this 1980s experience of quietly guiding the growing internet into a space between the dif_ ferently charged force fields of military, corporate, university, and NSF funding left a sramp on the institution of the interner that would have far-reaching conse_ quences. "We Don't Have to Form Some Instirnte"; The Case of Lynn Conway and VLSI Chip Design There was never a single justification for seeking to communicate between com· pucel'S. In the 1960s and 1970S, funding sources were the military and large corporations, so command-and-conrrol uses were favored, such as building a communications network thar could survive a nuclear attack, conrrolling military operations at a distance, or disrributed use of centralized supercomputerS for scientific research, 1hese arc rhe ideas that dominated grant proposals, commitree restimony, political speeches, and mainstream newspaper coverage, Bur other ideas percolated in the background, such as Licklider's, Engelbart's, Van DanIS, and Nelson's grand dreams of inrerconnected communication machines. But the eventual triumph of the ideas of Engelbart was as much a product of surprising experiences with early forms of computer communication as it was a matter of persuasion by a few intellectuals. The most often-mentioned surprise discovery of the ARPANET was the popularity of email and discussion lists; built for command-and-control uses, rhe ARPANET turned out to be a great way to JUSt chat, and the numbers of emails over rhe network skytocketed.' These statistics, coupled to the fact that most of the people reading the statistics had personal experience with email themselves, gave substance to the ideas of tbe likes of Engelbart and Nelson. By the late 1970s, among computing professionals, the idea of using computers for communication between people was no longer absrract; it increasingly had an experiential grounding. At least as important as the sheer fact of email's popularity was its social rone. Some of this was simply about the informal styles that became customary on email. For example, in 1978, Licklider and a colleague noted: One of the advantages of the message syStem Over letter mail was that, in an ARPANET message, one could write tersely and rype imperfectly, even to a" oldet person in a superior position and even to a person one did not know very well, and the recipient took no offense, The formality and perfection that most people expect in a ryped lener did nOt become associated with network mes96

Networks and rhe Social Imaginadon

sages, probably because the network was sO much f.lSter, SO much more like the telephone Indeed, tolerance for informaliry and imperfeCT ryping was ,,'en more evident when tWO users of the ARPANET linked their consoles together and typed back and forth in an alphanumeric conversation,' It is probably not inherent to computer communication that it encourages informality, It may be simply that, when email started to spread in the late 19705, tile secretaries who were regularly raking hand-scrawled nores on yellow pads and rorning them into formal letters were nor the ones typing emails, Networked computers were still too rare, expensive, and hard to use to integrate them into rhe established rituals of the office. The social insritutions and expectations that ordinarily lend themselves to formality-secretaries, lertethead, the legal expectations that go with a signed letter-were not operational. But the informality of online communicarion was also associated with something more subrle thar starred to become part of the experience of those using networked computers: the occasional efficiencies gained when working online on tet:hnical projects as a group. People often mention the surprising popularity of nontechnical discussion lists in the early days, like Usener's alr.clliture.llsenet and alt~ournalism.criricism.' Bur the fact is, well into the 1980s, computer communication was predominantly communication about computers; the majority of email and discussion list use was about technical issues. This might seem like a criticism, bur significantly, for the people who designed and built computers, this could be a surprisingly effective way ro get things done. An early and inl1uential version of this discovery occurred when Xerox PARC scientist Lynn Conway and Caltech professor Carver Mead collaborated on the development of VLSI design methods for microchips in the 1970s. Carver Mead, credired by Gotdon Moore with coining the term Moore's Law, was the first to use the methods of physics to predier the theoretical limits of the capacities of microchips. By the early 1970S, these predictions made it clear to Mead and others that individual microchips, especially microprocessors, were destined to become bewilderingly complex. Intel's first microprocessor, the 4004, conr:lined 1300 transistors on a single chip; this was a lor for the time, bur ir was still something that could be designed by a relatively small team in a matter of months. But, recognizing that this was just the beginning of a trend, Mead fOtesaw that, as the number of transistots per chip increased logarithmically, this would cteate new design challenges. How would the complexity of design be handled as the capacity of single chips reached hundteds of thousands, or millions, of transistOrs~

Lynn Conway, an expert in computer architecture who had made some pioneering innovations at IBM ill the 1960s, teamed up with Mead to tadde this ptOblem; as she put it, he was approaching the problem from the level of silicon 97

Networks and dlC Sociallmaginarion

upwards, and she was approaching it from the level of software downwards. The significant thing aoout their approach was that rhey did not set oue TO design a particular chip or even a particular type of design; they set out to design II me$}wd ofdnign, a way [0 make accessible and better org;mize the process o(YLSI rnic'tochip design. The problem, as Conway described it in a 1981 presentation, way.:~a[ when new design methods arc introduced in any reclmology. especially in~cw technology . . a 1m of exploratory usage is naessal)' ro debug and evaluate new

design methods. The more explorers that are invoh·ed in this process, and the better they are able to communicate, the faster the process runs to any given deg...,e of

completion.... How can j'Oll cause the eulrur..! integr:uion of the new methods, so thar the average designer feels comfortable using the methods, considers sueh usage to be part of theit normal duries, and works hard to correctly use the methods? Such cultural integration requitu a major shift in technical viewpoints by many, many individual de.igncrs.... TIle more designers involved in using the new methods. and me berrer they are abk!O communicate with each other, the 13ster

the process of culrural integration runs.... New design merhods normally evolve via rarher ad hoc, undirected processes ofculrural diffusion through dispersed, loosely connecred group. of practitioners, over rdatively long periods of rime.... Bits and pieces ofdesign 10"'" design examples, design artifacTS, and new, of suc' ces.fUl market applications, move through the interactions of individual designers, and through the trade and professional journals, conference•. and mass media. I believe we Can discover powerful alrernarives to that long. ad hoc. undirecred process.' What's distinct here is the extem to which Conway, while working on what she caUed "designing design methods,'" is explicitly talking abour >ocial, as opposed ro purely technical, proce.ses. It's worth emphasizing that Conway is no compuret imptesario or pundit like George Gilder or John Perry Barlow, who basically make use of the technological for polirical or social purposes; she is a true engineer working at the cuning edge of her field, giving a talk at Caltech ro other engineers. Yet her primary concerns are numbers of individuals, their communication skills, and their culture. She describes her work from this period as a "new collaborative design technology." Mead and Conway's widely used textbook on VLSI design was not just a summary of what people were already doing; it was carefully thought our to enable more people to participate in the process of microchip design, and was written more with an eye to where mi l'iformation superhighway became so common it sprouted its own metaphorical universe, involving phrases like "road kill on the information superhighway."" It's easy to forget, however, that informacion superhighfor the first few years of this buzzword's flourishing, the information internet, way was not necessarily the internet. iliformatiolJ superl,ighw<Jy SUptr/,ighw<Jy has been around since at least the early The phrase iliformatjolJ [980s and the metaphor of an information highway for at least a decade before superhig/!Way began to take on a very specific that." But around 1990, iliformatioll jliformatjoll superhjg/!Way circles ofWashingron, DC. At the time, the u.s, U.S. economy life inside the political citcles H, W. Bush was looking increaswas floundering, and the administration ofGeorge H. ewnomic front. Fortrme Fortrmt maga:;:;ine sniped that "the President ingly helpless on the economit has been disengaged, reactive, and inarticulate" on the economy." The Democrats vv'1shingron sensed an opportunity; the slogan "it's the economy, stupid" would in vv'1shington next election. But the problem for the mainsoon prove devastating to Bush in the neX[ stream Democrats was finding a way to differentiate themselves from the Republirhat had cans without opening themselves up to the label of tax-and-spend liberals that so successfully against them in the previous decade by Ronald Reagan, been used sosuccessfully In the 1950S, Senator Albert Gore, Sr. had made a name for himself by shepherding in the rhe interstate highway system, which gave a huge boost to the auto hetding industry and the economy in general while profoundly shaping American life and culture around the automobile. It was one of the most successful and beloved rime, a triumph rriumph of corporate massive U.S, government building projects of all time, rhis rousing liberal habits. To this day it stands largely above criticism. No doubt this success was somewhere in the back of then-Senator Albert Gore,Jr.'s mind when, starting in 1988, he decided to get involved in building computer networking in the name of research. Gore, Jr.'s inspiration was to link up with various proponents of advanced computer networking in the engineering community, sponsor rhar funded the development of a state-of-the-art State-of-rhe-art compurer computer network legislation that project the "information superhighway." of networks, and call the projeCt 108

tit" Social Imaginarion Networks and the

the high-tech industries, battered by The idea pressed several buttons at once; rhe gtoping for the next wave. looked favorably Japanese competition and nervously groping after all could save them upon this modest kind ofgovernment investment, which aftet the COSt of a lot of high-risk R&D and perhaps shield them from overly intense competition, Because the project was wrapped it) the glamorous aura of high technology and a positive vision of the furute, furnte, Democratic politicians, like GOtI.', Gore, safety as a model ofUgood" of "good" government intervention, Jr. himself, could use this safely undermining the Republicans' efforts to maintain power by associating Democrats with government bureaucracy and excess. And it appealed to a kind of ecocratS nomic nationalism; by [99[, a Congressman Congtessman argued for government involvement in the creation of a U.S. broadband network by saying"theJapanese will have an rhe year :1.005 and the USA won't."" Small wonder, information superhighway by the Gore,Jr.'s bill bi\l moved calmly through both houses of Congress and was then, that Gote,Jt.'s signed by President Bush in 1991, providing for 2.9 billion dollats dollars over five years rime, Al Gore noted, "in many ways, til this is bill for building the NSFNET." At the time, is very unusual. I have been working on this bill for more than 2 years, and almost no one has said a discouraging word about it. Instead, I hear enthusiastic support in many, many different quarters-within the administration, in the telecommuindustry-among researchtesearchnications industry, in universities, in the computer industty-among teachers, librarians, and many others."" And then in 1992 the election of the ers, teachers. first Democratic president in more than a decade seemed to make the political public·private effort. This looked like a classic climate favorable for this kind of public-private implementarion of Vannevar Bush's corporate liberal principles for technology implementation development, Com-Priv The Public/Private Problem and Com~Priv the Bush philosophy docs does not always lead ro to rhe the linear, orderly process it is But rhe 9 ro.J Corporate liberalism mixes private and public. and for sometimes imagined co.J creates a substantial grey zone where all its historical effectiveness, that mixing cteates rules are unclear and asks the polity to take rake a lot on faith about borh both the the tules good motives and the wisdom of the individuals at the center of this movement berween the two worlds. And it inevitably raises the question, why should private between companies and individuals profit from publicly funded research? Why is this not government favoritism? with President Truman and Congress in 1945 over the Bush himselfsquabbled wirh exact form that the National Science Foundation was to take. One Congressional rhe government-funded research bill, for example, proposed that all patents for the protecting prh'are ptl\'ate parents patents be retained by the government, whereas Bush favored proteering maintaining flexibility Aexibility and autonomy,"" autonomy,'" Bush's approach was OUt of concern for mainraining 109

Sociallmaginarion Networks and the Sodallmagination

based on a deep faith in the capacity of scientists, engineers, and other expens to overlook their own selfish interestS in the name of reason and progress. The COn_ gressional proposal, by contrast, was based on a more transparent, skeptical logic. The fan remains that the process of transfer and public/private cooperation in general involves neither a Lockean marker nor a public process dedicated solely ro the public good. It is a movement between different worlds that operate by differ_ em rules. There is no getting around the fan that research efrons paid for at leasr in parr by public tax money come to serve the interesTS of those who are making a private profit. These tensions were laid bare on one of the more lively and revealing public political economic discussions of the early 1990S, a now-legendary diSCUSsion list called the Commercializarion and Privatization of the Internet-com-priv for short. The community of network experts, having spent the 1970S and 1980s simultaneously developing the tcdmology. discovering its pleasures. and learning the value of an open approach to its coordination. did what to them was the obvious thing; when faced with the sociopolitical complexities of making the internet into something broadly available, they established an electronic discussion list, open to all with the means and interest to sign up-which at the time, was still a relatively narrow citde. Com-priv was initiated by Marrin Schoffstall, a long-time participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force who had recently founded a company called PSI to offer access to the internet on a commercial basis. Opening his initial POSt to the list with the address "GentlePeople,~ Schoffstall laid our some questions: is the open, casual, RFC-based process of decision making adequate for a commercial environment:' What will be rhe relationship between existing. tax-funded, nonprofit network providers and commercial newcomers (at that rime, PSI and a company called Alternet):' VJhar happens when commercial activities start taking place on noncommercially funded systems? Schoffstall concludes the post in a way appropriate to the inviting. informal tone thar had become the norm in behind-rhe-scenes internet decision making: "Come ler us reason together.... Matty:'" Some of the discussions thar followed remained rechnical (for example, "HolV long does rhe UNIX password encryptor take on an 80881 Is it faster or slower than a PDP-II?")." But one of the striking things aboue the list is how much of it is devoted to working through policy issues; engineers found themselves thoughtfully debating fundamental principles of political economy. Much of the initial discussion began around something called the acceprable use policy (AUP)Y After the transition from a defense department umbrel.la to rhe NSF, the nt:twork had evolved around the central, NSF-sponsored TCP/IP backbone called NSFNET, which was then connected co a variety of regional neTWorks, mosr of 110

Networks and the Social Imagination

which were nonprofiTS and often leased equipment from for-ptofit companies. High-tech corporations like BBN and Hewlett Packard, with theit interests in networking and computer research in general, had various kinds of connections. PSI and a company called Alternet had begun offering access to the system on a commercial basis. The NSF portion of the network, however, was governed by a policy that said me network should be used only for appropriate rt:search and education purposes. With regards co the Acceptable Use Policy, Schoffsral asked, "How does one constrain use of federally subsidized networks ... from doing commetcial things I" Allen Leinwand, then a network engineer working for Hewlett Packard, daborated on the problem: This qUl:snon has plagued us here at HP for some rime. .. Suppose rhat HP connecrs to AlrcrNet (we have nor ... yet) and we now have the abiliry to pass co company X and company Y who are commercial data across AlterNet legally eo HP business parmers. We are already considering the idea of subsidizing our rrincal business partners with the funds ro connect to AlterNer when we do... ,The main problem is how do you convey to about 90,000 employees that it is legal to comp:!.n), X and Y because conduct commercial bluiness with lP based services ro comp:!.n)' AltetNet, bue don't do it ro company Z because they are only on they are on AltetNet. (the Bay Area public regional)? .. I cannot really envision a network BARRNet {the tool which intelligently decides what d:u;a is for commercial use and what is not. How do we distinguish between HP divisions working wirh the QSF across NSFNET (which IS legal) and the same division (or machine!) sending data to company Z".· The subsequent discussion of this issue came up wirh more examples and explored different possible solutions. A purely technical solution was discussed, where different uses get coded into the network routing system, bur ir was generally deemed impractiGlI because of the already quite blurry lines berween nonprofit and for-profit activities on the network. Something that involved collective human decision making was needed. TIle problem was, in essence, political. Political, but not polemical. The discussion on com-priv made the goal of a fluid, easy-to-use, open, and reliable network a priority above all else. Schoffstal, who had recently stepped into the role of an internet capitalist, wrote, What PSINet has been doing (and from all appearances what ALTERNET has been doing) is working with indusrry ;md nOt upsetting the srability of the non.profits and academies. non-profit mid-levels from providing service to the non'profits infrastructUre seemed pointless to hun since too much of the US That non-profit in&astructUre is incredibly dependant on it. ... Now when the non-profits provide service ro industry is where we ger into a sticky philosophic~l/leg:J/t:lXation are~s." III

Networks and the Social Imagination

I

antiNeither Schoffstal nor others tried to resolve issues by adopting principled 3ntibusiness or antigovernment ideological positions that 3rt are so common in other othet public debates. Parts of the system that worked, in this case run on a nonptofit nonprofit basis, were nOt to ro be interfered with, even by for-profit entities. emities. TIle The approach wete best beSt not was highly pragmatic. pragm;l.tic. But there was wu the matter of what Schoffstal called "philosophical/legal/taxa_ Hphilosophic.al/lcgallt3X;I._ H rion areas." matters is one thing, uound strictly technical m;l.tters thing. but prag_ tion areas. Ptagl11arislll Pragm;l.tism atound comes ro to the murky world of political and strUCtute ;l.nd institutional institutiona.l structure matism when it COmes is quite another. In the latter F.tCt of political and lattet there is no getting around ;l.round the faCt have to be made that will allOClte allocate :'md and shape the dissocial choice; decisions will h.ave tribution of power and resources, and no I~al legal or technic.alnecessity technical necessity will dictate neutral wa}'. way. the fonn fotm of those decisions in a.a completely neurral Conventional Con\'ention.al corporate liberal decision making in the United States has generally moments by couching things in thc the language of exper_ expererall}' dealt de.alt with these momems tise, bound together by reference to the national interest or public good. \Vhen When to org:,miu organi2:e the new technology of radio on .aa corpoHerbert Hoover SCI set OUt out to rate for-profit buis basis in the 1920S, 19:1.05, he gathered together a.a mir:ture mi:nure of capuins captains of and used. used the language Of of~the conveniencc, industry and engineers .and the public interest, conw::nience, and necessityH necessit{ to justify the creation cr=.tion of an administrative agency (predecessor (predeces.sor to tod:lY's use government legal power to alJoc.ate allocate r:adio t:l:dio fretoday's FCC) that proceeded to u.se quencies in.a in a way W:lY that F.tvored favored large, well-llmded, well-funded, commerci.al commercial oper:arions. operations. \.\/hen When tax money W.:l.S was used to create the interstate ux interst.ate highway system in the 1950S, the case, the public lanlegitimating language l.anguage was that of national defellse. defense. In e:lch each Clse, bureaucratic. formal and bureaucr:atic. waS highly fonnal guage was TIle tone on com-priv com-pr;v W:lS fulling b.ack back on the The was something different. Instead of falling authority of expertise .and and institutional hierarchy, there W.:l.S was an explicit small d .authority H "come, come, let us reason together. together." That TIlat impulse was leavened democratic impulse: H [e.avened by small gestures developed in past pragmatic experiences with sllch forms of decisuch fonns sion m3king. making. Most of these gestures gestutes were tokens of informality: first n.ame name modes of :lddress, address, occasional colloquialisms :lI1d and personal details, det.ails, and ;l.nd the use of selfmockery. Scholfsral, ~position was a bit StrOnstronwhose·position Schoffstal, in describing an individual whose parenthetical :lside, ~(hard to believe ger thall th:ln Ir would have taken~ taken" quickly adds a paremhetical aside, H(hard for SOllle some of your you): All these gestures worked to soften personal sharp edges, generatea inform;l.l solidarity, and f.l.cilitate facilitate group process. erate a tone of inform:ll United by the common goal of a functioning funerionillg network, then, Ihe the community commulliry on com-priv was using what had worked for them in technical areas-free are.1lS-free flowRowing, hori%onral. electronic communication-to sdf-consciously deal with issues ing. horizontal, self-consciously th:lt were both philosophical :Illd and political. Tinged by (if not fully committed to) That a post-1960S established, formal institutional habirs habits :lnd and by a;I. corPOSt-196os suspicion suspirion of esr:lblished, the blurry terrain ollary truSt in informal directncss, olbry directness, they set out our to negotiate The lIZ 112

Networks and the Soci:l1 Social Imagination

between government and for-profit rules of operation in a manner that at that point in history was unique. They took what worked in a technical contextrook whar rough consensus and running code-and to matters that were cocle-alld set out to apply ;l.pply it TO becoming increasingly politic.al. political. In the broader political world, however, howevet, other lubits habits dominaTed. dominated. In Decem-

ber of 1992, [99l, President-elect convened a Conference on the Sute State of President-decr Bill Clinton Clinron convcned the Economy, having made fixing the economy a centerpiece of his call1paign. campaign. The conference COllfercnce brought corporate broughr together a blue-ribbon group of experts and corpor:ate chieftaills. At this point, the rhetoric rheroric of the information superhighway was in full chieftains. swing, and so it President-e1eer Al Gore, swing. ir was W.:l.S on the agenda, which gave Vice President-elect experience in setting the stage s!line on one of srage for NREN, a chance to shine with his a:perience his favorite topics. The New Nrw York Timet and AT&T chair Tin~s quoted this exchange exch:mge between Gore .and said. Robert E. Allen. Allen s.aid, focus on infnstrucrnrc. nelworb nerwcxks. commercial commCTCi:l1 networks A fouu infnsnucruu. including informJ.rion infomution nerworkJ. which au J.re interconneaed, imaconnected. imeroperabie, imerope",b[e. IUtionai I1OIcionJ.1 J.nd to be enCOUf~d g1ohJl, gloNI. needs nee protocols dut that enabled connection (Q PPP to the internet via:l vi.a a modem. And Monic Mouic was cleuly cleatly not as importam:l technical comribution TCJ>/IP importanr.a technic.al oontribution as the underlying TCP/IP and:lll software that thar h.ad had been written to implement implemenr packet switching protocol and all the soltw.are it on a wide variety ofcomputers. Mosaic did noc iton nor make it possible to conneCt oonneC"t to the and protocols did th.ar. that. And Mosaic did not make the internet. Other programs .and internet friendly; it simply made it somewhat friendlier. And it is safe w to say that it a question ofefficiency; MOJai' Mosaic was waS:l;lslow slow and cumbersome cum~nomeway fa to get inforwas not aquestion particularly on the gnphics-impaired gr.lphics-impaired computers of the first Mosaic firsr years. Mouk mation, p;lrticularly WU:I fine program,but it was not a revolutionary work ofgenius by any definition. was a program, but w.as definicion. 50 why did Mosaic become the internet~ 'Nhy v.'hy did its direct So rhe killer kilter app of the intemerf 1990S~ Part of it was successor Netscapc Netscape launch rhe "inrernet "internet economy" of the 1990Sf simply the tlte cumulative econO' cumul.arive critical mass or of people and technologies, what some «ana126

11le The Moment of Wirrd \Virrd

mists rnists call network nerwork effects; enough computers were becoming ~ooming graphics-capable, graphics-capable. enough of those computers were becoming connected to LANs, and enough of those LANs were being connected (Q the internet. conneered (0 internet, that being on the internet W:lS was becoming more and more v:duable. valuable. chat Mosaic wasn't so much efficient as it was plC2.mnble; pleasurable; using But it's crucial that /irst reaJly compelling. fun experiences available on the Mosaic was one of the first reilly .available tried to downplay it for that very reason: internet. Same Some computer professionals Died 011 their PCs," "Mosdy, people use Mosaic to show off the money they spent on PCs,~ -Mosdy; observed one software "you can call sottw.are executive, ·you caU somebody over and say, 'Look at whi'Z-bang ;lppeal. appea.l.... this.' this: It has gOt that kind of whiz-bang ... It's Ie's like the first time you go to wander w:lnder through the stacks, pulling down books. the library: Ir's It's fun (0 through tile Buc of course we now know in retrospect that the fun of olf"'e But But that does wear off."'· web browsing was llOt not about to wear off any time rime soon. What kind of pleasure did Mosaic offerf offer~ Mosaic did not sarisry 'Nhat satisfy desire, desite. it provoked it. Colin Campbell has descri~d desaibed Wh3t wh:tt he calls "modern Hmodern :lutOllomous .autonomous structure of pleasure plcasure in which the imaginative hedonism; .aa distinctly modern StrucCUre becomes pa.rt part of the pleasure itself and which is charch:tranticipation of pleasure beoomes acreristic of the consumer culture :lnd romanticism generally." Wh:l.[ one wants acreriscic culcure and Whu peculi:trly modem modern fonn form of pleasure. pleasure, Campbell in this peculiarly C.ampbdl :trgues, .argues, is not the satiation sati.ation of desire but desire itself; it is the desire to desire. Mosaic did not so much show IOmC
Mud: The Problem with Property Crystals Turned to Mud; A look at the history of Western law shows that it is not just new technologies that laSt few centuries, the dream of render property boundaries confusing. Over the last ~dear and exact" has proven to be elusive :Iocross rights that are are"dear across many domains. Property relations themselves, themselves. of course, have hardly been in eclipse; as capitalism c2pitalism has Inorc expanded over me past few centuries, pressure to extend e)(fend property relations [0 to more aspecrs of life has grown unabated. With the important exception of slavery, :aspectS sbvery, almost no category of things that has been turned rumed into property has ever been turned back property, though. though, is thar, cxpanded. into nonproperty. The problem of property. intO that. as its scope expanded, properl)' grew ever and exaa." exact." Property the character charaaer of property e\'er muddier, ever less "clear -de2r 2nd have hardly been the cryStalline practice, it rums out, h2ve rights in practice. crysuJIine system that Locke ho~s Mr. for. Gnawing 2way away at ar me the entire idea of property. property, suggested and that thar Nelson hopes then, is a sense [hat ad~'ertised might be impossible. men, thar making it work as ad\'Crtised. caused by side effects like the unequal distribution nor just the distortions c2used It's not me judicial and political systems keep finding reasons to blur of wealth or that the wvironmenta[ property boundaries with regu1:.ltory regulatory efforts like :zoning zoning laws and environmental regulation. It is also thar crisply defined rights on paper appear much less than crisp when one tries to map them OntO the me real world of human activities. Even archerypal forms of property-land-seems properry-bnd-seems to nltll turn up intracone of the most archetypal table quandaries, quandaries which surfaced in legal cases going back to the nineptoperty teenth cenniry. Where. exactly, is the line where enjoyment centll.ty. Whete, enjoymem of one's own property say. raising pigs muddies Stops and interference with another's begins~ What if, say, erecting a building casts casrs :Ia sh:ldow shadow on a neighbot's garthe neighbor's streams or ereCtillg den?' den?" Over O\'er the rhe years, the more tll:lot that the finest legal minds applied themselves to 141

Open Souru, Expressive Programmer, :md and the rhe Problem of Property Sour'.., Ihe rhe Expreuivc

these questions, the more possible answers there seemed to be, with the result rime. that the cue case law in aggregare aggregate seemed to grow ad hoc and murky over time. $0, as the twentieth century progressed, the me more aspects property aspecrs of life that propeny So, to the less sense those relations seemed to make. People relations were applied apptied [0 e\"E:r less like the prophave been buying and selling things that look and behave ever Locke had in mind. In the rwentieth century, licenses to drive a taxi erty thar that twentieth radio frcquency frequency were wen in New York City or licenses to broadcast on a particular nadio not things at all; they bought and sold for huge sums, but these things were teally really nOt at:all; created by the actions of various were something quite obviously defined and Cre:lted law in fact states that a license to broadcast allows government agencies.agencies."' (U.S. (US. faa ~thc use of such channels, but not the ownership thereol.)" thereof.")" Ownerthe holder Wthe not grant ship of a stock does nOt gr:lnt one anything physical; having five percent of the to walk off percenr of stock in a company does nOt grant one the right to ofT with five percent the factory. Stocks, on dose inspection, appear less like property and more like faCtof)'. Stocb, shifting set of entitlements even as they have become a core form and shifi:ing fonn of an odd :md property ownership in the capitalist system. f.11110US review of historical variations in American legal approaches to A f.amous property distinguished between crystals and mud, between legal decision making based on finn, firm, bright-line rules and blurrier and flexible Rexible standards." While there fonh between crystalline and muddy has been a certain amount of back and fom interpretations meorist William Fisher has pointed out that thar the incerpretatioM of the law, legal theorist dominant trend for at least the twentieth century has been towards mud." The record, in sum, sum. would suggesr suggest that crisply defined laws on paper may historical record. nOt be capable of producing a crisply defined system ofjustice in reality; they are nor only. crisp on paper only, anricipated aspects of this problem nearly Some philosophers anticipated neOlrty from the beginning.. noting thOlt that the idea of a nattlral natural right is a frail one. Jeremy Bentham, for ning. ro theorists of natural rights, acerbically observed, acerbicallyobservc:d. example, when responding to reason aWs uisrl for wishing that rlu.r th..... rhere were $uch thing$ Bur rusons w... c .uch things as ali rights. righn. BUT reuom A te:lSOn therc werc ~re not rights.. ... N~IIlr:d for wishing [here \\I... e such things:lS rnings as righu. Me not righn. Naron! rightl;. righu is limple nonscnsc; n~lural and ~nd imprescripnble imprcM:ripnbk rightS, rights. rhetorical nonsensc-nonsimple nonsrnse: narun! rhetoric;U noru.enw-nonscnsc upon slill..... sense nilu." Bentham's point was thar exisr when a gO\'ernmenr government takes action ro fO rhar rights only exist Benrham's poinr withour the hand of some government gOI'emment body determining whar what make them exist; without form they should take, and how they should he be enforced, rights should exist, what fonn government there is nothing. Rights cannm be the ultimate protection protcction against go\'crnmem Righrs cannot [II the action against individuals simply because bccause they are tIrt' government action. In run, this line of reasoning would suggest, rights are indistinguishable from long tun, govemment privilege. Pro petry is not nOt a right that protectS protects us from government. govemmcnt. Property a government Property are 01a {wllion creafioN of government. govemment. Properry rights, like other rights, it would seem, OIre 142 /42

Open ~n Source. Sourcc, the Ellprusive Expressive Programmer, Progr.lmmet, and the rhe Problem of Property Prop'es not exist, but that they are arc not nor their own explanation; when someone deeply feels, "rhis "this is who I truly am" or when they behave according to a certain citizen;' say, or"[ definition of selfhood-"I selfhood-"' am a citizen," or~l am a businessperson trying to have their OWIl make a profit"-it's not that those claims are untrue, UntrUe, bur but that they hal'e own cannOt be taken as fuJly cultural conditions and thus cannot fully self-explanatory.) of ownership Applied to the phenomenon ofcopyright, this meant meam that a sense ofownership of one's writings or efforts, a sense of responsibility for olle's one's creative compositions, had to to be acquired historically and culturally. It was not something obvious to aU ill people at all times, as Ayn Rand might have it, but rather, as legal historian puts it, a habit acquired. ::I.cquired"much lare twentieth~much in the same way as late David Saunders PUtS cenrur), Westerners ll:lve reluctance and incapacity incapa.city to spit in public."'" century h...ve acquired ...a relucta.nce Pan of Edelman's unique contribution was to take rhe culmnl subjectthe idea of cultural rea.lm of literary analysis into a realm rea.lm where one could conStruction beyond the realm specifically see the intersection of power, culture, and the state, in the momenr moment of specifica.lly crearing capital, creating capital. later, across the Some )'ears years bter, rhe Atlantic Adantic in the Americall American academy. academy, a Critical Legal Studies-influenced law professor named Pent Peter Jaszi jaszi became interested in similar interscctions, jaszi and literary intersections, resulting in a then-unusual collaboration between Jas::l:i collaboration, a critical lithistori:ln historian Martha Woodmansee. In the wake of their collaboration. er~ture on copyright de\'eloped developed that discovered, with a kind of astonishment, the erature romantic notion of the author-genius buried away awar inside intelle(fual intellectual property law." law.'" historically a response to to the capacities of the printing press, Copyright, historica.lly ptess, is not individual book. It is about a.a text. text, about propert}' property in a physical thing such as an individua.l ...bout that is, a sequence of words or ...n an org;a.ni::l:ation organization of colors, shapes, and sOllndssoundssomething that can be reproduced across multiple nlllltiple instances, actOss across the multiple film. But for this to make sense as something copies of a book, a photograph, a filnl. thar rec· that can be owned, copyright copytight needs to be granted to something the law can recnot a copy, cop~~ something that is original, both in the sense of unique and in ognize as 1I0t the sense of having an identifiable origin. That TIlar thing which is granted a kind of property status, starus, then, then. has to be something that was not itself copied, something thar cre:lrion-from-nowhere. Beginning with primed books that h:ld had a moment of creation-from·nowhere. themselves, judges and lawyers, squ:lbbles and dilemmas, tended la\\1'Cts, faced with legal squabbles that sprang from :Ia mOment to imagine thar original thing as something moment of inspithat otiginal individual, :la genius. This, it turns mrns out, was ration inside the head of a unique individu:ll. Bentham's nor not a figure so much like Locke's yeoman farmer cultivating land or Benrham's calculating. profit-maximizing shopkeeper, but, both historically and phenotypically, it was something more like Goethe and Wordsworth's inspired romantic artist~the attist-the model for the romantic form of selfhood. sclOl0od.

145

Open SOllrce, dle Expressive Programmer. Soura:, rhe Programmer, and the Problem of Property

result, inside legal [eg;ll cases uses concerned COllcerned with decidedly unrornanric unrom;lnric topics As a;I rcsulr, genetie;lJJy altered cells from someone's spleen, dat;lbases and genetically such as computer databases c;ln find invocations invoc;lrions of something that looks very much like the shopworn one can isobted artistic genius working away 3way in a:l garret. g:lrret. literary figure of the romantic, isolared literary crirics critics and culrural cultural historians found rhis this interesting because they had The lirerary notion ofauthorship. of authorship, The TIle signature essay. essay, from frolll deconscructing rhe the very norian been busy deconsrrucdng view, was Foucault's MWhar "What Is an all Author:'" Atlthort which famously f;l1l\ously contheir point of view. dudes with the question MWhat "What matter who's who's speakingt" speaking:"'.. (Jaszi's introduction cludes to the legal leg3l 2cademy :lcademy W2S was called clllled ~Who "Who C2res Cares Who Wrore Wrote Sh2k Shakeof this notion ro espe;lret)" -Ille question has double implications. implic:ltions. On the one h2nd. hand, the quesdon qnestion speue?,/'Illae casts the common concern with specifying :luchorship inro doubt: doubr; why should castS authorship into \\'har does that teU tell us about his Shakespe:lre was 2S as 2a pefllon~ person! \Vhat it matter who Sh2kespeare matter~ But. Bm, on th~ other hand. hand, it also ;1[$0 r.lises r;lises;l2 question of works, about why they m2tter: works. ide;l of the author as 2a genius-creator genius-creatOr operates in history and society. $OCiet)', the how the ide2 what Foucault called the 2uthor-fimction. author-function. question of whu 111is to a great de.u deal of fruitful scholarship that This approach opened the door to cutting-edge humanisu hunlanisrs and ;lnd cultural critics cridcs with widl those rhose m;lrried the COncerns concerns of cuning-edge married leg;II scholars. seholus. Film scholar Jane J;lne Gaines, for example. example, published :Ia book demof legal intellectual property properry C2fl can illuminate 3n underst3ndonstraring how;ln analysis of inteUeenu1 onsmting how an :lnalysis an underStandfilms.... Law L;lW professor James Boyle ;m;lly:zed analyzed trends in copyright law using ing of films." scholus." Boy[e in panicparticinsighrs borrowed from Foucault and ;lnd other continent:U continent;ll scholars. It Boyle insights u[n to how the cre;ltion-from-nowhere ;lssumptions associated ;lssociued ular called attention ro creation-from-nowhere assumptions genius, what he called the Mauthor-ideology: "author-ideology; had with the conCept concept of authorial genius......hat soci:ll conditions of creation. cre;ltion, leading to questionable the effect of obscuring the social legal policies and obscuring various forms of collecrh'e collective culrural cultural and intellectual production. Law professor and anthropologi5t anthropologist Rosemary Coombe further elabo"double-jointedproblem, granting Boyle's point but also noting the Mdouble-joimedrated on the problem. law, the W2Y way it can go in multiple, ness" ness~ of the idea of authorship in law. multiple. sometimes unpredictable directions; ifMauthor-ideolog{ if "author-ideology" generally functions to shift power $;Iy, Disney or Time Warner. Warner, ir it also can sometimes crearion towards, over culture creation rowards. say. support, say, Native American groups trying to protect their cultural heritage." herirage." Americ:m rrying suppOrt. say. quesdons, however. however, the courrs courts While scholars were pursuing these interesting questions, ;lnd legislaturcs legisbtuteS of the United States, Sratcs, and ro to a large degree of the world, were and skeprical line of reasoning regarding private privare property. pursuing a decidedly less skeptical rhought, property relarions Under the sway of neoliberal habits of thoughr. relations were being water, to highways, to extended ever more widely-to watet. to genes, and, in the realm of intellectual properry, property, to software patents, to to business models, to ro the "look and sofrwue, to ever-longer copyright duration-and dur;ltion-and in the early e;lrly 1990S this feel" of software, W;lS generally presented as the rhe only logical logial approach. ;lppro;lch. A task force created creued by the rhe was P;lper calling for strengthening Clinton administration ;ldministr;ltiol1 in 1993 released a White \"'hire Paper Clinron 146

Opcn Source. the Expressive Prognmmu, Progr:lllllller, and [he dle Problem PmblcllI of Property Pmperry Open

digital technologies," 1994, the United inrellectual ptoperty property in the face of new digit:ll technologies." In 1994. intellectual intellectual property law an States and European nations succeeded in making intellectu:ll dement of the international system syStem of trade in the TRIPS agreement, adminelement digit3l realm re;llm was dear, clear, efficient. efficient, moral, istered by the WTO. Property in the digital powet were concerned-inevitable. concerned-incvit;lhJe. The 111C principle ofuthe of"the and-as far as those in power better" seemed inexorable. more property protection the bc:tter~ rhe other orher side of the intellectual fence. fence, it did nor not help that Critical Crirical Legal Legal On the Srudies and its fellow travelers were vague when it caIne to solmions. CririfeUow CJme to solutions. CritiStudies cal Legal Studies was generally thoughr rhought to ro be a left-wing movement movcment because bccause botb legal moderates and conservatives inside it typically crossed swords with both and because it seemed to make a;I case for fot relatively radical radic;ll changes law schools 2nd W;lS not, nOt, however. however, exactly cx3crly the activist Left of the civil in legal interpretation. It was e;lrly 196os. 1960s, which. which, following Marrin Martin Lurher Luther King. King, Jr.• Jr., rights movement of the early ide:ll of rights; rights: that earlier version of the Left Lefr its claims in terms of the ide.u couched iu th;lt the United States Stares live up ro irs its own ideals. ideals, proceeded largely by demanding that King said, every citizen's right (Q to life. life, liberty. liberty, 2nd and the pursuit th;lt it uphold, that uphold. as IGng contrast, seemed to be saying. saying, not that tim of happiness. Critial Critical Legal Srudies, Studies. in connut. standards, but thac thu it could cOllld nOI Itot live up to law was failing to live up to its own standards. standards. Yes, this also meant me:mt that those srandards. that the law could in theory be changed any irself rhe the theory did not offer any basis for deciding what ways. but by itself number of ways, rrue, moreo\'er, happent'.d (Q to the was trUe. moreover. wh;lt what had happened those changes should be. If this W;lS oflawf tht'. rule of men. men, where judges seme settle rule of law! Were we jusr just collapsing back into the views~ Had we ever even left it! it~ persOllal political views: disputes based on their own pc:r-sonal \Vh;lt was the alternative~ alternativef \V}ut So, even for irs its enthusiasts. enthusiasts, there therc was was something somcthing disheartening dishe;lrtening about the So. Critic;ll Legal Studies position. Once one had est2blished, esclhlished, ar at least to one's own Critical of the domin:mt ide3s, what nexr? Perhaps a colorsarisf;lction, the bankruptcy dominant ideas, whar nexr~ Pemaps sadsfaaion. idt'.als might be enough for those who relish the rht'. moment mOlllt'.nt fully ironic take on legal ideals But, as conservative COnservative law and economics rheorists theorists of iconoclasm for its own sake. But. OIl accuallc:ga1 aetu;ll legal decision making. for those with were wielding ever more influence on positions,;Ia list of much-disllluch-disimportant insight into the holes in the conservative positions. tenuted law professors making Ill;lkillg eleganr elegant critiques seemed cussed books and a;I few tenured jusr take r:lke :lpart aparr other people's like small comfort. If you wanted to do more dl;ln than JUSt ideu in front of your colleagues. colle:lgues, if rou you wanted to be pUt part of some 3ctll;ll acrnal positive ideas m:lde a difft'.rence, change, if you wanted to do something that ;lctu;llly actually made difference, where tum~ were you supposed to to rurn~ appe;lrance of the internet presented prest'.nted;ln In this context, the surprising appearanCe an opportunity. Pury Bulow, Wired published an essay by John Perry Barlow, which, in a In March 1994, Wirrd dismissive sweep characteristic of both, was subtitled, "Everything You Know 147

Source, the rhe Expres.sive Expressive Prgr.lmlller. Programmer, and the Problem of Property Open Source:.

about Intellectual lnrellcctual Propcny Ptoperty Is Wrong." Wtong." Here, Here. suddenly, suddenly. was something that

looked like a Critical Ctitical Legal Studies atgument argument appearing in a hip popular maga_ lmga_ zine. The resemblance, resemblance. to be sure, was mostly mosrly in the title, title. The artide, anide, about patzinc, 111e ents ems and copyright in the digital digiul realm, uked, asked, If our property an r~n be i,,~nitdy reprodllced distributed ~ll bC' infinir~ly r~produced ~nd and inltant~neously inst:anunrously disrribur~d.tll Ifour without rOlt, knowledge, without leaving our over the rh~ planet pbnet wirhout cosr, without withour our knowledge. wirhour its iu even ~ven le.tving possession ... what will ;lS5U"'" assure che the continued cre.lriOIl poss~uion." crution and distribution ofsuch of such work? ... 11le accumulatl-Q canon copyright ~Ild patelll law was developed to woal Th~ xcumularcd unon of ofcopyrighr:rnd p.1t~nr bw w;u; d~V Arendt. tnns. trans. HUT)' Br.1£e & World. World, 1968). 196'), JSJ-64. HarT)' Zohn (Harcourt, (H.1rCOUrl, Bna ~5J-64 • Arcn.:!I, 4. ,"'hile th;~ book does IOUlUl. il it is il more.t mOre a .. work of himmal imer· imc:r· docs cOlUuh colUulc SOme some primary !IOU=' wI: ofh,scoric:U ... While this pretuion chan than of original an:biv:l.l nchival ruurch. rc:surch.lhe il\lerl(Crion of scirnct ,dence and ptTt:ltion The book WOrkl works al at the imc=rion lecllnology studies, studies. policy srudies. INdies. and culNralllUdiu.It 1I1he I«hnology culrural mulics. It looks broadly ac the lOCial ronal conmucnon conmuccion of inrernet t«hnology t(Chnology while ,Iso afield than is il typical rypical for sdence technology ofintemet ilia going f,rrhu farlher .field science and t«hnology srudies culmral trends, lr~nd,.likc like romanticism, romanticism. .nd and it finds Ihe the conn«lion conneclion ooween between culcu", culmre Jtudie$ into broad culrural and technologycon.lTUClion rechnology construcrion in cerl;lin cerlain kinds kind. of law :rnd and policy formalion. formation. S. S~~ Thoma. Slrelmr, Slu~r~r. Sdli"g ,s.,ilinil Il,r lIlt Air: A Critiq"r Criti'l"r "j oj Ill< Polity "jC"",,,rr'ti.. ofCt""IIItrti~iJ B"".. BrnU Witdox pandwr based bued on research ~ du.t OY~r:>J1 conmbulion compI>!en to to producririry productiviry is undur, unde.a•. and in somc lindl. in aggn:gare. a88reple. rlx lhe 0Vft21l finds, corllriburion of computen SOl" M Mgtibk.. n~ible. Stt, See, for example. 1hom>.s Thomu K. Land..utt, Landau.".. TheTh< Troubk w;lh CompUltll' cales may be casrs m.>y T.....bk with Camplllrn: USS., n";!J (MIT Prrso. documented how, how. in rlx the b[r late nineteemh the introduction 6. Carolyn UroIyn Man/in Man';n hu has docu""'nted nineteenm century. cen[\lry. rlx introducrion of Ihe ekctric elcnoJogics could and Ind should rdarions. See N,w: Thinki"g Thinki>tg aboul Elmri. Commu"icmio" in II" Lair Nilttl~"rh Nin.I",,,h Whrn Old Ofd Y...:hnologics 7i:rlmofogi.s Wcr. Wert N..." a[,olll Elmri! Commll"irli"" i" rm Late Cr"n,,')' (Oxford Uni"rrsiry Univeuity P"'U, Press. 1990). Similarly, Brp.n Bryan Pf.affen~rgcr that"to s[\ldy smdy unw')' pWfenberger has argued ugued that"[o technologiel art: are made meaningful me.aningful is 10 sludy ~n Pff)(eUU by which new ",chnologies the proces",s is!o study Wllat what i. is arguably an indilpen.~ble component economic grow,h:and (Bry:>n Pfaffenbergcr. indispensable componem of uf ....pid rapid ""anomie growrh and developmem" (Bty.ln Pfaffenberger, -Ole Person~l Computer Revolution R~vohlli(ln the Social Soci.a.l Meaning of lhe the Personal Computer: Computer, Or, \Vhy the Personal Was No Revolution: AllIllroJXllogical Aml,rol""ogi.a' Quartrrl,61 Wu QuarterlJ 61 (J:an.1988): (Jan. IQ88), 41. See Rosenzweig.. ROJCn~w~ig. "Wiurds, ~WiurdJ. I}ure"ucrau, Warrion."nd H.ckers; 15]0-sa. tUO-S:I7. S", Bureauer.lts, Warriors, and Hackus; LiddidnanJ 8. M. Milchell MilChell Waldrop, Wildrop. Tilt The Orr"m Dn-a,n Mvttnmenr Government Printing Pri"rin& Office. 1\145), '94S). chap. eh~p. ).1. www.n.f.gov/about/historyl EnJ/m ).1. www.n.u.govhboul/hisrory/

"f,"e

\ixulll'}4s.lmnlch vbu~hI94S·h[m#chJ." J.1al. has been becll an ongoing discw.sion discullion of the limi.. Iimill of"dle of"I he linear Iinur modd"; model"; it ir USUIlV$ assumel"a perh~ps I'. 111.,e lbne hal; of!he perlups o~r1y dean clulliinuriry from bJlsindin, Sven Widm.aJm. and Nina Wonnbs,Scicrt«.I..JKUry Wormbs.Srirnu.Il,JUJlrJ Nl'SJ<J: NUIII' Hutory, Hmo? Paltry. Implieal;om Grandin. Sva1 \V'ldmalm, l'obry, '",plk""o>lS Publicnions, 1004). (Science History PubliClIrions., n. For an OVCt'View, overview. sec see Ellis EIli5 W. Hawley."'Th~ Disco~ry and Srudyof 'Corpor:>le Liberilism..Liber.aJI~m.­ 11. \v. Hawley, "The Discovery Srudy of aa 'Corporale

BUI;,,rion tho'" pauCln. inspilliion for the slarc theory, theory. whieh which rewrole rcWrol:e Ihe bu.in... history hiltory of or Ihe lradirion tradition of critical criric>lStalC rhe ltand.rd Ilandard husiness the twentieth" twentieth· mUlual imerdepcndence buliness and ~nd biggovem. big gonm· cemury Unittnsmitting or :uricuhring ~.ticul.ringideas idu. from those wim wilh power !O to chose Ihose without wilhou[ is :ocbitwd brgdy rn~r become popular popul.ar"common senj.t; however. howe""r. a", are somerimcs sometimes only a subsel power. The ideas du.t ptrappins, 33-i7. For a discussion of rhe differences !xtween Vlhorfi2n rela· i3. See Bardini, Boor>tmpping, .J tM 1M Comp"ur Co",pultr Age Ate' 16. Sec Michul A. Hil~k. Ligblning: Xrrux Business, aooo)•• aooo), ~nd Erica Schocnbrrsn", Schoenberger, 1M Codt.... C"/rur,,l Crisil ofrhr oj the Firm (Wiley. 1997). (Collins Business. nd Ero aI CnufSCI discour~1 an can hdp help us·uruknnM u,"undersTand wh:u whar is i, al a' Jim 'rake in tm Ihe enrerprise enrerpri'e lof {of usumprions concerned, hooo,.cYtt, howevtr. wi,h with thc the IIUrnW muerial dftctiviry etfec:tivi'y of digilal world]." Here I am more OOIlCC'tllCd. building a digita.! world]: Hcu unou, digir:d digital disc:oul'SCl, discourses, meir ,heir specific spec:ifK fullctiollings funClioning. ill in hislOT)~ hillory, Ih~1I rhan I am with wim Co~·. Coyne" ~pproach. approach. ..mou. ",hkh tends rend, to t~al tre~1 man:lS them as a SCt set of compcting philoaophical positiolls po,itionl (Rich~rd (Richard Coylle. Coyne. Trch· which oompctillg philosopltial Tee". no",,,,omitis," (MIT [MIT Prus, Press, 100'), 200r]. 7, 7. 15). IS). See Gary Wolf. W.mI: A Ro",~"cr Romtsed wsed on Genuan the ...... auumption rh"r ronunricism romanrirism is bc$t ,,"I undersrood t.rnu of grc:a' greal ~ WMks .nd and gre.:l' grat ~u.hon.. ~uthors. .I,,: ml"'ioll .11.3., understood in terml Friedrich Kirou.uggr.5rs, Kimer .uggurs, no< nor just jus' m:1.l rhar the rhe Gcnmon German roman.icism romanlki,m should be rcperiodiud-he repcriodizcd-he Frirdridl rud. Goethe'. Goelhe's f,,".Il:lS F"Ujl U romantic roman,ir instod inSlead of KUwiJr-bu. KlIlss,k-but dUI. Ihat, more broadly. One should underruds .... " coI.lrction roll«tion ollau of rau or a hisrorial hillorkal period. but bUI u as aa ....... wayy of / • nch~mnl.nt of ,h. enchantment World': Rom.nticism, n,tary; Brili,"]o"r,,~l oj S«i1>/OV 17 Z7 (Occ. (Dec. 1976); 1976): 495-5117. 49S-S07. Yet Weber', hrst illlerell was wu ~Iw.ys alw~ys rel.ntlessly rekndes&Jy in ,h•• Ihe empin· Sociology ¥el W.ber's firSI imeresl mpiri· al aislenc. aillence of social 5OCi~1 pm.rns. nOr responding ,uponding to 10 in.ell.ctual inreliectu~llradili"'ll: wh~f's signilicant signifir1nt aoom abour c:ll patlerns. nOI t...diriollJ: wha,'s tr.nd h. he was wu perhaps p.rhap' gropingly groJlingly lrying rrying 10 ro describe ra.h.I,han r~th.r rh.n dlscnchantment;s Ihe bro.ad broad soci.1 social crend di~nch.n.mem is th. rhe fact fan rhal rh~t in ch.c Ihal Ut an of description desv of Mind: CIIIWtJ EuoaJ< in i" Anthropology. Alllbn>plogy, PJyd';oury• Psyrhi"lry. 6. Sec c..slretrJ EssoJl •a6. E.",luti"". "nd "nJ Episle""*'v Eputemology (Chandler PTcss, PreIS, 1972). 197Z). EI'Ol.. 17. lhtodorc lhcorlore H. Nelson, Neison."Complu l"forn"'rion Processing: A File Fil. S
.imdinc/. 46. N~lson, c.."'pJl'U /...oj" sl. "7. Ibid. 41. Nelson, "KIp( Europe Hu Hali Pl~nty Plenty ofEn=p or Emrepret \eurI, BUI Ilur Too ~w Few nn~un, Inn01"~IOf [nnov~tol'5,"11K ":C,,~mill.. 4 Fdl. '$"11NF."",omi'f Feb. '9&9. 1989. 7. ~~Cindy See Cindy Sk~'cki Sk~'cki ~l et ~l .. "RUk "Risk Tak~rs; Taker.; U.s. U.S. N~II" N,,,', 011,1 m,,1 World Worlll Rrpurt. R,porf. 16J~n. 26 )~,,- 1987. 1987· Also AI~o 5C" ICC M~gnine~ COYer: "TIME Mag:azin Rilk T~kHs-F« 'I':lkcrs-F>. ~r: Rislc. cb. ,~. IS. 1981-Scie l\(e ~nd T~dmolog '9h-5Un"n Rela"rerJ Policy: B",rfill PoliC]: ,1",1 B.",ft"s B""I'~J i" Jkntjits and I'" rM Inc Nt'" Ncw W"rld WQrl,1 "/ af Libr~rJ Libr"ry a,,gical ic,,' and "n,' Econom... ECDnomir 0riK'''' Origin, / III:in,ki."Americ . "Americaa in the Technetr Tcehnerronic Age," Ale." fnl.... E"nHl'CliD rr"alions UnivC'eon (P.nrheo n. Kairys 1\)81). ll1-71. 1)7-7~. . Igh).

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See Abbue, Abbate, 1",'(',"i,,: r~r loltrrnrr, 18.. , 19· S« /m,,"OIriOig rht Inrernrl. 184. 10. Abb~rc writr:s,"On" wrices, "One of o( lhe Iht mOl' mOSI striking Ilriking chingl Ihings ~boUI the incernu inrtmer in the tht C9801 t930s w:lS wu iu ill metro mere' ao. AbNte arie o( 198s abour 1000 aooo computers h~d aceenlO the Intttnet; Inrtmer; by !he ,ht ,,"d end of oric: growth. In [he th" (all fall of 19Ss about rompu'''1'S had:Kens 10 lhe 1987 meJ' rhere were almost almos, )0,000, alld byOaobttof by Octob"'of 1989 15189 IDe the numb.... number had co IS9.000" IS9,000" (ibid~ (ibid., l" wuc Jo.ooo.and h~d grown '0 186). al. [bid.... 107. ~1.1bid UJ7. H. Robert Robere E. Kahn, K~hn, "MmlOrUJTnbut" 'Memori~1 Teibule to to llorry D·Lib M"l"zi... Maga;:i,u 9. 9, no. •• 4, www.dlib.org/ :u. B.any Leiner: ui~: D·W ~.dlih.orgI dliblaprilo)1o.. cdirori~l.IlllllJ. d!ib/apriloVQ4ed.itotUlhtm!. 1). \Villiam]. Bro:ul, Brold,"Penugon Curlling Campul'" Compurer A=: Splif in ill a~ Bid 10 lJ. Sec \V"illiam). "P"n..,gun Curbing Acnss, Global G~ Network N«worI: Split Increase I" Sccuricy; Ncw York Ti"'N. Tim". 5S(Xc. '98), AIJ. A,). Ina.""" 5o=rity: Ntw Ckt. '98J, "4. ~4· Ibid., AI)_ AIJ_ as· For ,he rhelOr1c ofklltl li.cldl, se" ICc SleUtrr. S'rcercr, Selling r81-8). 15· rhe rhetoric ofk...,l playing pbying fidds. Selli"g r"" rM Air, 181-8,. 36. For cxample. see Evrlyn Evell'n Richardl, "Scmic"nduclOr [nduSlry WanlS N~,ion Technology 'Teehnology ~6. uamplr.se( Rich~rds. "Semiconductor Industry Wanls Iniriacive,- Walhi"gr"" [nitiativr.W".hi"groll P"lI,.o Post•• o Apr. Ape. 199', '991. tli. B,. a1· S"" Sce Lo"is" Louise Krho". Kehoe:US ComputeT Chiefs co LObbl' Washinglon W~shington in B~rrl" B~rrle withJap~,," wirhJap~l1; Fi"Qn' Fi'I'I". 17· "US Compuret to Lobby ri,,1 Tim", 8June '989, '989,6. d,,1 Times, 8Jun" 6. ' RelC~rch Nerwork Con"ni«.. nCl al" a8, N~tional Nalional Rrsr.ceh Research Council (US.). (U.S,). N~rion~1 Nllional Rcsr~reh 18. NffWOtk Review R..vi"w Commiuu ~J., To"...nI Q~ N"lio",,] Natio",,1 RNC4rrb R,K
1b< oomP'l"Y w;u origin:lUy QlW Mosaic Communiaoons but "',,..·• In,d/.rMd r..tellt"",,/ ~ •...t"li,.... "nd Cm"", 1"p'fS /ndudmg Il,duJu,g KncldeJgr EJu,,,,i,,n "nd FrrtJ_ FrerJo,n (Idf published. '98J). Urt."n O,h" Other Topia K"""-kJgr.. Ed",ali""...,J (Kif publish.d, 'fil8J), ehap. chap. a. }I. 1. J8. S. a,)8, s· lbid Ibid.,.. chap. 1. }8. 6. Nelson, Nelson. TetLReporn.hrmL TecLReport1.hlml. 7. Lockc's phr:llf in.hc in the S....... Strond Tremi'r was·no was "no one oughl ought to ro hann anO{h.. another in hillif his life. hul,h. ,. Lodrou, Propcny; PropellY; Mic"i!.,,, M"hit"" Utw R",,,w (19'9'6): '"6-98. ,,,6-98. IJ. Sc. Rf III/.llm""l l.utllmual ProI~rliN: Proptrl;tS, Aurln""),ip, Au,honhip. AppropriafiQ". Appr"p,;",io", oM mid ,Ills, Rigbu. Scpt. Sepl. 1995. '995. www. lnj..."'r"'ture: "jllH' Wor.l:ing Group ell on lmellm""I, rmtllm""r, Proptrl]

usp.o.glW/ go/ com/doc/ipniil. uspm.goy!'/!l!comIdoc!ipnii!. z8.john Badow. -Ibe Economy ofldul: Framcwork for Pal.nu PalenlS and Copyrigh15 a8. John Perry Barlow.1hc of Idcu: a Framework Copyrighrs in (he Digi"'chain cwnts thar WUfO ""35 ro Iud lad to ro rhe o:hc forll'llnon fonnation of OSI bcpn brg.zn wirh the lhe publicalion publk.lion of Eric Raymond:' ell"""",,1 ,,"d 1m 8II=z. Ba:..... in 1997' 199'Raymond', plpcr paptr Tht The u.lhcJrlll and me (Ti.m.nn,"Hisrory of Ihe Open Souru Soun:. Inili.ti...,"). (TtmWln,"Huroryof m., OSII Opm lniria."..."). 41· 'ne •'UlililY funerion" Lin"'" Lin"" hlCkel'l a~ m.uirrlmng mnimiJing il iJ the th. 47.!he·· u.iliry fUncrioa' hac:Ursa.... is not noc e1~lIk.olly cbssially economic C'COnomic bul is intlngibl. ego sarishccion l1lilf:Ktion and repulllion lnlong other olher had~en. (One 11\3)' mly c.all eJ.1l m.,i. rheir inrangibk of Iheir r},.,i, own "SO rq>UuOOn. among had:tr$. (OnmparrJ 19 (Oct. (On. (999): Se".ralmore these aphorilm& refer 10 to inr...-nal intern.lll.r.I' I,a~r lilt right i",cr' more of r""",, aphorisms ....rtr .rates:·"4.1/yOIl 4-lfJO" "" .... IM righI dlliru,lr, ~llif..-.k, mltr. 49· Several ~'li"g probIe",s prablrml wiU wil/fitld yo,,: for U;lmpl~, ex1mple, a"d"tB. lol~t "" IIMl by fi"dl'''l''.. ":fiNg ji"J "",; :uld "II. '10 T.. sol"" ~" ;mrrtll'''g int=:Sfi"g 1'l\IlIItlll' problem, SllIn fry Jim""1 probl.", lhM IIjs i,uursti"g III yo,,:' pn>bk", Ihtot li"1 t" J""': so. The pire. so· piece dOd does in various vuioul w.ys ...ays adrnowlw.g
208

NOtes Chapler 6 Notes to Chapt'"

51. See Borl.nd, "Browur S~~ en.wikipcdil.orglwiki/Usage_mare_oCw.b_browscl'l. ~n.wikipcdia.orglwiki/U,age_,ha ...._oCweb_browsers. Also Al,o )oIm John Borl.nd,'Browse, Wan: High Price, BlDgs, IS Wars: Priu, Huge Hug~ Reward&: Reward.: ZDNrl ZDNet Nrwl Nf"'l & BlOIS, IS Apr. JOO), 1001, newl.Jdnel.eom/1'OO· news.%dner.oomlalOO' 151L.'-IJS1}8.hrml. 35ILaa-r18718.hrml. 51. "Hilrory of rhe OSI/O~n OSIIOpcn Source lnililti...,: 5a. See liemJ.nn, liemann,"Hillory Iniriari",," Comperitive Entupri.., Enrerprise InSfimre; [nsriwce; 8 Dec. 11l1l8, www. WWW. 5).)Jmes "Latest C,\spin Dtt..1998, S).James G.rmso, Garruso, "Laresr C:\spin from Ih. Competitiv" polilrchoo•.romlp-OOIJo.bfml. polir""hbor.com/p-oorao.hrml. H. Se. Gr.ham Ln, ".MS' BaUmer: Linux Is Cummunism; Rrgisrrr, It}ulj' 54. Sa: Graham Lea, "MS' BaUmu: Communism; lhr The Registe.,), July 1000, www. lhercgillcr.ro.ukhoool 011 )tl ml_bJilmer_linuX_is_communism/, :and and Michael rherq;isrer.ro.ukJl000/07/}l/rru_baIlmu_linua.js_rommunismJ, Mich:KI Klne]Jol, K:an~lIos. "Glles Den-CNET New,; NewI; CN.I Nr"'l, sJan. s).n. JOOS, "ewl.,net.eoml 'Gar", Taking a Seat Sat in Your [).,n-CNET CNtt Ne"~, :IOOS, n~WI.cn~r.comJ Gares-lOking"'Jrat.in.your.den/l00S-'041-3·55t4IJI.hrml. Gar",. raking-a -SC:I.t-in-t'Oll r·docnl :1001-1041...J -SS r4'll.hnnl 55· Daniel Lyons, "Sofrware: Hit Men; Me": Forbtl, JOO), """""forbes.. www.forbrl. S5· Lyo......·Softw:.. ~: Linll"', Linux', Hil F.>rbn. 14 r4 <X,. On. 1003, oomhoo)/lOh41 ,~_dLloI4link.oYI.hrml. com!aoo}/lo/r4/cuiLloI41inlcsys..hrml. Re: Competirive Competiti"e Enterprise InllilUle Blasrs mUll Open·Soun:. Euha Dyson,"FC: Dyson, "FC: Rc: Enr.rprise Insritur. Open-Sown SofIWl~; Software,; 9 56. Esfher Dcc. 1998, I99S, wwv.cpoliu:chb",.com/p-oou8.hlml. Da:. WWW.poIil«bbor.rom/p-OOlll.hrml. S7. See S. Adler,"The ElI"ca: An AnJij'sis Inlernel Pubiiationl; Lin"J! GQlCtU 57. So. AdIer,1be Swhdor Sbsbdor EIfk ~J""f Rrpert .... lilt lhe 1'Il.rllel (5q>r. (Sepr. 6r. Lrssig."An Lessig."An Infonnation Socirty: me Fret or Ftudl.l;" n.c C.,.,,\ lhr frtU'ntd .003),IOJ-4. :IOO}): rOa~4. 61. rondua.d online on On 10 M... 100S. 6:1. Se1n:h Sc:ut::b conduettd Ma•. 1008. Mud/cr,"[nfo·Communiliml Ownership and Frttr lhe rlx F"rrlrt Purun IIj l>f InW">ld tllterltet PoIiliQ, Pol'ti('l, Sutt,«:and SIm:ter and Zephyr Zeph)'T l..ml:. l>f(;o(,l, Knllllitdgr Ml>"'/r,lgr W",*....J Wl>rk oInd Ihc /be- C..urlrt Culru .... ojlllJot"-u>" l>f l"jQr",,,ul>1l (University (Univenity of 4, Prus, aOO4). 1004), 7676. Chicago Preu. Jame. CuqurmaIlOC rOI1lJntic sensibili'ies Itlllibilirie. became that the widely accessible. widtly a«essibl., Emerson, "Self-Relianc.; "Selr-RoIian,,; 160-6r. 7. Emcnon, 160-61. 8. I" U.S. Co"stinnional Constitutional law, for uamplt, cum pie, tht the Supreme Cour[ hal take" it a.axiomaric ,har ,he 8.. In Court ha..tmn IS uiomatic rtul u a medium for wide-open fl'tt ftee speech. SeeJol", Paul SI.,'(:nl, SIC"en" intemet is uniquely wcll.uiled suilen Ttrhlto!llgy. Ttcblf/>I"f]. n. ~nd Robbinl, 11. Yochai Benldcr,·Freedom Commonl-lll( Emergence ofPcer-Producrion ofPcer-Produclion as an la, Yoch~i !lenkl.r, ·Fr~dom in lhe Commons-The Alternati"" ro to Markets Hier.ln:hies, and th. rhe Ba,de Ibn Ie over ,he th., In.timrion~l In.rinnional ECOll"'lem Altern~tive Markers and J-li...rchies. BCOly.tem in Which They Compele; presented ~I at Ihe the Sympolium Cybcn:apir::llilm, School of Social \Vhi.h Th.y Compele;· paper pre.ented Symposium on Cybercapilalism, Scicnce.lnSl:itule &udy, Princtton, Princeron, N.J" NJ .. a9-:l0 19-)0 Mar. aool). lOOt). Sci~n<e. InSlilur. for Advanced Adv~nced Sltldy. t). For Forenmpk, sec "Free Ihe iPhone' Suppon WirelCli Fre.dom!" Frccdomrhtrp,llwww.fm:rheiphone.org!. I}. example. s.e the iPhone: Support Wirdts' http://www.frecthciphon•. org/.

or

210

Nores to ro Ih. rhe Conclusion NOtes

Nelson, Computer Lib. ab, 1.,. '4. Nelson. See Terry Gross,·Computer Progr:lmmer Linus Torvalds: Torv~ld. ,NPR.,· interv;ew, Fresh Frelih Air (rom from IS. S•• Gross."Computer Ptogtammer NPR; intervi.w. w, \VHYY, 44 June Jun., 1001, www.npr.org/templ~te./slory/ttory.phpIS1oryld=111:1917.ln www.npr.orgltemplates/srorylslory.phplltoryld.,ral917.[11 Ihis lhil in,e",·ie inrerview, \VHYY. Torv.lds ..,id:For said, "For a while Ir wu abour mon~y, money, and I did not no,likt fceling...• I'm TorvaldJ was concerned aboul like that th~t f••ling.... convinced ,hat rhat one of the .....sons reasons II never had to to"'re money is illhar Fiuland convince
'S.

,h.,y have a very strong social n~rwrk. network. For example. University Uuiversity WIS was buic:olly buiully !Tee, frcc, h.al,h hcahh and rhey basi",lly fTee. free. so I Come COme !Tum frOln a cullure cuhure wh.r. where rou don't ha'''' ha"e '0 to worry wQrry aboul aooUllhc care was basically you kind of don'l ,he basics oflife. lire. And I think [hink thal·s that's on. one of ,h~ ,he re:lSOns rea'onS why whr 1I was abl. able 10 ro ignor., igllore, psychologi..Uy. psychQlogic.lly, Ih. the buies

or

commercial ISpect. aspectS of oflinux. I'd grown up in a euhure culture where eomm.rcialllpccu commcrdal aspecn m:l.ybe maybe aren', nen', as al eommetcial linuz. I"d important as ,hey seem to to be in Ih. the U.S: importam thty Diaper Fal1:acy Fallacy Strikes Again; RL...irrd.) R....;rt:Uuna: exi.tence (",m~ (where i.....,m..., imag;"M] uil undetSrood undenlood '0 ro rdationship mediarcd by symbols. symbols, nor 1'101 false). mean media,ed 21. See Scc: Edward RoIhsrein."Considrring Rotbllein, ·Considering the Lue uSt Romant~ Romanrie, Ayn Rand. Rand, a' a, 100; 1hc Ycrir u, The N8 Robnt E... !LIE}. ull AldlUsJer, A1mlUKt", Louis.1Iln,0 Louis•• lE020 Amish. Amish. S9.198nS1 59. 19l!052 Anderson, ChriSlopher. Andcnon. Chrisrophn, T}6 136

AndrttSMn. Mark, 11, 1>6. TJO-'J2. '57, '68. Andrrcsscn.lo.'btk. 2'. 126. 130~13>, 151.168.

m Anticipacory pleasure, 1>], '17,')5 AnticiForr p1easutt, I}S AOt, AOL.15J,. 1T79 19

,s].

Apple Computer Computer Inc.. Inc.. 64, 80. 89, 157.IS9; Apple 64. 69. 69.110.119. 15'.159: and 1984 TV ad,s, 81.10m19; ad, S,1I1. >011129: Apple II, :rnd 6S-66, 8J, 199n61 6s--66. 8). 9}, 93- 199n60. '99060.199061 ARPA, '9->1. '9-21, 1}, '5, 49, 101, 10) 10J ARPA. >3. >5. ARPANET, 11.15, 86, 95-97, 99, 100, ARPANFr. >I, >5. 49, 49- 86,9S-91. 99. 100. 10}-106, liS 103-106,115 Articulation, 7, 88, 11', '7', 1111 181 Arrirul,rion.1. Artificial imdligence, )1-». }t-}l. SO, 59 Artilici>lintdligcnu. Artist-rebel. S« &r Romanticism. Romanticism, nbtl_hero rebel-hero Arns[-rebel. 146. &. ,,150 ~Iso Rom:rnricum, Rom,nricism, AUlhor-function, 146.S« Author-funcrion. promethe:m !irenry litel":l.ry geniu. genius promed>an Bal":l.n, Paul. Paul. ai, aI, >3 1} Baran, Bardini, Thierry. lhierry, J7, 37, 40. 40, '94n5> '94nS1 Bardini. 98. uo-u'. uo-m, '>5, 11S. 111. 1>7. Barlow.john Perry, 98. Barlow,John '47-149, '6', '6., '7' '71 '41-149, Batm procu.iog. processing. >8 18 B,uch BarC$On. Gregory. Grego')~ 53, 53. S8 58 Baltlon. Baudrilbrd,j",n,7 6 Baudrillard,Jean.76 ~a,&ic,u6 Beena, Eric. 126 BeU. Daniel. Daniel. 75 Bdl, Benig«,james, ,OOnl9 aOOnT9 Beniger.James, Benjamin, Wal,er,). \Valter.}. Benjamin.

"3 "3

Benkl.., 8enkler, Yochai, Yochai, 176 ,,6 Bentham,jeremy, Ben[harn.Je....m)'. 141-14), 14'-143, IH, '44, IH, '54, 19snS9 '95n59 Bilnet, [10 Bilnet. UO Blake. William, 61-6) Blake. William, 61-6) Bark. &.it, Robert. Robnt. 74 14 Bonoolt, P~ub, Bonoolt, Paub ••178-179 ,I1-179 Bourdieu, 8ourdKu, Pierre, PirTTc. 68 Boyle.James. '46. TS6. 16)-164, '75 8o)kJan-.I46. 156.163-164. 175 Bradner, B~. Scotl, Scon. U9. U9. 104n51, 1.04n5>. 105nl7 >osnl7 Brand. Bnnd. Stewart." Smo'1l'1.I. 4. 4. 41. 4'. H-4S. 44-4S, 46. 46. 51-H, Sl-S4. 56, 56,

sa.

S8. 79, 17' 79. 90-9'. \10-9', 171 Brandeis, Bnndei•. Louil.100nn Louis., >oonll Bush, ,08 Bush. Ge~ ~ H.W., H.W" 108 Bush, Vanne"ar: and me, ,he Bwh. V>nl1omlr: biograp/ly. biogn:pby. '4, '4, '09; 10\1; and memrx. }6-n '94nSl: modd model of .edlnalrehnomana. )6-)7.194052; logical innovarion, 74, 9s. 95. 101, .09. IogiaJ inncwation, 14-17. >4->'. 14. 10}. 10\1. 114, ISS. 11S, '75, 19Jnl1 114. "7. "1. ISS, '93IU' Businel.l-go~rnmem cooperation, Bwineu'gow:mmcn[ c:oopcno[ion. 15: '5: ambivaambiva. 118. s«..u.. Srt ,,1.0 Carpoolce Corporale lence abouc. aboul, 114, knu lI4, 12&. liNr.li.", libmllum Byron. Lord. Lord, 4S, 45, S9 59 Byron.

Ilyronk, 44, 161, "9 179 Byronic. 44, 161, By'.' 64, 8) BJIt. 64. 8) C'ge,John,S6 Cage. jonn, 56 C1illiau, Robert. Raben, 94 94 CaiUiau, 196116 C1mpbcll, Colin. Colin, 46. 46, 121. 1'7, 'g6n6 Camphcll. CareY,Jame. W.. W" 48, 48, ,6, 76, "005 lions Ca....y,Jame. Cartel ian, ~r &r O'..... DescarteS, Rrnl Cartellan. "e•• Ren': CauidY,John,106n)0 Cauidy,John, ,06n)0 Castell., Manuel. Manuel,l00nl9 Casrells. 1oon19 lhe Calhednl unhedr.1 and and Ihe the Ba>:aar" Bazaa? (Raymond). (Raymond), -n,e 1S7-llia 157-160 Caro lnifilllle, Instilute, 74 74 Ca,O Cerf, V'"cenr.lo4, Vincem.104. 129 119 Cerf; Ceruui, Paul, Paul. 94 94 Ceru22i, Cbrk.Jim, 99.1)0-131. 99, 1)0-1)', ,05n9 losn9 Clark,Jim, Clinton, Bill. IlJ. '18. ')1. 1)S, '46 '46 Clinton. Bill. 11). u8, 'l', 13S.

De 5011 Poo!, lrhiel, 78-79, 9'. 1)6 Dibbell,Julian.I')O Did.ror, [)enia, )5-36; Emydcp
Go«.Albenjr~

106-107. II}, 118: 1000 presidennal amfWgn. 114 Gore. Alben Sr.. 108 G,am.a, AnlOnio,I9Jn18 G,."y. Thoma •• '4; H"biflU. 68. Il) H1Cker ethic. 90, 169 Hackers. 5'-51, 89-91 HAl. compu"" in lOOI. 18. 6). 8,. 91

2lS

Indu

171.187: HegtliJn, 4. 51; of inleen••• ~o: and nledi1. ,89n7; againsr relwlogy. OJ. P. 34-)5

~

Compunic~tions. 75

ftmcrion Fru Sofrw1re r"Oundarion (FSF). 15', 'SS Fru .peech, 78, 110. 164; in conAkr wilh mar· kel.167; equated with free 11l1,k".1]6-137 Fre.dom. negati'" vs. po.si[ive. 182-18) I',irdman. Ted, 18\1n8 FriNman, Tho=, 1)7 From.... mctaphot. Ill. 119, 1)1

I-Iomeb,."w Compurer Club. 64. 143 Hoover, H.rberl, 14 Horkheimer, Max,]8

••

D••p pby• 4Z, '9sn5\1 Descan.s, R.ne, >IS, 58 Designing de.ign nmhod., \17-\19, 101

".

ers, l.9. 57. 67. u8, 19)n31 Compulsion [0 use computer. S.. Computer holding power

p:lign.110n3

~

Foucaulr, Michd. 146. s.. Aurhor.

Dean. Howud. '75: 1(0) Ptnid.ntial cam·

"

Folbre. N1ncy, 111017

Common StnSt. 6-7. 193nz8 Communiati.'t: "I. numeric usa of comput-

~

Riebl'. P1[rice. 1$g05

'"

Hawley. Ellis. 19)n21 H11u. Friedrich, 7J Hegel 14) H.rder.). G .. 19 Heritage Foundarion. 74 Hik:ik. Mich2c1 A. 197n.6 History. (hoo"Y of.). ,89n4: lnd ronlingency,

';, ~ ~

kctuaI proptrty; Propeny tigh",

Damton,. Robert. 60 DARPA. Set ARPA o"vin. Bmn, 11

Hall, Stuart. 88, '81 HJr.lway. Donna. 8. 19om6 Hauben, Miehacl1nd Ronda, 94, 117. IH-IS5,

" " i:!0

rion of d... lnlem«). 1I0-1I}, II~ Commodificarion, 78, 87. 167. 5« a/s In[d-

F...ling; of computer inler:lCtion. 7, 17-18. 41, 86.88,166,158; of mm~l. 86-88,93; romantic:. 45. 60. 158. Set E:.rperienc~. felt Ftfs.,n$lcln. 1..«. 64 F.minism. II. 48. 178 Fisch«. Cbud. S.• 10m21 FU.her. W"dIi2m, '4Z, ,8gn9.107n16

~ f[1

CM""IWli,," Quj"r,.,ly (eQ). 9'-9Z Col.nun. E. GJbridb.19JnZ4 CoInidgt, ~\I("I TJyIor. 39;"Kubb Khm: ~9 Com-pciv (CommtteWiurion and PrM.ti:u-

Cyberlaw. 149. 151 Cybernetics, 1\1. )1. n Sa "Iso Sys[erru science Cyberpunk. 4, S\I. 81. 11) C~e. Ill, 11)-114. 11\1, 1)1; as ronuR[ic. 114. I))

3:ri;,·

------~

1M dOJed W"rIJ (Edwards). '9. ~7 Coast, Richard H.. l00nl4

Hughu, Thomu. 16-a7, 94-9!ism. 10: n.rional. 45: romanlic, \1-10. 4S-46, 166; llfili(:lri~ll. 45. 89. 145 Inforlll1! b"guJg", 53-55. 58. \115-97. '01. 111. 110-111,17', '85. S« also Rom,ntici.m, and

pla'n language Infonn1.ion socict)\ theory of. 7'. 75-79. 91 Informa.ion ,upemighway, 108. "3. 1~)-n4, 1)1: urii«< uses of 10)n)}, :to)n44 Innovarion, r«hnological. S« technological

.ftTn.

,nlloOYUion InrdlecnW propel'"l).' U J bundle of righu. 79; chang.. in, 1601; as ...pn:uion of conrnlldicriolU of propeny in gene",l. 1)9; Jnd inform1fion wciery. 77: and TN Nelson, ')\1-140: ""oon.:. of. l89n9. 101n16. s.. "Iso Propeny rightS Jntetaetivity, c01npUl.... )I; duire for. 39. 41. 171.Srr ali" Feeling. of com pUler interaet;on 11llernalion.J Srandard. Organiulioll (ISO).

,,'

Invisible collrg~, coll"8e, n, 11. 6}, 6). 6~. 64. 10~, 101, 191nlS 191nlS ll\visibl~ Irr:l.lion.J aubc,r:,""', exuber:lnce. 117-119, 111-119. ')1-IH Ip-In lrrnionu j2!:l;i. P~ter, Peter. I~S 145 Jani, Jobs. Stev~n, Slewn. 64, 64. 69-70, 69-10, 89, 89. '69, 169. '7' 111 jobs, lUhin, Bri.n. Bri~n. 114.10)n19 U4.10)019 Kahin, K~hn. Holxrt, Roben, (0)-104 10)-104 Kahn. K...il'}'J, D.vid, David. ~oon1S loon15 Kairys. Kanl, lmn,anue!, Immanuel )8, )8. )g, )9. '4) Kant, K~p<M". MilCh. Mitch. S6, 56. 110-111 110-111 Kapor. K...y.Abn.41 K:..y, Al.:ln, 41 K~ypro. 80-81 Kaypro.80-81 KtUy. Kevin, Kevin. 91 92 Kelly, Keyna,,}ohn Maynord, MXyn>.rd. 71, 11, 7}, 13.180 Keyna,John 180 Kill", .pp, ~pp. 116 Killer Erldci, Igonlo 190nlo Kilpinen, Erkki, Kirtler. Friedrich. 46. 196nS IIl'6n5 Kittler. Friedrich, 46, KInner.An. >()In+O Kleiner. Art. 91. 91, 10'"40 Kkinrodr:::. Leon~rd.I01 K.I~inrock, Leonord, 107 Klii\~. Billy. S6 s6 Klil""r, Knowkdge "Ofkcr, 111-125. ll1-118;:as Knowledge .. "'otker, I11-11S, 117-111; all someone processing. somCOne who don d<Xs own word procasing. 114,ljO 114,1}0 b. 18g1\9; IlsIn9: for in ils own own~. sake, 8), 'S8: lS8:jUSI just L..bor, Labor. 81, g)" Social ill«luality, ine'lu~lity. 39.141. ]Il, I'll, 116 SocW. 176 Socill1y erotati..., objects. oo;«tS, 1', 187. I1tn17 SocW.Iy 1tVOC1~ 7'. 187,1111117 ofknowledg~, 5, ..6;:and 46; and changel Sociology ofknowlcdgc, manges in idul.4-6 idns,4-6 Soviel Union. colli.psc coI11pJC of. of, 11. 87, Il6, Il6. IJ7 1]1 Sovirr al. 17. Sprcl(bl\Ctl. 8.J..14. 8), 84, 85 Sprndshttt. as Sr:rUm.n, Richard, Richud, 9', ISS-S; 'SS-51 SnIlnun. Sf~nford Rr$ardt Resun:h lnwlU[e IntlitulC (SRI). (SRl)']4 &:mW 34

Roy. '9. '90nl) Rosenzweig. R.oKn~ Roy,19.lgonl)

Sf~lC,thtoryof. '9)n14 Statt.~. of,I9J1U4

Ross, AndlCw,lll1ll11 Andrew. l11nl9 Roa.

Slrlh R~ R.. 10[n19 101n19 Sedn, Sarah Sui",

Rossetto, Louis. 1:J4-u5. 114-115. 1)1 Rossnto. LouiJ. Rough consc.nsus consensus and ~nd running mele, tade, 71, 11. 95. 95, 11).174.18) 11),11". (8) 90 Rousseau,jean-j.cques. Roussuu.Jun·J