Taibbi: America Is Too Dumb for TV News

[Samantha]

100. It was a complex evolution over a long period of time

Last edited Fri Nov 27, 2015, 11:08 AM - Edit history (1)

I previously read some time ago a military historian's statement about Gore's involvement with the creation of what we call today the Internet. I could not find that this evening, but I did start reading another interesting article that I will quote from here:

Gore's 1986 bill called for a study of the possibility of creating fiber optic links to supercomputer centers, requiring the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to issue a report on the subject. Though references differ on whether Gore's 1986 bill was ever actually passed, the report it called for was issued in November of 1987. It expressed concern that the U.S. was falling behind Europe and Japan in the development of supercomputers and high speed networks, and recommended creation of a program to advance research in those areas.

Gore's 1988, 1989, and 1991 bills were attempts to create such a program. During this period the White House was reluctant to do so, but in early 1991, just before the Gore Bill finally passed, the White House proposed in its budget to fund a High Performance Computing and Communications Program. Gore's 1991 bill defined that program and authorized spending more than a billion dollars over the next five years on supercomputing and network projects. This funding was mostly under the control of the NSF, but also parts also went to DARPA and NIST.

These efforts contributed substantially to allowing NSFNET to grow into the modern Internet. Interesting discussions of their significance can be found in a 1992 paper advocating further expansion of the net, 1993 testimony from the head of OSTP, and Vinton Cerf's description of the evolution of the Internet. All give Gore primary credit for this legislation, and stress it's importance in the development of the Internet. (emphasis added)

from: http://greatgreenroom.org/cgi-bin/bt/backtalk/wasabi/begin?item=11

The point I was trying to make, but which I seemed to have done clumsily, was that when this shall I say communication tool was no longer needed at the end of the Cold War, when the question was asked "what shall we do with this?" - the answer was "give it to the people." We the people were able to accept it and to build it from what it was then to what it is now because one person had a keen interest in this area and agreed to write the legislation creating what eventually came to be referred to as "the Internet."

This is a very long article about Gore which might interest many DU'ers.

Sam