The Dream Machine
17 May 2020 - George
So the inspiration for this website was Patrick Collison’s Website, and on it he has an awesome reading list that meshes really well with my interests. He’s gone ahead and republished the book that I’m writing about today called The Dream Machine. I found it really interesting and I think this review that was from my goodreads review of it will be a great way of kicking things off on this blog.
This is a brilliant biography of J.C.R. Licklider, as well as personal computing and networking which has shaped the lives of our generation in every aspect.
This book hit me in the process of writing my honours thesis, I am working with technologies that the characters so clairvoyantly dreamed of and then made real. Every time a new technology is introduced as an idea floating around somewhere in Cambridge MA or the nascent Bay Area it makes you gasp at the ingenuity, and the hard work, context and machinations that made them into realities gives you a new appreciation for these technologies.
This is also pertinent personally as I am trying explore and understand alternative views on economics and politics than the comfortable and safe university left. For some reason I’ve been noticing a lot of people, most smart tech people on twitter and other social media, are very vigorous about Austrian economics. When you look at the utter impossibility of the information revolution happening without a whole lot of government intervention, it really shines light on how that view lacks nuance and foresight for undetermined possibilities and paradigm shifts.
This segues really well into the other book I’m reading (to get some ideas for my Management assignment) called How Will You Measure Your Life by Christian Christensen, who came up with the idea of disruptive innovation in the 90s inspired by many events of this book. He describes his innovator’s dilemma is that doing the right thing on the margins, as we are taught in microeconomics are responsible for many incumbents overlooking disruptive upstarts and their subsequent demise.