Ted Nelson's Computer Paradigm, Expressed as One-Liners

Transcopyright 1999 Ted Nelson. Please quote on the Web only by using transquotation strings (TQstrings), which will soon be available for this page. TedCompOneLiners 99.01.29 ( d5) To Ted Nelson Home Page The Dream Today's Computer World (miscellaneous remarks) This can't go on. I believe we have reached the event horizon of complication and crap (craplexity). The present paradigm is in for a big fall. That is my hope and the center of my effort. People ask me, "Ted, what's the difference between 'word processing' and 'desktop publishing'?" How the hell should I know? These are marketing terms, referring to packages set up for reasons that have nothing to do with conceptual sense or the user's good. 0. THE HUGE SILLY CONTROVERSY-- Macintosh Versus PC The Lies of "Computer Basics" They tell you that files are hierarchical; that the basic programs are word processing, database and spreadsheet; that you must use "applicatons"; and that you must butcher and shoehorn what you really want to do into hierarchical files for use with "specific applications". Actually these are half-lies. They describe the computer world as it is, but not as it can and should be. The Myth of "Technology" A frying-pan is technology. All human artifacts are technology. But beware anybody who uses this term. Like "maturity" and "reality" and "progress", the word "technology" has an agenda for your behavior: usually what is being referred to as "technology" is something that somebody wants you to submit to. "Technology" often implicitly refers to something you are expected to turn over to "the guys who understand it." This is actually almost always a political move. Somebody wants you to give certain things to them to design and decide. Perhaps you should, but perhaps not. This applies especially to "media". I have always considered designing the media of tomorrow to be an art form (though an art form especially troubled by the politics of standardization). Someone like Prof. Negroponte of MIT, with whom I have long had a good-natured feud, wants to position the design of digital media as "technology. That would make it implicitly beyond the comprehension of citizens or ordinary corporation presidents, therefore to be left to the "technologists"-- like you-know-who. I believe the principal issues of media design are vital for tomorrow's understanding, freedom and survival, and should be a matter for public understanding and debate, not merely the decisions of the XML committee, corporate startups or Ph.D. candidates trying to do flashy new stuff, or glitzy fund-raisers. Hypertext is not technology but Literature. Literature is the information that we package and safe (first just books and newspapes and magazines, now movies and recordings and CD-ROMs and what-all). The design of tomorrow's literature determines what the human race will be able to keep track of and understand. These are not issues to be left to "technologists". The Myth of "Information" "Information", referred to as a commodity, is a myth. Information always comes in packages (media bundles, called "documents" (and sometimes "titles")), and every such package has a point of view. Even a database has a point of view. If a document or a database doesn't seem to have a point of view, that's like meeting a person who doesn't seem to have an accent. The person, or the document, has the same accent or or point of view that you do, so it's invisible. The Myth of "Logical Thinking" Users are told that learning to use computers is "learning to be logical". This is nonsense. You are learning to think like the guy who is conning you, though he probably does not realize it.. "Logic" (deductive logic) is an intricate game of figuring out what you've already said; it is virtually useless in everyday life, where deduction from explicitly stated premises almost never occurs. So when you're praised for "logical thinking", it means you've absorbed a paradigm and can now step through it like the person who is praising you. 2. THE EVILS Intelligent Gadgets, Intelligent Clothing, Intelligent Chewing Gum, etc. "Virtual Reality"-- a contradictory term The term "virtual reality" was coined by a Frenchman in the nineteen-thirties, I believe, but popularized by Jaron Lanier and others. It has several problems: "Intelligent Agents"-- yeah, sure 3. THE MISUNDERSTANDINGS TWO CHEERS FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB