"As We Will Think" -- The Legacy of Ted Nelson, Original Visionary of the Web

From Nelson, As We Will Think (1972 version)

The vision of the Web in 1945

From a recent email from the Editor of The Atlantic:

In July 1945, Vannevar Bush, then the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development—the military’s R&D lab, the predecessor to DARPA—published an essay in The Atlantic that would become one of the seminal pieces of technology literature of the 20th century.

Entitled “As We May Think,” the essay laid out a vision for a new kind of relationship between human and machine. Bush introduced an idea he called the memex: a sprawling, shared store of humankind’s knowledge that could be used for social good, not destruction. In the following years, preeminent technologists—including Doug Engelbart, whose work eventually led to the invention of the mouse, the word processor, and hyperlinks; and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web—cited “As We May Think” as inspiration for their work.

The seminal re-visioning in the 1960's

It seems ironic that even the Atlantic seems to be neglecting Ted Nelson's role as an equally seminal visionary of the Web -- especially given that one of his early works was an explicit call to re-center on and realize Bush's vision, a work that plays off Bush's title as "As We Will Think."

I tweeted back to the Atlantic:

@JeffreyGoldberg Your email on "As We May Think" omitted a key link: Ted Nelson (who coined the term hypertext), wrote "As We Will Think" in 1968, bringing Bush to the attention of those you name. (I have a copy if you would like one.)

— Richard Reisman (@rreisman) November 8, 2018

Some further tweets raised the question whether that was online somewhere, and it seems to be only in The Wayback Machine (archive.org), as a 1972 version -- and a poor copy at that, missing the original figures.

It happens that I have a better copy of the 1972 version, as well as another version that is labelled as being from 1968. So I am posting scans of both versions online (links below). I include some comments on provenance and on my recent email interchange with Nelson below (both of which lead me to believe the 1968 date is correct). But first...

Why Nelson matters 

A fuller explanation of  why Nelson matters is in my post from a few years ago, Digital Camelot - The Once and Future Web of Engelbart and Nelson, but here I caption its core message:

If you care about modern culture and how technology is shaping it, this is worth thinking about -- A powerful eulogy for where the Web might have gone, and still may someday, and the friendship of the two people most responsible for envisioning the Web*  --  Ted Nelson's eulogy for his friend Doug Engelbart, as reported by John Markoff in The Times -- with Nelson's inimitable flair.

As Markoff says:

Theodor Holm Nelson, who coined the term hypertext, has been a thorn in the side of the computing establishment for more than a half century. Last week, in an encomium to his friend Douglas Engelbart, he took his critique to Shakespearean levels. It deserves a wider audience. 

Dr. Engelbart and Ted Nelson became acquaintances at the dawn of the modern computing era. They had envisioned and invented the computing that we have come to take for granted.

I first encountered both of them in 1969, and what I saw set the direction for my life's work.  Engelbart gave "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968 (and I first saw him give a follow-up the next year, and read most of his work).  Nelson dreamed of hypertext and hypermedia, and wrote papers on what he called "hypertext" in the 'mid-60s and the highly influential Whole Earth Catalog of "Computer Lib / Dream Machines" in 1974.

As Nelson laments, both received a degree of recognition, but both were marginalized. Powerful as it may be, expediency took the Web in more limiting directions.

Their ideas remain profound and forward looking. Anyone who really cares about the future of media, intellect, and culture, and how information technology can augment that, should consider their work. Just because the Web took a turn to expediency in the past does not mean it will not realize its richer potential in the future. (One hint of that is noted in the next section [of that post].) ...

Nelson's insight

Ted's iconoclastic and visionary style is apparent from the opening of his "As We Will Think" (1968 version):

Bush was right, His famous article is, however, generally misinterpreted, for it has little to do with "information retrieval" as prosecuted today, Bush rejected indexing and discussed instead new forms of interwoven documents. 

It is possible that Bush's vision will be fulfilled substantially as he saw it, and that information retrieval systems of the kinds now popular will see less use than anticipated.

As the technological base has changed, we must recast his thesis slightly, and regard Bush's "memex" as three things: the personal presentation, editing and file console; a digital feeder network for the delivery of documents in full-text digital form; and new types of documents, or hypertexts, which are especially worth receiving and sending in this manner.

In addition, we also consider a likely design for specialist hypertexts, and discuss problems of their publication. 

BEATING AROUND THE BUSH

Twenty-three years ago, in a widely acclaimed article, Vannevar Bush made certain predictions about the way we of the future would handle written information (1). We are not yet doing so. Yet the Bush article is often cited as the historical beginning, or as a technological watershed, of the field of information retrieval. It is frequently cited without interpretation (2,3). Although some commentators have said its predictions were improbable (4), in general its precepts have been ignored by acclamation...

In hindsight, it is obvious that Ted was right about Bush's vision. The memex pre-saged wonders far beyond the mundane notion of "information retrieval" as generally understood in the 1960s (even if not all of Bush, Engelbart and Nelson's visions have been embodied in the Web).

For an interesting update that theme, see this 2016 Quartz article and its reference to Werner Herzog's interview of Ted for his film Lo and Behold, and a short video of Ted expanding on what he spoke of. Both provide a nice live demos of the "parallel textface," much as shown in the above image from Ted's 1972 article. This also explains Ted's ideas of "transclusion" of elements from one work into another, as a rich kind of mashup that retains the identity of the original elements.  He explains how that can support creator rights to what is linked in, and micropayment-based payment/compensation models.* I have often heard people speculate about some of these exciting ideas, thinking they were new (and sometimes that they invented them). Few realize that Ted described all this in the '60s and '70s,

Those trying to invent this "deeply intertwingled" future might want to stand on Ted's shoulders. Ted may not have had the entrepreneurial genius of Steve Jobs, but his inventive vision is second to none.

The Atlantic might want to talk to him...

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1968? really? -- it seems yes

Nelson actually wrote previously about his ideas for hypertext (in the mid 1960s), so the exact date of this particular paper may not be of great importance, but its earliest provenance is a be a bit of a puzzle.

I recently corresponded with Ted by email, and he was intrigued by these finds -- happy to have the full 1972 version and puzzled by the "1968" version. He said he did not recall a formal publication from that date, but that he might have provided a version at the ACS Annual Meeting then.

Both papers are from my hard copy file, just as they appear in the scans now posted (with the hand annotations apparently being mine, from when I first read them). I believe I had ordered them from my company library and that the label "ACS Annual Meeting 1968" was the citation information with which I ordered that copy. (I presumed that referred to the American Chemical Society, which seemed a bit far afield, but Ted did have a wide range.) So it seemed to remain a puzzle.

However as I was drafting this post, I noticed that the 1968 version says "Twenty-three years ago..." while the 1972 version says "Twenty-seven years ago..." That would seem to be compelling evidence that my "1968" version actually was from that year.

To add more personal history, I had the pleasure of meeting with Ted in 1970 to explore assisting in an experimental hypertext implementation under Claude Kagan's direction, as part of my masters degree fellowship work at the AT&T Western Electric Research Center. That project did not materialize, but chatting with Ted about hypertext was one of the most memorable hours of my career.

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Early works by Ted Nelson from my collection

The following are items by Ted that may not to be generally available online. I collected these from 1969 onward, and plan to post scans of all them as I get time (after checking whether comparable copies are already accessible elsewhere).

• As We Will Think ("ACS Annual Meeting 1968" version
  (unable to confirm citation and date)
• As We Will Think ("Online 72 Conference Proceedings" version 
  (fuller than the scan at archive.org, includes original figures/photos)
• “Hypertext Editing System,” published by Brown University on 5/6/69 for the Spring Joint Computer Conference, 5/14-16/69
  (My first exposure to hypertext. I clicked a link and saw the future. It was at the IBM booth running on a "mid-sized" IBM 360/50 mainframe with a 2250 vector graphics workstation equipped with a light-pen. Coincidentally, I knew Andy van Dam and some of the developers from my time at Brown the years just before.)
• Short Computer Lib “$5 First Edition” ©’73, on typewriter paper hand-duplexed, 12 pages including Dream Machines flip-side.
• A File Structure for the Changing and the Indeterminate, ACM National Conference 1965
• Xanadu Draft Brochure, 27 November 1969
• Computer Decisions 9/70  -- No More Teacher’s Dirty Looks
• Hypertext Note 0-9, various dates in ‘67
• Decision/Creativity Systems dated 19 July 1970
• Hypertexts 20 Mar 70
• Getting it out of our system, in Schechter, ‘67
• A 14 December 1970 PDP10 teletype printout of Ted's “final report” for Claude Kagan of Western Electric (maybe incomplete with related fragments) -- as noted above, I met with Ted around that time to discuss assisting in this project while in my master's degree fellowship program. (I suspect this was not distributed beyond Ted, Claude, and me.)

(Copies will also be placed on Google Drive.)

---
*An innovation of my own is relevant to this use of micropayments. Micropayments have a long history of enthusiasm and failure. The problem is that micropayments add up to macropayments, resulting in the shock of a nasty surprise when the bill is presented, or the fear of such a surprise. My short answer to how to fix that is to make the micro-payments variable, including some form of volume discounts and price caps, and to provide forgiveness when the value received is not satisfactory. Details of how do that are in this recent post on my other blog: "The Case Against Micropayments" -- From Fear and Surprise to The Comfy Chair.

Historical Clarification:  I should note that my original tweet, above was imprecise in saying "bringing Bush to the attention of those you name." I gather that Engelbart arrived at the basic idea of hypertext independently, and only later became aware of Ted's work. However my understanding is the Tim Berner-Lee was influenced by Ted, as referenced in his proposal for the WWW.

Cuba's Digital Future -- Market Incentives, Resource Allocation, and FairPay as a New Path

My recent one-week People-to-People tour in Cuba presented a fascinating contrast to our market economy and suggests an interesting path forward for Cuba. I was focused mostly on what I saw of the real economy (there is not yet much of a digital economy), but on reflection, realized that Cuba's digital future could be unusually interesting. 

I began to think that the new FairPay strategy for more efficient and more customer-friendly pricing (especially for digital content and services) might fit particularly nicely with Cuba's desire to modernize and privatize its economy without giving up on its strong social values. Maybe Cuba has an opportunity to find a unique path to creating a new kind of market for user-centered media services.

Cuba's evolving real economy

What I saw of the real economy presented a sharp lesson in how essential markets are to providing incentives for productivity and efficient resource allocation. My tour program contacts presented an impressive view of how Cubans have applied socialist ideas resourcefully to develop sustainable production of food and provide strong education and medical care, but the backdrop was one of inefficiency and wasted potential.

• Most striking was the story of the owner/driver of the beautifully maintained 1950's Ford convertible serving as tourist taxi that I had a short ride in. He had been an experienced medical doctor with a specialty, who was making $80 per month (actually 80 CUCs, but close enough -- a very good salary for Cuba). Now, as as a taxi driver who owns an attractive car, he makes $80 per day! -- 20-30 times as much as he made as a medical specialist!  What a waste of education and scarce skills!
• Similar surprises were apparent under the surface in farms and food markets, the low standard of living of most of the population, and the striking decay of pre-revolution buildings and other infrastructure.
• The food markets in particular showed the contrast of government ration books and subsidized prices for a very limited selection of basic food items, combined with gradually increased acceptance of a level of black market trade in more scarce and desirable items.
• Modest efforts at allowing private development of restaurants ("paladares"), some of which were very nice, also presented a striking (but still very limited) contrast in how market incentives fuel productive enterprise.

A Q&A session with Reuters economic correspondent Marc Frank (in Cuba for over 20 years) added an interesting perspective on Raul Castro's ongoing efforts to shift toward more private enterprise and prepare Cuba to more fully participate in the world market -- now likely to accelerate with the thaw in US relations and a probable end to our trade embargo.

(Of course my understanding of the Cuban economy is quite limited -- these are just my impressions from what I saw in my one week there.)

Cuba's future digital economy

While Internet use and literacy in Cuba is low and will take time to grow, this cultural/economic climate raises the interesting idea that the new FairPay strategy for digital services might be especially relevant to development of user-centered media services for Cuban consumers. 

• A core objective of the Cuban economy has been the socialist/communist ideal of "to each according to his need," The problem has been that the "from each according to his ability" does not work well (incentives are too weak), and the combination fails to provide efficient allocation of resources. That has led toward privatization -- but with conventional pricing practices, privatization does not deliver "to each according to his need."
• FairPay creates a market solution to this problem -- not by hoping that productivity will be achieved "from each according to his ability," but by providing direct profit incentives for producers to learn what each consumer wants and what they should pay, and to produce the digital services that are desired accordingly. More like payment from each according to the value received (and willingness to pay fairly for that, to the extent able), and profit to the producer as a fair share of the actual value created. 

Consider the contrast between FairPay and conventional pricing models for digital:

• Both conventional models and FairPay seek to enable businesses to price their services in the way that realistically maximizes profits.
• Conventional models for pricing digital services, like freemium (and soft paywalls), may provide limited free services to all who want them, but support themselves by charging set prices for more advanced "premium" services. That prices the premium services out of reach of many consumers who can't justify that set price, but who would happily pay less. That is a loss to the market because digital services can be replicated at almost no cost, to serve a very wide population of consumers who would gain value from such services. Thus the value these services could bring to the wider market is wasted, as explained in my post: Beyond the Deadweight Loss of "All You Can Eat" Subscriptions.
• FairPay seeks to maximize profit by finding the right price for each consumer who finds value in a service. It does this by using an adaptive process to set win-win prices tailored to each consumer's needs: based on usage, value obtained, and ability to pay. FairPay exploits the unlimited replication of digital -- a lack of scarcity that makes rationing unnecessary. FairPay seeks to approximate an individually fair (and affordable) price for each consumer -- adapting over the life of the relationship -- to ensure that production is sustainably supported and incentivized, 
• The FairPayZone blog explains in detail how that works in a market-driven, dynamically adaptive way. FairPay is aimed at broad use in the current market-based environment of the US and most of the world. But the wondrous new economics of abundance in digital markets now makes it possible to achieve many of the ideals of socialism out of a profit-driven market-based system, in ways that are not yet widely recognized. 

So perhaps, as Cuba expands its Internet infrastructure to enable wide use, FairPay will resonate as a way to achieve its ideals of fairness in a market-driven way. Businesses can seek profits, and do so in a way that adapts to the needs (and resources) of each individual consumer. 

• For most of the world, FairPay can be viewed as adding a kinder, gentler (and smarter, more efficient) touch to the invisible hand -- what I refer to as an invisible handshake. 
• For Cuba, FairPay may be seen as adding new market drivers to a social handshake, to make it more productive and economically efficient (at least in the digital realm, and perhaps more widely).

For a full introduction to FairPay see the Overview and the sidebar on How FairPay Works at FairPayZone.com). There is also a guide to More Details (including links to a video).  (While most of my posts on FairPay are on the FairPayZone blog, this one seemed better suited to this blog.)