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Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Re: Just the facts.


Straight, clear and to the point.  So the real question is Why hasn't it
happened?  For that, we seem to persue a course of constant technical re-
finements resulting in a set of tools of great elegance and beauty that
the public at large, if they notice at all, step over with mild irratation
on their way to more of doing it the hard way.    (01)

I'm sure you have all heard of the expression of "the blind leading the
blind"  It seems to me that Doug has an even more frustrating task,
namely being clear of vision but short of voice.  More like "the blind
leading the mute"!!    (02)

What we need is a breakthrough.  There is some insight into human nature
that we are missing.  THAT is where we must look.  The way it is now we
stand around and ask "When all the Temple is prepared within, why waits
the weary worshipper outside?"    (03)

GER qeds    (04)

Jack Park wrote:
> Peter,
> 
> I don't think your solution scales well.  Otherwise, it would make sense 
> to plaster images of scantily clad people into the many instructivist 
> lectures going on everywhere as well. (Snickers going on in the 
> background, even though Peter's wasn't a serious suggestion).
> 
> My own reaction to the profoundly instructivist, just-in-case lectures 
> of high school was to allow that mysterious "inner voice" take reign.  
> At the time, I dreamt of building an airplane. Whilst in college, I did 
> just that. Dropped out of college and flew my bird until I eventually 
> crashed it.
> 
> One of the things I got from the StoryCon convention I attended 
> (http://www.storycon.org) was the notion that the inner voice is quite 
> responsive to story telling, particularly as discussed by Stephen 
> Denning (_The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in 
> Knowledge-Era Organizations_).  This, I think, roams around in the space 
> of musings about how good ideas pop out of one's subconscious.  Perhaps 
> one of the most lucid discussions about this is found in David 
> Gelernter's book _The Muse In The Machine_.
> 
> My view of Dr. Engelbart's story is quite clear, my interpretation is a 
> simple one. There is a profound opportunity to exploit the interplay 
> between humans (plural) and tools (also plural) to create a space he 
> calls a "capabilities improvement infrastructure."  The interplay of 
> many people in that infrastructure, when taken to the Web, opens the 
> door to what he calls a "networked improvement community." Nothing, I 
> think, could be more obvious or much simpler.  The awsome reality (I 
> think) behind that is that Engelbart was showing how to do just that  in 
> the sixties, long before the Web existed.
> 
> Jack
> 
> At 12:00 PM 10/6/2002 +0100, Peter Jones wrote:
> 
>> It's hard to know where the dividing line is though. For example, I 
>> know that
>> every good idea I've ever had has just leapt out of my subconscious - 
>> or out of
>> nowhere, if you like, since the source is not really amenable to 
>> scientific
>> investigation at this time. So the kudos has to be in knowing/seeing 
>> which ideas
>> are healthy, and working to promote them in the world through action.
>> However, the type of action chosen to promote those ideas is also 
>> crucial. It is
>> easy to take a good idea, and subject folks to it mercilessly like a 
>> mad tyrant.
>> Inevitably people will rebel against the actions _and_ the idea.
>> One of Jack Park's themes is that the orthodox school system tends to 
>> take this
>> approach to learning - so many children just end up as big bags of 
>> resentment
>> with no conceptual centeredness.
>> So it's almost as though one has to publicise ideas without pushing - 
>> make those
>> ideas tempting in themselves.
>>
>> Unfortunately there are all sorts of problems with ideas being tempting.
>> It is possible to make ideas tempting in a way that bears no relation 
>> to their
>> intrinsic rational value by weighting their popularity in respect of 
>> some basic
>> human desire and waiting for the herd instinct to kick in.
>> Or, as advertisers do these days, simply visually associate an idea with
>> something shiny/sexy/funny and wait.
>>
>> Welcome to the meme wars.
>>
>> In light of this it now seems clear to me that Dr. Engelbart needs to 
>> plaster
>> his papers with more pictures of scantily-clad models.
>> <sigh>
>>
>> -- 
>> Peter
> 
> 
> 
>     (05)