If I could convince Aubrey de Grey to cut off his beard it would increase everyones expected longevity more than any other accomplishment I'm capable of.

why not use mplayer for the sound?

J.C.R. Licklider seems to have understood most of its importance in the early 1960s, writing that it would become, "the main and essential medium of informational interaction for governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals."

Not only did he predict it and write about it, he was one of the most important factors in actualizing it: through his position in the management hierarchy of ARPA, he directed the funding of research into "packet switching", which is the main technical difference between the internet and, e.g., the telephone network, which in its early decades -- before it was subsumed into the internet in the 1990s and 2000s -- operated according to a contrasting principle called "circuit switching".

Licklider was a mentor to Lawrence Roberts, who through his position at ARPA directed additional funding to packet-switching research and to the actual creation in 1969 of the network (ARPAnet) that would become the internet.

Licklider's 1961 paper "Intergalactic Computer Network" would be a good place to look for information about what exactly Licklider was able to predict.

Although I know of no indications in their writings that he or Roberts understood the eventual importance of amateurs on the internet, someone in the chain of cause-and-effect between Licklider and Roberts and the actual implementation the internet understood some important things about contributors because the design of the internet made it easy for individuals to contribute -- and the only reason I am using the word "individuals" rather than "amateurs" is that before the early 1990s it was difficult for the average person to access the internet (or even to learn that it exists) without being employed by a large organization with a technological or scientific mission or employed or enrolled in an elite university.

I. J. Good wrote -- in the early 1960s IIRC -- that although artificial intelligence was the most potent long-term technological project he knew about, research into packet-switching was worth funding because it would probably bear fruit before AI would and because it would tend to amplify the "collective intelligence" of the human race.

When the ARPAnet consisted of only a handful (two?) machines, Doug Engelbart was already involved in some of the nut-and-bolts of getting it working. That fact, combined with Engelbart's prescience on other matters, combined with Engelbart's explicitly-stated career goal of increasing the "collective intelligence" of the human race, make him another author I would read if I were looking for early accurate predictions about the impact of what came to be called the internet.

Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think" is generally considered the earliest published prediction of the societal importance of computer networking and computer-mediated communication.

Bush, Licklider, Roberts and perhaps also Good were "East Coast technocrats": people who alternated between being on the faculty of prestigious schools and management jobs in the U.S. Department of Defense.

I once knew a smart guy who was under the impression that the only basic research necessary for the creation of the internet was the research that led to sufficiently-fast computers and to the ability to communicate over fiber-optical cables, essentially ignoring the problems "higher up on the stack". A good antidote to that mistake is to read some seminal research papers, particularly the 1981 paper "End-to-end arguments in system design".

Upvoted for having math in it and plausibly being relevant :)

@hruvulum

Thanks for the replies (and congrats to the new team members). I imagined that One Medical Group was somehow strategically involved in the expansion of MIRI, neglecting to consider the possibility that the reason for their inclusion in the name of the party is their [del: having paid for the pizza and beer :del] being a MIRI donor.

In light of gwern's good experiences with one, I too now have an anonymous feedback form. You can use it to send me feedback on my personality, writing, personal or professional conduct, or anything else.

I'm planning to meet with my local Department of Services for the Blind tomorrow; the stated purpose of the meeting is to discuss upcoming life changes/needs/etc. This appears to be exactly what I need at the moment, but I'm concerned that I'm not going to be optimally prepared, so I'd like to post some details here to increase the chances of useful feedback.

(For transparency's sake: I'm legally blind, unemployed, living with my parents until they take the necessary steps to get me moved into the place I own, with student loan payments outpacing my SSI benefits by over $200/month, and stuck in the bible belt.)

• The plan to move out will doubtless frame the conversation.
• I'm unsure as to whether this conversation will be private (me talking to a DSB representative), or if one of my parents will sit in. Who is in earshot matters, since for all the problems I have with my parents, they are the entirety of my support system at the moment, and the less risk to that relationship the better.
• Most important topic: Training. My skills across the board are pathetic, yet I've been unable to improve them independently in the time since I've realized this (most of the past year and a half, IIRC). I find myself drawn toward the National Federation of the Blind's training centers, but those involve a hefty time investment (six months), and the prices I've found suggest it would cost ~$3600/month, not to mention travel. This is exactly the sort of thing I would expect DSB to help with, but at the same time, I don't consider it unlikely that I'll be pushed toward cheaper, more local options. (My research over the past several months has reduced my confidence that the more local options are of much value.)
• I feel I would greatly benefit from a functional Notetaker. The one I was previously using has stopped functioning. I'm worried about this one; I expect that anything for which DSB provides assistance will need directing toward a tangible goal, possibly with a narrower subset than "I can get much more done with it than I could hope to with just a laptop". (I could write an entire post on why I think Notetakers are awesome, but this is already quite lengthy.)

I'm unsure as to how I will approach these topics, or the meeting as a whole, or if there are other issues I've missed/neglected/been mistaken about.

I do not like being a net drain on resources; managing this correctly seems the most viable path to reversing that.

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful piece of information. I must say that while reading your post I found my thoughts in agreement with the topic that you have discussed, which happens very rare.

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