Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I saw an article that Mary Eisenhart wrote, I think, in a local
computer newspaper (Computer Currents?) and joined in August, 1985,
about four months after it started. Kevin Kelly, then editor of Whole
Earth Review, found me on the WELL and kept trying to get me to write
articles, but as I was trying to make a living as a writer, I couldn't
afford to spend days writing an article for $250, which is what WER
paid. He would come by my house -- I live about 5 minutes from the old
Whole Earth offices -- and provoke some kind of argument, then he would
say "write down what you just said and I'll pay you $250." That's
where the "virtual communities" article (Winter 1987) came from. I did
a guest editor engagement with Terence McKenna. When Kevin took a leave
from WER to write his book, "Out of Control," he invited me to take
over for him temporarily. But one year turned into four. 
  

    

Hi Howard!

I never knew that you were associated with IONS.  Was that the house 
on Washington St that housed SF/Moscow teleport?  
Someone there told me they'd saved Gorbachev during the 1991 coup by
allowing him to get his email while he was house arrested. 

Pretty heady stuff.

   
  

    
The house on Washington St was one of Joe Alioto's son's  houses that
IONS rented for a time. Boy that's a whole nother story. Willis Harman
was a trip. Yes, they were involved with the whole Esalen-Gorbachev
thing that was a precursor to Glasnost and Perestroika that led to the
collapse of the USSR. Henry Dakin also hosted several Russian psychics.
I learned Wordstart at Henry's place on California Street. He put me
in a room with a woman who spoke no English, but hey, she was psychic!
We had a stapled-together Wordstar manual. The machine was a Morrow
Designs job with eight-inch floppy disks. They also had an
acoustic-coupled modem at about 200 baud that connected to EIES, which
is where Stewart Brand met Kevin and got the idea for what became the
WELL.
  

    
Gee, I guess nobody thinks while they are doing it that fun stuff like
messing around with a CP/M machine in an empty hot tub will become a
geezer story 30 years later.
  

    

Ah, thanks for the clarification.  The teleport deal was on Sacramento St, now
that I've got my bearings dialled in. 
  

    

Howard, I'm glad you mentioned the story of Doug Englebart in the palm thatched 
radar hut, reading Vannevar Bush during WWII.  I've been a bit perturbed recently
thinking about the policy in Yemen that allows "signature" strikes by drones
against human targets.  "Signature" in this case means that targets are identified
by patterns of behavior rather than an identification of a known individual.  
We're handing a lot of control and trust to machines with this decision,
but that isn't out of character for us.  So, I'm hopeful that somewhere a UAV 
tech will read your book, and look at her panel of screens and think "if we
can use this tech for blowing up a guy at a desert crossroads based on everything
we know, we could also use it for..."
  

    
I suppose it's off topic, but could you say more about the
Esalen/Gorbachev/IONS connection? Were you involved?
  

    
I was not involved in that except for learning Wordstar with the
Russian psychic. IONS was doing work about extended human potential and
Michael Murphy, Esalen founder, was part of that. Henry Dakin, who had
the Sacramento Street place (in the same building as the old Apple
Multimedia Lab). By making connections with social networks of psychic
researchers and others who were working on extending human potential,
the Esalen folks connected with Gorbachev and other reformers long
before he came to power. That group came out for meetings at Esalen.
That's what I know about.
  

    
henry dakin was -such- a lovely man (i met him and worked with him when i
was doing all that stopthespray environmental advocacy).
  

    
Howard, could you tell something more about the influence of Zen
Buddhism on your thinking and on culture in and around Silicon Valley?
Who were the major people "spreading the word", and is the influence
important & lasting, or rather a fad? 
  

    
I've been more influenced by mindfulness meditation of the Theravada
tradition -- the kind taught by Thich Naht Hanh. Especially the
business about awareness of the breath as a tool for developing
mindfulness. 

I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and before there was PBS there was "the
educational station" that was run by Arizona State University. I
remember turning the dial (before remote controls) and coming across
this really un-television-like scene of an older American man in a
kimono sitting in a completely empty room,not moving. THen he slowly
and carefully reached for a cup of tea. It was Alan Watts. I went to
the bookstore the next day and bought one of his books. On the same
shelf was the Tao te Ching, which has been a cherished book ever since.
When laying out the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, I put several
translations of the Tao te Ching on the next page.

I really don't know a lot about the influence of Zen on culture in
Silicon Valley. There was some talk of Zen in Walter Isaacson's
biography of Steve Jobs. But Buddhist practice is so pervasive and
multifaceted in this area that it certainly can't be seen as a fad.
  

    
>I couldn't afford to spend days writing an article for $250, which is
what WER paid.

How times have changed. That's about $250 more than the Huffington
Post pays. 
  

    
Interesting parallel to Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice

Howard, you mentioned in #12 

>>Focus for 20-30 minutes on one task, and then switch to
multitasking. 

>>>There are instances in which multi-tasking gives us a systems view,
a
way of perceiving connections, that focused attention does not
provide.

Many people think of meditation as some kind of tuning out of sensory
phenomena, like a meditation on deep space. In the Tibetan Buddhism I
study, we are taught that there are two types of meditation –
concentrative and analytical. Shamatha and Vipassana. Both are
important and essential.

Reflecting on insights or teachings on the “nature of reality” is a
form of analytical meditation. Thinking about things, perhaps
ruminating, opening interesting links, seeing patterns and
correspondences. This would correspond to systemic view or
multitasking. 

The Tibetan teachings say that once we find a suitable object of
focus, we apply our mind to that object, we move into focus or
concentration.

These are good ways to use the power of the mind realized by
meditators for many centuries. They are fully relevant today in our
modern culture. Through training our minds we get used to these ways of
thinking. The Tibetan word for meditation is "Gom"; translated meaning
"getting used to it".
  

    
There is a theme from all the early pioneers in their disappointment
that the Web has not developed as they had envisioned and/or hoped. You
have always had a positive approach to making headway in the medium.
Do you think there is something unique in social media (networking,
collaboration, cooperation) that may allow small numbers of net smart
people to make greater gains toward those early visions; and perhaps
even new ones?
  

    
... just now tuning in 

<27> yes. ±. (i can relate the story, another time.)

<35> i imagine thich nhat hanh's apt neologism for an otherwise
tech-sounding phrase in buddhism might have served a good influence :
interbeing.  i recall just before i first crossed the internet thresh
hold [ funny how we use spatial metaphors ], my having read two seminal
quotes : [1] attributed to the buddha, comparing the nature of reality
to a web or net *, and [2] your saying ± that when i'd go online it
would be as if i'd be plugging my hard dive up to to all the other hard
drives plugged in to the net.  

______________________________________
*
As a net is made up of a series of ties,
so everything in this world is connected
by a series of ties. If anyone thinks
that the mesh of a net is an independent,
isolated thing, he or she is mistaken.
It is called "a net" because it is made up of
a series of interconnected meshes -----
and each mesh has its place and responsibility
in relation to all the other meshes.

btw, thich nhat hanh's updated his motto 'breathe, you are alive': 

breathe, 
you are online

.:. 

 
  

    
Which makes me wonder: does the net - I mean the internet - lead us to
new forms of spirituality, of awareness? 

Ted Newcomb asks, referring to the visions of the early net pioneers
<39>: "Do you think there is something unique in social media
(networking, collaboration, cooperation) that may allow small numbers
of net smart people to make greater gains toward those early visions;
and perhaps even new ones?" 

In Natural Born Cyborgs Andy Clark says: "We cannot see ourselves
aright until we see ourselves as nature’s very own cyborgs: cognitive
hybrids who repeatedly occupy regions of design space radically
different from those of our biological forbears."
(http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/clark/clark_index.html)

Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine (and an expert in not only
digital but also Asian culture), talks about the technium to designate
the greater, global, massively interconnected system of technology
vibrating around us. 

The issues raised by Ted, Andy and Kevin make me wonder whether there
is an implicit consciousness, spirituality, awareness (not sure how to
call it) in the making which is related to the emergent net
technologies - eventually a hybrid form derived from (much) older
religions and philosophies. 
  

    
I think we have seen renaissance after renaissance in collaborative
tools, practices, and norms, Ted. Literacy of cooperation is a closely
related issue. I touch on it in Net Smart, but most of my work with an
interdisciplinary study of cooperation was done with Institute for the
Future. We compiled resources at http://cooperationcommons.com

Thanks for that net analogy, Gary.
  

    
While we're talking about the Bay Area as an incubator of digital
culture, a couple other aspects of that scene come to mind, wondering
to what extent you've touched them, or been touched by them.

One is Donna Haraway's cyborg theory. Another is Mondo 2000 and the
interesting scene that emerged around that publication - combining high
fasion, emerging technology, and "high frontiers." Then there's the
game and VR scene - I assume you have at least some connection with
gaming via our friend Justin Hall. Were any of these part of your
scene? 
  

    
Well, I hung out at the Mondo house a couple of times when R.U. and
Allison were throwing parties, and I published in Mondo 2000. Wired was
the next step after Whole Earth and Mondo -- Fred Turner's book, "From
Counterculture to Cyberculture" does a good job describing that. I did
not deal with cyborg theory in Net Smart, but I am writing a short
book for TED, which plans to come out with short e-books, about cyborg
literacy -- about what we need to know to not just thrive, but to use
digital media to make ourselves smarter. It's more of an Engelbart
augmentation approach than a Kurzweil transhumanist approach. I contend
that we are human precisely because we co-evolve with our
technologies, in particular with our communication media, and that the
bioevolutionary and cultural evolutionary benefit is enhanced scope and
lower barriers to collective action of all kinds. I'm not much of a
gamer, but Justin shows me the state of the art once in a while. I
played Bioshock very briefly -- truly games have definitely become an
artistic genre.
  

    
Howard, just to bring back a question from your book-- there's a lot of 
media chatter and talk (esp. among marketing types and academics) about 
the digital native-- ie, kids born into the age of social media and hte  
iphone)  My son,  for example, age 3.5, is a little surprised when he 
can't see his grandmother on the phone (via facetime or skype) vs. regular 
audio phone.  Meanwhile, my 96 year old grandfather in law, who checks his 
facebook everyday, can't seem to understand that the conversations on 
my wall are not all directed to him, even though he can read them.

As I read your book, I think I hear you saying that the digital 
native has a disadvantage vs. a digital immigrant (ie, the older set) 
because its harder for them to think outside of the box.  The technology 
comes easier, but the critical thinking comes harder.

Do I have that right? And what can we do to level the playing field?
  

    
First, I would suggest that generational cohort is a less powerful
dimension to generalize about than we've been led to believe. The
educational level of parents, for example, has a strong correlation
with the probability that a young person will know how to do elementary
credibility checking on information they find online. In my experience
with college students, there are always 1 or 2 in every class who know
more than I do -- I've learned to identify them and talk to them
before the course starts, so I can incorporate what I learn from them
-- but that a surprising number of young people don't know much about
blogging. Some of them have blogs but don't understand wiki
collaboration. Few of them have heard of RSS. So there seems to be a
range of literacies in regard how to use digital media. They Facebook a
lot. Some of them are gamers or participate in interest-based
communities. Most of them can compose a text message with one hand
without looking. But this doesn't mean they all know how to use a blog
to advocate, a wiki to organize, a persistent search to track a topic.
Think about alphabetic literacy. Why not just cut students loose as
soon as they can read and write? It turns out that mastery of grammar,
rhetoric, composition can require years more learning.

Critical thinking comes hard because it's not culturally reinforced. I
don't know at all how to break through cultural resistance, but
questioning authority used to be reserved for people who were willing
to be singled out as pains in the ass or subversives. Online, knowledge
of how to question the authority of claims and claimants is a survival
skill. Along with others, I maintain a wiki of resources for teaching
critical thinking: http://critical-thinking.iste.wikispaces.net/
  

    
Hmmm... I'm not sure I know how to use a wiki to organize! 

 (I mean I know  how to contribute to wikipedia, and have started a couple 
of wikis, but  have always found them pretty cumbersome, compared to other 
tools (Google  doc spreadsheet, collaborative blog, email group via Yahoo 
or google, or just plain dropbox are my tools of collaborative choice)

What do you find so compelling about the wiki as a tool?

Which leads me to my next question...

There's an old saying that when you are a carpenter, every problem looks 
like a nail.  Ie, you use the tools you have to both solve and perceive 
the problems you have.

In the digital world, it seems like new tools are being invented every 
day.  Some, like facebook, or twitter, or wordpress,  seem like they will 
be with us for a while.  Some are getting obsolete, (sliderules anyone?) 
and some are yet to be discovered.  And even the ones we have are getting 
radically different or complicated and tough to keep up with (facebook's 
timeline)

What should we be looking for when we evaluate digital tools?
  

    

This discussion is so valuable to me. I tutor mostly middle schoolers and
the most important issues I address are critical thinking and organization.

The tools born in one's hands are easiest to use thoughtlessly, as once
again became clear during a discussion about yeast for bread and beer and
also yogurt culture. I buy both and don't know a thing about them.

Most of my students don't have much curiosity about how information comes to
their hand nor how to evaluate it, but they are insatiable for it.
  

    
Commoncraft does a good job explaining how wikis work for organizing
-- they use a group of friends organizing a camping trip, but it would
work for a political demonstration:
http://www.commoncraft.com/video/wikis

Wikis are extraordinarily easy to use -- that's why they were
invented. But I've found that my students face a kind of mental hurdle
-- they are reluctant to edit each other's work. Once they get past
that, they understand the power of self election -- if everyone picks
some small part of the task that they want to work on, without going
through some managerial process to assign tasks, then a lot can get
done. We're using a wiki for the peeragogy project -- a group of people
from around the world who didn't know each other before are
self-organizing a handbook for self-learners: 
http://socialmediaclassroom.com/host/peeragogy

The ability to edit a page, check versions against each other, view
revision histories, revert to previous versions, instantly create new
linked web pages on the fly makes wikis a good tool for emergent
organization with ageographically distributed groups. 

For dealing with middle schoolers, take a look at the video I posted
above. Going through some of the bogus websites that are available
these days is a good start. I have a larger collection of bogus sites
and crap detection information, tools, at
http://delicious.com/hrheingold/crap_detection

A very good question about evaluating digital tools. I suppose the
first question to ask is whether this tool does something uniquely well
that other tools don't do. Is it easy to use? Is it generative -- can
users create a wide variety of new objects? Does it enhance social
connection? 
  

    
I used wikis for organizing various groups for a few years, and I
found that in every group there were one or more persons who just
couldn't adapt to the wiki environment. I came to understand the reason
for this: the wiki environment is relatively unstructured, and the
users have to structure it and maintain that structure. Many people can
accept the lack of structure and get that they have to build it as
they go, but a few just can't handle initially-flat architecture. They
want a form, not a blank page. I started calling this wiki syndrome. It
could be a show-stopper if you couldn't get someone crucial to the
work to adapt.

I don't think it's the blankness that was the problem so much as the
blankness in context. The same people who might have a problem using a
wiki can handle a Google doc, because the blank page in a word
processing framework makes sense to them - they have some experience
creating a structure within that context.

In fact the reason I don't use wikis much anymore is that we can do
much the same sort of collaborative editing within Google Docs; also,
we use Basecamp a lot, and Basecamp has Writeboards, which are based on
wikis.

I was the first beta tester for SocialText, which created a wiki-based
system for enterprise collaboration, and I noted that as their project
evolved it became more structured and less wiki-like.