BEg2 ch 7 Well people (nostalgia for Whole Earth Catalog)

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Among other things (Ted Kaczinsky, including an interview, the ARPAnet
as CoG technology), Lutz Dammbeck's 2003 movie "Das Netz" is also about
the Whole Earth Catalogue, including an interview with Stewart Brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meX61e6t5fE


> The Whole Earth Catalog was a publication that came out in the 60s &
> purported to be a manifesto as well as a source for things people might
> want to get involved in like back to the land, community organizing, just
> about anything really.
>
> The founder, Stewart Brand, in 1966, had an LSD insight like, “why haven’t
> we seen a picture of the whole earth.” So he went to NASA and got them to
> release such a picture. Then Brand - using insights from Buckminster
> Fuller, Lewis Mumford, and anthropologist Gregory Bateson - proceeded to
> found the whole earth catalog and to be an early adopter of computers,
> worked with internet pioneer Douglas Engelbart, used his influence to
> “bring it to the people” & thus came about the Well.
>
> I think the Well had many of the problems of the internet in miniature
> years before they became apparent elsewhere. And many of the good things.