“Xanadu Hypertext Documents” architecture and data structures, 2019 edition
I spent a few years trying to build a Xanadu-two-way-hyperlinks-but-with-Javascript kind of a thing and I eventually started to wonder, like, if you watch a lot of Ted&#x27;s videos he&#x27;s got this idea of a kind of potential for what computers could be like-- he often makes reference to this experience he had as a kid that motivated his work-- it kind of seems to me that with what&#x27;s possible today you could make something that goes far beyond either World Wide Web or Xanadu or anything really conceived yet-- something so fluid and adaptable and humane that it becomes an real extension of the fluid way we think with all of the advantages that come from it being a, &quot;computer interface&quot; (ability to recall past states, discrete calculation, ect)<p>The real question is-- given the enormous economic potential for the creation of, &quot;next generation&quot; computers why isn&#x27;t that we can&#x27;t create groups like SRI, Xerox PARC, ARPA (..) in the modern age to create modern, &quot;Engelbartesque&quot; problem solving machines? Why is it that people like Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbar have issues having their ideas realized when by comparison every dogshit computer company in the world has had a metaphorical step up to plate in terms of potential for investment in broad horizon R&amp;D projects? Apple has enough money to, &quot;Manhattan Project&quot; big breakthroughs (so does Google, Microsoft, Meta...) so why don&#x27;t they? What holds back, &quot;real&quot; innovation? Why the hell can&#x27;t I buy a Apple Nelson-Engelbartron at Wal-Mart? What gives Tim Cook?<p>It seems like whatever kind of, &quot;held Xanadu back&quot; is the same thing that held back the Engelbart stuff which held back the Alan Kay&#x2F;Dan Ingalls Scratchland&#x2F;E-Toys stuff which relatedly holds back the Seymour Papert&#x2F;LOGO stuff. It seems like neoliberalism creates a kind of, &quot;censorship by appeal to market forces&quot; where there&#x27;s so much demand for, &quot;meh&quot; (simulations of paper documents&#x2F;office processes and video games which didn&#x27;t exist commercially until the passing of the Mansfield Amendment; neat coincidence) that, &quot;big ideas&quot; aren&#x27;t able to catch on in the nascent culture. If you look at this historically it&#x27;s really rather unexceptional-- it&#x27;s generally a small percentage of the total population that is, &quot;highly literate&quot; and this doesn&#x27;t seem to be any different in the age of personal computers despite the lofty ideals that surround open source and the World Wide Web. Until you can build an, &quot;adult Dynabook&quot; which solves social inequality it seems like it&#x27;s going to stay the same. Panem et circenses.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bread_and_circuses" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bread_and_circuses</a><p>&quot;You program computers for a living and you think this is the best design for universal problem solving machines? Do you have no imagination? No grasp of the history of these machines?!&quot;