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Engelbart and Rules
+ Kari Kohn
Doug Engelbart‘s life has been discussed in many publications over the last week. One of the more interesting observations was made by Bret Victor:
Technology writers, in particular, tend to miss the point miserably, because they see everything as a technology problem. Engelbart devoted his life to a human problem, with technology falling out as part of a solution.…Engelbart had an intent, a goal, a mission. He stated it clearly and in depth. He intended to augment human intellect. He intended to boost collective intelligence and enable knowledge workers to think in powerful new ways, to collectively solve urgent global problems.…Engelbart’s vision, from the beginning, was collaborative. His vision was people working together in a shared intellectual space. His entire system was designed around that intent.
Whether or not you agree with Engelbart’s specific vision (see here for a discussion), it appears he believed that in order to speed up human progress, we must not only innovate in the space of technologies but also in the space of rules, and that their co-evolution is very important.