I first got into this as a writer; all I wanted was a decent writing system that would run on a computer. Little did I realize the immensity of what that entailed, or that for some reason my work and approach would engender indignation and anger wherever I went. There is a fiction that everybody in these fields is doing something fundamentally scientific and technical, an d this fiction is usually upheld in carefully enacted mutual playlets. Trying to cut through that and say , "Let's build a home for mankind that will at last be shaped to fit man's mind, " does not seem to generate immediate warmth and welcome.
Brewster Kahle՚s talk reminded me of another basic way in which the web failed to live up to Nelson՚s dream: whereas the web and other present-day digital technologies are something of a paradise for media consumers, Ted՚s main focus was on the creator, that is, writers and thinkers. He wanted a system that would support writers and generate new forms of writing and discourse; forms that would contribute to the collective intelligence of humanity. That too doesn՚t seem to have happened. Web media seems to favor the trivial and immediate over deeply structured content.