[13]                Creating the Broadsides for Our Day
                       Conversations on Early Usenet
                                      by Ronda Hauben
                                         ronda@panix.com

[Editor's Note: The following is part of a longer article that will be 
serialized in the next few issues of the newsletter.] 

     "Democracy requires a vigorous exchange of ideas and 
     opinions....Newspapers might have served as extensions of the town 
     meeting. Instead they embraced a misguided ideal of objectivity and 
     defined their goal as the circulation of reliable information the kind 
     of information, that is, that tends not to promote debate but to 
     circumvent it."          Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites

     "Forms grow out of principles and operate to continue the principles 
     they grow from."         Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

     "They've shown me clearly that electronic communication will change 
     the shape of our world, and that we'll see its effects in our 
     lifetime."               Richard Brodie, Post 5/10/81, sf-lovers list


I - Joining Usenet
     In August 1981, the message "Hello Usenet" was broadcast to the sites 
then on the Usenet network. With this introduction, the Department of 
Computer Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) 
in Cleveland, Ohio, joined the online network of computer sites that were 
exploring the potential of online communication. The introductory message 
proclaimed: "We would like to announce our connection to Usenet." After 
describing Case Western University and the computer facilities of the 
Computer Engineering and Science Department, the message explained that 
once the department got an auto-dialer modem, "We would be interested in 
increasing the number of nodes we communicate with, and would like to take 
a more active part in Usenet communication."

     When CWRU connected to Usenet, there were already over 70 sites 
connected via both hard links and telephone lines so computer users at 
those sites could share news and views with each other via this new form of 
computer facilitated communication.(1)

     Usenet was begun in Fall 1979 through the efforts of graduate students 
Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis at Duke University, in Durham North Carolina, 
and Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina 
in Chapel Hill. The original vision that gave birth to Usenet was of a 
computer network linking together computer users working with the Unix 
operating system at University and research sites. Unix was a programming 
environment created by research programmers in 1969 at Bell Labs. By the 
mid 1970s, university and research sites learned of this powerful computer 
programming environment and were able to get copies from Bell Labs to use 
at their sites. Unix, however, came with little documentation and no 
promise of technical support. During this period, a Unix users group 
developed with members at various academic and research sites which came to 
be called Usenix. By 1979 Usenix was having semi annual meetings to make it 
possible for users to share their problems and their accomplishments. The 
graduate students who created Usenet had hoped that it would become an 
electronic newsletter linking the various Unix sites so they could maintain 
communication in between Usenix meetings.

     In summer of 1980, a graduate student, Mark Horton, brought his site 
at the University of California in Berkeley onto Usenet. He began to send 
some of the discussion groups that were available as mailing lists on the 
ARPANET, onto Usenet. Through a gradual process, those on Usenet also began 
to be able to post and to contribute to these mailing lists.(2)

     In a post on Usenet dated Dec. 31, 1981, Mark Horton lists the various 
sites on Usenet.(3) A large number of these sites were university computer 
science departments or computer centers. Others were various AT&T Bell Labs 
research sites around the U.S., or research departments of computer related 
companies like Microsoft, Intel, Digital Equipment Corporation, Tektronics, 
etc.

     During this early period, Usenet was distributed without charge by the 
cooperative efforts of those at the participating sites. Several posts on 
Usenet explained Usenet was considered as a form of network newsletter. 
There were different subject areas that were discussed as part of a variety 
of topical newsgroups. There were newsgroups to discuss Unix, like FA.unix-
wizards, other computer related categories, like FA.micro, newsgroups about 
the Usenet network itself, like NET.news, NET.general, NET.misc. And there 
were newsgroups on a wide ranging set of other interests like NET.foods, 
NET.space, NET.rec.birds, etc.(4)

     Reviewing the posts on Usenet during this early period (1981 82) helps 
to identify the principles that shaped its early development. A post on 
Usenet from the early 1980s estimated that 80% of the traffic on Usenet was 
from ARPANET mailing lists.(5) Thus it will be helpful to look at some of 
the discussion on the ARPANET mailing lists made available on Usenet to see 
the foundation these discussions helped set for Usenet.

II - FA.unix-wizards and the principles of Unix
     One of the most popular newsgroups on Usenet during this early period 
was the newsgroup FA.unix-wizards. This newsgroup was primarily distributed 
on the ARPANET as a mailing list (hence the prefix FA meaning "From 
ARPANET"). The description of the mailing list explained: "ARPANET mailing 
list for Unix Wizards. Anything and everything relating to Unix is 
discussed here. This list is gatewayed to the ARPANET mailing list but 
appears like a regular newsgroup to USENET."

     Since the Unix operating system represented a powerful and low cost 
programming environment, there was an incentive for Unix users in the 
academic or research world to utilize it. However, it was difficult to use 
Unix in isolation and there were great benefits to be gained from being 
part of a community of users who would help and support each other in 
solving the problems they encountered with Unix.(6) The Unix philosophy 
includes a set of principles that grew out of and nourished its 
development. These principles also proved important in the development of 
early Usenet.

     One of the fundamental principles on which Unix was built is the 
principle that one should not reinvent the wheel. If one person has created 
a program or software tool, it is important to share it with others so they 
do not have to repeat the same work themselves. Invoking this principle, an 
early post on Usenet explained, "Hmm, another case of wheel re-invention I 
guess. I also have the requisite routines" the poster explained, to create 
a program to determine the time on the computer. Another poster, noting 
that several such programs had been created, wrote, "I too would be 
interested to see the verdict on which routine is the best."

     Often queries would be posted on Usenet asking others for information 
or advice. This would make it possible to build on other's experience. For 
example, one poster wrote, "does anybody know of an ARPANET (BBN 1822) 
interface for the Intel Multi-bus IEEE standard 796. We could always back 
up Ron Crane's old parallel port interface, but would prefer something 
already done on the slim chance that it happens to exist." Hoping to work 
collaboratively with others who were interested, the post continued, "It 
just occurred to me that a SUN workstation would make a dandy ARPANET 
Ethernet gateway. Is there anybody else out there in Internet land who 
might want to share efforts."

     A comment in the FA.unix-wizards newsgroup from Dennis Ritchie, one of 
the creators of Unix, noted that Unix owed many of its achievements to the 
fact it built on the work done at MIT to create the Compatible Time-Sharing 
System (CTSS). Ritchie wrote, "The name 'rc' comes from RUNCOM, which was 
the rough equivalent on the MIT CTSS system of what UNIX calls shell 
scripts. Of course RUNCOM derives from 'run commands.' Yet another piece of 
evidence for my thesis," Ritchie claimed, "that UNIX is a modern version of 
CTSS."

     An article, "The Trouble with UNIX" by Donald A. Norman, was published 
in the November 1981 issue of Datamation.(7) The article presented Unix as 
being too difficult and frustrating for users. In response, several on the 
Unix Wizards mailing list on the ARPANET and on the FA.unix-wizards 
newsgroup on Usenet began a lively discussion of the problems and benefits 
of Unix. Among these responses was one that explained, "Well, you see what 
kind of stuff gets into Datamation. I don't understand these things; many 
of the criticisms are right, but the facts are categorically wrong! UNIX 
could benefit from some 'normalization'...but the claim that UNIX does not 
present a simple set of principles is the most incomprehensible statement 
he could have made. That is ALL UNIX does, and that is precisely why he 
(the author of the Datamation article, ed) doesn't like it!"

     A poster went on to question why the author of the Datamation article 
used Unix if he found it such a problem. Another post explained that though 
there were problems with Unix, it had proven valuable to many, including 
the secretaries at the Computer Science department of the University of 
Illinois. "While our secretaries occasionally have had problems using UNIX, 
they have tried several times (unsuccessfully) to get the department head 
to obtain a UNIX system for their exclusive use." Describing how Unix was 
the result of a cooperative effort by many people, Steve Hartwell at MIT, 
wrote, "Why do people keep talking about UNIX as if it were a person, or 
ONE BIG PROGRAM? We are really talking about a large set of programs and 
libraries written by individuals, not the HAL 2000. Every single program, 
and every subroutine and system call, was written by some individual, who, 
in my mind, is RESPONSIBLE for the reliability, consistency, improvements, 
and documentation for that thing. I do not intend to criticize the efforts 
of the usg [Unix Support Group, ed], or any other groups who have taken on 
the immense task of providing a set of software they agree to be 
responsible for. Our complaints/ discussion of aspects of the UNIX 
operating system indicate that the job is not complete. They KNOW that. I 
think that it is the user's responsibility to identify and report problems 
in a clear, specific, and non-judgmental narrative, not FLAME ON! [usg 
should also improve the means to do this.]... Does it always mean lowering 
to the least common denominator, to improve the software & documentation? 
Ridiculous. If the road signs are too high, what are we going to do 
shorten the poles or raise the road?" he concluded.

     The debate over Norman's article demonstrates how those participating 
on Usenet newsgroups and the ARPANET mailing lists represented a diversity 
of views. This online network provided a medium through which they could 
debate their differences to determine the principles at stake in a 
controversy.

     One post pointed to Ted Nelson's book Computer Lib and its critique of 
hard to use systems. Nelson, the post explains, praised Unix. "That too was 
proper," the writer explained, "UNIX is indeed a powerful tool and one that 
encourages tool-making by its users. It would certainly be a shame if a 
priesthood of hackers developed around UNIX...." Another poster describes 
how the intent of criticism had to be to improve the code, and that there 
was also a need to respond in a helpful way to users. "There will ALWAYS be 
questions," the post explained, "and how you deal with them will affect how 
people will grow." But one had to maintain high standards in what was to be 
done with Unix documentation, he cautioned, "I don't want to use a system 
which is tailored to the lowest denominator. [If the road signs are too 
high maybe you're on the wrong road.]."

     Another poster proposed that there was a need to distinguish between 
the interface and the documentation of the Unix system. The writer 
believed that Norman's article had confused the two and the discus sion was 
continuing that confusion. Maintaining that the interface to Unix was being 
criticized because there was inadequate documentation, he wrote, "I would 
agree with suggestions to improve the documentation." He went on to 
explain that there were only two forms of Unix documentation, short 
descriptions of what Unix commands did, called "man pages" (i.e. pages 
from the Unix manual), and the computer code with its comments. He felt the 
man pages were only casually created and so not always adequate to provide 
the help users needed, but that going to look at the source code which had 
"(VERY few comments)" didn't provide much more in the way of assistance. He 
proposed several additional levels of documentation to help solve the 
problem, including introductory documentation, more examples in the 
existing man pages, a brief documentation that would be provided online, a 
more thorough system of documentation of the assumptions and problems of 
the system, and more internal commenting in the code. "The code written 
for UNIX," he explained, "is perhaps the least documented I have seen on 
any system." He also questioned why the books about the code which were 
written by Professor John Lions, at the University of New South Wales in 
Australia, for an earlier version of Unix, v.6, hadn't been updated for the 
recent Unix version, v.7. "I thought the Lions course books were excellent. 
Why they haven't ever been updated, especially with the money we at B.T.L. 
[Bell Telephone Labs, ed] spend growing UNIX experts is beyond me. I would 
think that documentation at the various levels would make code maintenance 
easier and be cost effective," he concluded.

     Lively discussion and debate helped Usenet pioneers argue out their 
views about Unix, and a wide range of other issues and problems and helped 
to establish the forms and procedures for Usenet to grow and flourish.

III - FA.sf-lovers and the debate over technology versus humanism
     Sf-lovers was another of the important mailing lists on the ARPANET 
which was also available on early Usenet as FA.sf-lovers. It was for the 
discussion of science fiction and related topics. In May, 1981, Jim 
McGrath, the new moderator of the mailing list, posted a farewell to 
Richard Brodie. He described how Brodie had been "the person responsible 
for the first version of this mailing list almost two years ago."

     In his farewell to those on the list, Brodie describes how he started 
the mailing list. He took a leave from Harvard and went to Xerox-PARC in 
June 1979. Shortly afterwards, he sent out his first sf-lovers message. He 
writes: "Over a year and a half have gone by since the first sf-lovers 
message went out (It was a list of the Hugo Awards from the 1979 Worldcom 
in Brighton, England). They've been a good one and a half years; they've 
shown me clearly that electronic communication will change the shape of our 
world, and that we'll see its effects in our life times."

     "The list," he explained, "has grown enormously far beyond my 
expectations and has reached the point where many hundreds of people read 
the daily Digest."

     Describing how sf-lovers began, Richard Brodie explained, "I started 
sf-lovers by logging into one of the public-access MIT 'Incompatible Time 
Sharing' (ITS) systems probably MIT-DMS, although it might have been MIT-AI 
and editing a text file that contained the names of all the distribution 
lists. I then inserted a system announcement onto the same system 
announcing the availability of the list."

     Originally, each message sent to the mailing list was distributed to 
all those who subscribed. Soon, however, the e-mail to the subscribers 
became overwhelming and a digest form was created. Digests were collections 
of articles submitted to a mailing list and sent out as an issue, rather 
than as separate posts, as newsgroups made possible.

     Recalling how the sf-lovers digest was created, Brodie explains, "I 
believe it was the release of a major SF movie possibly SUPERMAN that 
swamped sf-lovers to the point where it was made into a digest."

     The discussion on FA.sf-lovers during this period included 
reminiscences of children's fiction such as the Danny Dunn and Miss 
Pickerall series of children's books. Other children's books were critiqued 
as well. For example, Byron Howes from the University of North Carolina 
explained how he felt Mrs Piggle-wiggle books were "worse than the 
children's literature of the late '40s and early '50s promoting a kind of 
mindless expectation of conformity." Children's book series described 
include Danny Dunn, Tom Swift, Rick Brant, and Freddie the Pig stories. One 
post explained how the author of the children's book series Mad Scientists 
Club made an effort "to be as technologically accurate as possible." There 
was also discussion of TV and radio cartoon characters who encouraged an 
accurate view of technology. One such character was Astro Boy.

     A frequent contributor to the FA.sf-lovers noted that Astro Boy was 
one of his favorite animated characters. He described how Astro Boy, a 
robot, was "steered...toward using his special abilities for the good of 
society." Reminding others of the Amazing Three Theme song, he posted the 
lyrics, showing how they captured the dilemma of technology, that it can be 
used for social good or harm:

     Spaceman with a mission
     You must make a very big decision
     With your solar bomb you could destroy us,
     Or save the world or save the world

     Another contributor, Mike Greenwald at MIT Multics, described an Astro 
Boy episode where budget cuts threatened the survival of the Institute 
where he was created, "He was actually `shut off', but was resuscitated 
when an emergency arose during which he proved his worth by saving the 
world...." A post by Ted Pedersen described how Astro Boy was the creation 
of Osamu Tzuka the 'Walt Disney' of Japanese animation. "Based on a 
successful comic book character," he wrote, "there was an explosion of 
Japanese science fiction."

     Contributors to sf-lovers also discussed science fiction movies, 
criticizing them if the science was inaccurate or if the message presented 
was anti-technology or hostile to machinery. Dave Tauretzky wrote, "There 
are two features I pay attention to in science fiction movies: future 
sociology and future technology."

     Describing how ARPANET authorities determined that a Film-Buffs 
mailing list should not be carried on the ARPANET since that "would be 
pushing the use of the ARPANET too far beyond its research-oriented 
mandate," one poster proposed accepting the decision to avoid jeopardizing 
the other existing ARPANET mailing lists. "I yield to those people's better 
judgment," he wrote reluctantly.

     However, he longed "for the day when such strictures disappear!" He 
conceived of a future when WORLDNET would make it possible to access large 
mailing lists for $10/year for the 'postage', "and Large Lists rule the 
world!"

     Other discussion on the list during this period presented hopeful 
forecasts of the future. A review of a recently published book, 2081: A 
Hopeful View of the Human Future, reported that the book predicted a three-
day workweek, factory work done exclusively by robots, household robots 
that shop, drive cars, send mail, mow the lawn, and record radio and 
television shows, air travel at 6,000 mph and land travel at 800 mph. The 
author, Gerard K. O'Neill, proposed that computers, automation, space 
colonies, energy and communication, would "drive the changes of the next
century."

     A poster was able to contribute the words of TV theme songs from the 
1960s because not only did he have a good memory, he had an audio aid. "In 
the early '60s," he wrote, "I had a cheap little tape recorder. I had this 
silly habit of recording TV themes "

     Complaining about unscientific accounts in science fiction, Jeff 
(E.jeffc at Berkeley) explained that "Science is not in the process of 
making arbitrary rules. Science is in the process of discovering the lawful 
ordering of the universe and it is inevitable that in the future, someone 
will come up with something that will supersede what we know today."

     After discovering a factual error in one of his posts, Lauren 
Weinstein at UCLA noted how posting leads to verifying one's information. 
He wrote, "Actually , I did get one piece of direct mail claiming I was 
wrong...one of the nice things about having 3000 plus people reading this 
stuff is that there is always somebody who can correct any errors. At 
least, I THINK that's one of the nice things?"

     Describing why he was attracted to science fiction, David Dill at CMU-
10A wrote, "a substantial body of science fiction DOES deal with issues of 
science and technology. The appeal of this literature to me is not the 
ability to supply convincing explanations for hypothetical science or 
technology, but to explore the effects of scientific developments on 
people. Thus, science fiction is frequently fiction about the IMPACT of 
scientific discoveries, not the pursuit or act of scientific discovery. A 
major reason," he explained, "that science and technology are prominently 
featured in so much 'speculative fiction' (or whatever) is that they are 
major factors determining the nature of a society if you change them, you 
have a new social system (or civilization) to speculate about." Noting that 
science fiction should document how technology could be used for good or 
bad, Ron Newman at Xerox, explained that "current events in the U.S. 
demonstrate that technological advances need not go hand-in-hand with 
social progress."

IV - NET.space and the Debate over Public Funding of Science Research
     Another newsgroup on Usenet during this period that discussed 
technology issues was NET.space. An opening message to create the NET.space 
newsgroup noted that it would "distribute the articles from FA.space in 
undigested form, and anything submitted to it will go into fa.space."

     In an early post on NET.space, Mark Horton documents how the most 
interesting of the ARPANET mailing lists were fed into Usenet and many of 
the contributions to the ARPANET mailing lists came from those on Usenet 
(i.e. those contributions posted by e-mail addresses such as 
somewhere!somewhere!somebody@Berkeley.)

     Horton was explaining his disagreement with a post by Bob Amsler who 
maintained that the associated ARPANET mailing list was "an internal 
communication without 'public' distribution ... and that there were many 
people on it 'employed by the government'" who needed to be aware of space 
developments. Horton, however, pointed out that the digest was fed into 
Usenet "which is neither the ARPANET nor tightly controlled." And that the 
contributions were "in effect a newsletter, not mail, and as a contributor 
you have no control or knowledge of who is getting it."

     Posts on the NET.space mailing list included summaries from the wire 
services and discussion of the Congressional space budget. One post about 
budget cuts warned that, "The chairman of the House subcommittee on Science 
and Technology said that the Reagan budget plans could threaten our space 
program." It described how the 1983 fiscal budget called for maintaining 
the level of spending for NASA rather than increasing it. "Not only could 
this hurt our planetary program, but also threaten the shuttle program."

     Paul Dietz at U.S.C.-ECL raised the question, "why should the 
government be spending anything on space?" He admitted that this was really 
part of the broader question "why should the government be spending money 
on anything?"

     Since investment in space research would be for the good of the 
company or world, he asked why those with money wouldn't be investing in 
it. And he ended his post, "Comments, rebuttals, bricabrac poison keyboard 
netnotes are welcome..."

     The question led to a heated discussion of whether humanists or 
technologists benefit society more. One of the posters sparked the 
discussion by taking the position that those developing technology, rather 
than those developing humanistic theories, had solved more social problems. 
He wrote, "While one hates to destroy cherished illusions, it's hard to see 
that any major social problem has ever been solved by a `humanist' or other 
form of social theorist. Typically," he continued, "it has been engineers 
and hard scientists (those materialistic, crass, and soulless men) that 
have provided the solutions to the major social and political problems of 
their day. Slavery and hard, grinding muscle labor at poverty pay, to take 
two classic examples from the 19th century, weren't eliminated by the 
wailing of philosopher but by the designs of engineers, and by the money of 
financiers. Admittedly, this is largely counter-intuitive. I suspect the 
reason that this apparent paradox holds is that people will generally 
optimize their own condition subject to constraints, and the constraints 
are always a lack in some way or other of resources. Technology tends to 
free resources, thus loosening the constraints and providing a higher level 
of 'potential' for most individuals, which they will happily take." He 
referred the reader to the economic writings of the 18th century Scottish 
economist Adam Smith and the 20th century American economist Milton 
Friedman.

     In response came a post quoting Adam Smith's book, An Inquiry into the 
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, on the need for public 
investment, "THERE REMAIN those enterprises of such great value to all, and 
of so little value to any one, as to require public investment."

     The poster explained: "What institution has the task of looking ahead 
twenty years? Surely not investment combines, stock companies usually look 
at the quarterly report. So, if it's desirable to have basic research. who 
is going to do it?"

     Challenging such use of public funds another poster wrote, "I reject 
this. Who judges the value of a project? Not the person forced to 
contribute . Government investment (public investment is a misnomer) 
removes any choice the unwilling taxpayers have. It puts the 'public good' 
above individual rights." Gene Salamin at MIT-MC proposed eliminating all 
non-defense government expenditure as long as all government social 
programs were also ended. In a post titled "Moderator filtration of 
flames," another poster explained that it was "amusing to see the 
Libertarians (I assume) who are heavy users of this medium complaining 
about governments spending their money on things like ARPANET and space 
research." He noted, "I guess its a normal survival drive. Those sucking at 
the teat want the milk for themselves."

     Challenging the proposal that government spending should only go to 
defense, Mike Inners noted that according to that logic "there is no reason 
to fund even defense." He explained that the rationale which would 
logically flow from such an argument would be "If I want to be defended, I 
will voluntarily contribute to my local police, local NRA chapter, national 
military of my choice, etc." But he noted that "Everyone (except maybe the 
most radical Libertarians) agrees that some functions require mandatory 
contributions."

     He went on to describe some examples of expenditures that require 
public funding: "Space exploration, in common with basic research, has the 
property that the benefits do not accrue to the organization performing the 
work. The benefits are distributed among many people who did not invest. 
Unless you impose severe restrictions on information flow, use of 
technology, mobility of employees, etc. there is no way that I as an owner 
of a firm doing (for example) free-fall medical research, can make every 
beneficiary pay for the benefits he is getting. I can't even get back my 
investment in all likelihood. But the benefits have historically greatly 
outweighed the costs of such research."

     He explained how funding space exploration required public funding as 
it didn't yield the profit that private enterprises require: "In the not-
so-distant future, space industrialization/exploration/colonization has the 
potential to significantly improve conditions for the entire society. 
Again, there is no way for an investor to recover profit from this. While 
it is not worthwhile for any small group of people to finance space 
exploration, a larger group finds it worthwhile since the cost can be 
spread thinner."

     R. M. King continued the argument. He wrote: "1) Much of what is 
necessary to develop space is unpatentable often because it is in the realm 
of pure research. An example of another invention that grew out of pure 
research is semi conductors, which of course grew out of solid state 
physics research. It would not have been possible for a company to recover 
the costs of their research, even by patenting the transistor, because 
other devices were promptly invented, using the same physics."

     He added: "2) Patents are only good for seventeen years. Even those 
pieces of space hardware that are patentable may not reach the peak of 
their utilization within seventeen years of conception. 3) While this may 
seem like a pragmatic rather than a moral argument, governments have 
historically been involved in blazing trails."

     Providing other examples, he proposed that there be a tax checkoff so 
people could determine if they wanted to contribute or not.

     Commenting on the 1982 U.S. Presidential State of the Union speech, 
King proposed cutting "spending in everything except defense, and that 
means cut spending in space in particular." Also he noted that the term 
"Defense is a misnomer. We don't have any defense, we have only strategic 
deterrent. But that's a matter for ARMS-D, rather than SPACE," referring to 
the mailing list ARMS-D."

     Contrasting the view that denies that there can be any definition or 
support for the public good, several of those on NET.space debated whether 
the humanist or technologist contributed more to the public good. Paul 
Lustgarten at Bell Labs Indian Hill, wrote: "I take strong exception to the 
sharp dichotomy [the poster] assumes between humanists and technologists: I 
consider myself to be both, and see many others here at work on these nets 
(Usenet and ARPANET) who I would describe similarly."

     He proposed: "I think it is those of us who are *more* than just 
technologists who are in a position to affect society the most. The 
technology by itself doesn't tell you how to get it out of the lab, where 
to put it, how to use it, or even WHY ANYONE SHOULD BOTHER!"

     He titled his post "'humanists' and 'technologists', NOT disjointed 
sets!" and he presented the dictionary definition of a humanist, "humanist, 
n. A person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare 
[Random House College Dictionary] to show it did not exclude 
technologists."

     A post by Steve Kudlak (FFM at MIT-MC) defended humanists. He wrote, 
that HUMANISTS and TECHNOLOGISTS fight over much, but "Both want to see the 
world changed for the better. Humanists," he continued, "(philosophers, 
artists, writers, etc.) influence the world more indirectly, but they do 
exert, in my view, a considerable influence. By pointing out things they 
see in the world and how they feel about it, artists and writers definitely 
influence the social climate that the technologists types work in and the 
like. Technology types," he continued, "that I have known have been 
seriously influenced by 'works of art' especially literature and this 
causes them to do things differently than they would if they were not so 
influenced."

     "Technology types," he observed, "do things that at their best give 
power to the people. Like the power to express my ideas to many people in 
many different areas quickly."

     He went on to note that "Most technology types are not cold, crass 
individuals at all, and 99% of them bleed if you prick them."

     Commenting about the stereotypes that exist, he explained that, "Once 
upon a time science, technology and art were not considered mutually 
exclusive realms. It would be nice," he ended his post, "if we could 
recapture some of that rather than fighting about which is 'better' and 
'more useful'."

     Tom Wadlow added that while scientists or technologists are often 
affected by art or participate in art, artists he knew were "afraid of, or 
claim to despise technology."

     Continuing the discussion about government funding of space research, 
a post by J. C. Winterton pointed out, "we get the problem that no private 
organization is big enough to finance space exploration and research." He 
proposed that governments were too often conservative about supporting the 
investment and funding needed to make big enough leaps.

     Pointing out the precedent in history for government assistance to 
subsidize certain kinds of explorations, Rick (pcmcgreer) cited the East 
India Company and Hudson Bay Company.

     Contributing to the debate over technologists and humanists, Jim 
McGrath (JPM) explained, "First, apologies to everyone on SPACE for 
discussing what is probably not an appropriate topic for this list." He 
then went on, "But since the subject came up..."

     "Saying technology is more important than the humanities," he wrote, 
"is stupid, since technology, the APPLICATION of scientific knowledge, has 
to be directed by social goals determined by the study of the humanities 
(and social 'sciences'). However, saying humanities is more important than 
technology is equally stupid, since man is, above all else, a TECHNOLOGICAL 
animal. Our use of tools, more than anything else, has contributed to our 
current state of civilization. Trying to understand man without his tools 
(please, no comment on sexist language) is a fruitless endeavor that will, 
ultimately lead to failure."

     But he cautioned, "One problem we face is that there are significant 
numbers of people who believe that technology in and of itself, can solve 
all problems. This is wrong, since those very problems CAN NOT be defined 
or specified by a strict examination of technological alternatives. 
(although some constraints as to what is physically possible can be 
supplied by technology) one MUST appeal to the knowledge lodged in the 
study of Man, the humanities."

     He continued, "Another problem we face is the presence of a large 
number of people who believe that Man's tools and his tool making capacity 
should be ignored when examining the proper role of our race in the 
universal scheme of things. One cannot make ANY decisions about what man 
should do or should become, without examining how Man interacts with the 
physical Universe and this is the domain of Science and Technology."

     "Frankly," he concluded, "I have no doubts that there are far more 
people causing the second problem than the first. At least most 
technologists believe that they SHOULD be aware of the Humanities, while 
many people in the Humanities feel no obligation to understand the first 
principles of Science and Technology. So while we need more people 
knowledgeable in both areas, the lack of technological understanding among 
the people studying the Humanities seems to be the most severe problem we 
are currently facing."

     Jerry Pournelle at MIT proposed, "If you burned all the art, people 
would be miserable but alive. If you burned all the technology, above 75% 
of the population would starve. Which should we do?" he asked, "(Maybe 
neither?)," he concluded.

     Emphasizing that technology and humanism are not independent of each 
other, Wadlow responded: "My point was not that one is independent of the 
other, but that they are both facets of the same jewel. If you burned all 
the art, would you include well-designed machinery, or elegant computer 
programs. If you burned all the technology, would you destroy moog 
synthesizers, or synthetic-fibre paint brushes? Art can be functional, as 
technology can be artistic. Is writing a novel on a word-processor an act 
of artistry or technology?" Adding to the discussion of the need for 
government support for research, a post by Joel Rubin answered, "As I 
recall, off hand, the British East India Company and the Hudson's Bay 
Company and the British India Company were NOT supported by laissez-faire 
types. They supported MERCANTILISM which was precisely what laissez-faire 
types were against."

     Steve Harley pointed out that distinctions between humanists and 
technologists weren't so obvious, "Consider trying to label the Reagan 
government either technologist or humanist...& give up, but not without a 
fight, then, fondling the notion that technologists are more 'socially 
valuable' than humanists; try to reconcile the war machine." Harley, added, 
"for the record, I am an artist (writer and painter, mostly) who supports 
himself by programming computers. I know a number of other artists. I don't 
know any ARTISTS who despise technology. I know a few humanists who 
disparage technology, but I tend to be very thoughtful, so I think a lot of 
technology is not worth having like food processors & neutron bombs. I know 
a lot of scientists too & a fair number of them have a very limited 
appreciation of art. The scientists/technologists I know who do appreciate 
art tend to be humanists as well, so I think the comparison of techo-humano 
is balderdash. There are just people who are more limited than others. 
However, they don't bother me as much as people who are DEPENDENT on 
technology."

     In the midst of the discussion came the complaint that NET.space was 
not an appropriate newsgroup for the discussion and instead a new newsgroup 
should be created for the discussion called net.space.philosophy.

     Answering the complaint, was the response, "I see no reason why they 
should NOT be in this digest. Assuming that the material in each digest 
accurately reflects the amount of contributions, then everyone's missive is 
making it out on the list anyway, so what's to complain about?"

     "Off-hand," he continued, "I don't see where the humanist technologist 
dichotomy is MORE appropriately discussed than concerning space, that field 
being a major area of technological endeavor with possibly the largest 
potential impact upon humanity. In order to make sense of technology," the 
poster continued, "the human factors must be added to the equation. 
Ignoring one for the other is perhaps expedient but ill-fated (if I had to 
chose art would lose)."

     Another post proposed that the Voyager pictures were a demonstration 
that space research produced works of art. "Most works of art are much more 
expensive for the number of people who can see them and appreciate them," 
he noted. "(All we need to do is distribute prints of the best of the 
Voyager pictures to each and every citizen, and we'll truly have the 
cheapest masterpiece of art ever produced.)" He went on to note that "the 
rest of the space program is science, not art, mostly. We get vast amounts 
of crucial information that is a first step towards engineering to actually 
make use of space for our benefit. Science always comes first," he 
commented, "then a lot of hard engineering, then profit."

     "Thus I don't agree with your claim," he added, "that the space 
program is just an expensive work of art with spinoff. It's a medium-priced 
science project with some artistic spinoff and also random-product 
spinoff."

     Another post was an Associated Press article of February 3, 1982 about 
developments in Washington. It described how that the U.S. Office of 
Management and the Budget had recommended killing many space projects. The 
article documented how strong opposition from scientific organizations 
battling against the cuts led the White House to restore some of the 
funding for space research in the 1983 budget. The article concluded, 
"considering the proposed cuts, much was salvaged."

     These discussions over the role of technology and the need for 
government funding occurred on NET.space while there was the ongoing 
political battle to save space funding. Describing these efforts, Jerry 
Pournelle at MIT-MC, noted the role that the L 5 Society (a group 
advocating putting human colonies in space) played in helping to weaken the 
budget cuts. He wrote: "The whole space community, with I think, particular 
credit to L-5 society deserves a couple atta-boys. I'll take a bit of the 
plaudits because of the Citizens Council activity (and Danny Grahams 
efforts plus Newt Gingrich's were somewhat influenced and aided by the 
Council) anyway it is not what we wanted, but it is less than we feared."

     John McCarthy, one of the earliest pioneers of research in time-
sharing and Artificial Intelligence, and a Professor at Stanford (JPM@SU-
AI), credited Pournelle for his work organizing the battle against the 
budged cuts, "I think you deserve considerable credit for this result."

     Pointing out that in the history of the U.S., very few legislatures 
have technologists or scientists helping to make the laws, another poster 
asked "In our history, [has there] ever been a legislature having more than 
a few technologists or scientists in it?"

     Pournelle described how there would be an L 5 sponsored space citizen 
convention in Los Angeles, California on April 4 6. Another poster noted 
that the L 5 sponsored citizens space Convention would have Robert A. 
Heinlein and Fred House as the guests of honor. The keynote speaker would 
be Dr. Hans Mark, Deputy Administrator of NASA. (former Secretary of Air 
Force) and Newt Gingrich, then the U.S. Congressional Representative from 
Georgia and CoChair of the Congressional Space Caucus. Others listed 
included convention co-chairs Jerry Pournelle and Milton Stevens, noting 
that the "Purpose [was] to get enthusiasts and professionals together, and 
to generate a strategy for the advancement of the space program."

     The discussions in the various Usenet newsgroups and the ARPANET 
mailing lists show how there was a commitment that the new technology and 
the forms it made possible be used for socially beneficial rather than 
harmful purposes. Contributors to Usenet and the ARPANET mailing lists 
during the 1981 82 period recognized that it was necessary to be active to 
have technology serve useful purposes. Discussion on the long term social 
benefit gained from scientific and space research demonstrated that 
newsgroups and mailing lists made it possible to clarify the underlying 
principles on an important issue like the need for public funding of 
technological and scientific research. These new communication forums also 
made it possible to announce efforts to affect legislation and to set up 
public meetings with those in Congress responsible for approving the 
funding of science and technology programs. Thus early Usenet and the 
ARPANET mailing lists helped to establish the importance of scientific 
research and of government funding of scientific research to the long term 
interests of a society. They also provided the means to monitor 
Congressional activity and to announce programs making such efforts.
                             [To be continued]

Notes:
(1) Case Western University went on to become the sponsor of the Cleveland 
    Free-Net which made Usenet available to the Cleveland Community and 
    established a prototype of community networking that has spread around 
    the U.S., into Canada and other countries in Europe and around the 
    world.

(2) See Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by 
    Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, 
    http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

(3) Mark Horton's list of Usenet sites Dec. 31, 1981.

(4)Newsgroups also carried as mailing lists on the ARPANET were named 
    FA.xxxxx for "From ARPANET", those only carried on Usenet, were named 
    NET.xxxx

(5) Usenet posts made it easier to respond to the posts, or to the author 
    of the posts, while with a digest you had all the articles collected in 
    one issue and so it was not possible to automatically respond as with a 
    post.

(6) See for example Peter Collison, "UNIX: The Cult", USENIX Association, 
    Winter Conference Proceedings, Washington, D.C., 1987, Jan. 21 23, 
    1987, pg. 22 28.

(7) Datamation, pg 139-150.
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     Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 7 no 2 Winter 1997
        available free via email from jrh@umcc.umich.edu and
                http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~jrh/acn
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