I remember Alan Kay writing that at Xerox Park they had the entire Whole Earth Catalog collection. I'm not sure why, but maybe to get the creativity juices flowing? He probably already stated in an interview somewhere.
But Kay had also found the Whole Earth Catalog. He first saw a copy in 1969, in Utah. "I remember thinking, 'Oh yeah, that's the right idea,'" he explained in 2004. "The same way it should be easier to do your own composting, you should have the ability to deal with complicated ideas by making models of them on the computer." For Kay, and for others at Xerox PARC, the Catalog embodied a do-it-yourself attitude, a vision of technology as a source of individual and collective transformation, and a media format—all of which could be applied to the computers on which they were working. As Kay explained, he had already begun to think of the computer as a "language machine where content was the description of things." When he saw the Catalog, it offered him a vision of how an information system might organize that content. He and others at PARC saw the Catalog as an information tool and, hence, as an analogue to the computer; at the same time, they saw it as a hyperlinked information system. In that sense, remembered Kay, "we thought of the Whole Earth Catalog as a print version of what the Internet was going to be." Kay and his colleagues in the Systems Science Laboratory paid particular attention to the Catalog's design. In the Last Whole Earth Catalog of 1971
A lot of it is inspired by the ideas of Christopher Alexander, who also inspired the notion of design patterns in software... it is an interesting rabbit hole to dive into.
> We are gods and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.
If your workplace is very strict about nudity in internet content, please be advised that the linked PDF does have some very blurry naked people on a couple of pages.
I hate having to type that, but it might save someone a talk with their boss or HR. A very slim chance, to be sure.
Hahaha I found a catalog in my parents' attic as a child, which contained an instructive article on female self-pleasure, complete with a full page nude. Also a story that began like "The sign said 'God wants you to drop acid', so Lizard ate some tabs".
Left it out on the floor, it mysteriously disappeared and parents denied knowledge of its existence. And I need to remember to look for it in the archive outside working hours
excerpt from the film recently made about Stewart, "We Are as Gods". part of the film talks about the giant clock he is building in a mountain.
https://youtu.be/pKuJBGb_pN4?si=5Y5EUw0Ecihqmopn
I thought it was cool too but then I found Brand's response to Joi Ito/Epstein to be super bizarre and inappropriate, so I started looking into him more and found a lot of info like this. From the article:
> As for politics, Markoff notes that leftists who met Brand assumed he was working with the CIA, an accusation that could be rated as indirectly to literally true, depending on the circumstances (later in life Brand would work alongside the CIA doing scenario planning). When he did take an unusual shine to someone political, as he did later in life with the environmentalist Wendell Berry and the cartoonist R. Crumb, Brand quickly turned them off. At a time when revolution gripped the country, the Whole Earth Catalog reflected his right-wing thought by omission. After one young staffer suggested ways to make the catalog more political, Stewart vetoed the notion with a surprising set of rules: “No politics, no religion, and no art.” What was left? Computers and shopping. As a futurist, he had that much right. The Whole Earth Catalog was an underground hit, and with the help of John Brockman
Readit News
https://archive.org/details/whole-earth-fall-1968/page/n1/mo...
Additional issues:
https://archive.org/search?query=whole+earth+catalog
Edit: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html
Here is a little text snippet:
But Kay had also found the Whole Earth Catalog. He first saw a copy in 1969, in Utah. "I remember thinking, 'Oh yeah, that's the right idea,'" he explained in 2004. "The same way it should be easier to do your own composting, you should have the ability to deal with complicated ideas by making models of them on the computer." For Kay, and for others at Xerox PARC, the Catalog embodied a do-it-yourself attitude, a vision of technology as a source of individual and collective transformation, and a media format—all of which could be applied to the computers on which they were working. As Kay explained, he had already begun to think of the computer as a "language machine where content was the description of things." When he saw the Catalog, it offered him a vision of how an information system might organize that content. He and others at PARC saw the Catalog as an information tool and, hence, as an analogue to the computer; at the same time, they saw it as a hyperlinked information system. In that sense, remembered Kay, "we thought of the Whole Earth Catalog as a print version of what the Internet was going to be." Kay and his colleagues in the Systems Science Laboratory paid particular attention to the Catalog's design. In the Last Whole Earth Catalog of 1971
Lots of history and related publications, too.
A lot of it is inspired by the ideas of Christopher Alexander, who also inspired the notion of design patterns in software... it is an interesting rabbit hole to dive into.
Purpose statement:
> We are gods and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.
The one at TIA is much sharper, altho still some moire.
Interesting that at wholeearth.info the earliest they show is the 1970 issue. But very sharp, photographed in color rather than a monochrome scan.
I hate having to type that, but it might save someone a talk with their boss or HR. A very slim chance, to be sure.
Left it out on the floor, it mysteriously disappeared and parents denied knowledge of its existence. And I need to remember to look for it in the archive outside working hours
I think I'd like to see how that universe turned out; what would they be doing differently in their 2023?
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/stewart-brand-whol...
> As for politics, Markoff notes that leftists who met Brand assumed he was working with the CIA, an accusation that could be rated as indirectly to literally true, depending on the circumstances (later in life Brand would work alongside the CIA doing scenario planning). When he did take an unusual shine to someone political, as he did later in life with the environmentalist Wendell Berry and the cartoonist R. Crumb, Brand quickly turned them off. At a time when revolution gripped the country, the Whole Earth Catalog reflected his right-wing thought by omission. After one young staffer suggested ways to make the catalog more political, Stewart vetoed the notion with a surprising set of rules: “No politics, no religion, and no art.” What was left? Computers and shopping. As a futurist, he had that much right. The Whole Earth Catalog was an underground hit, and with the help of John Brockman