Re: CS-234 Discussion

CS234 <cs234@lhmerino.dont-email.me> wrote:

This thread is intended for the students of CS-234: Technologies

for democratic society

 
How does Usenet fit into the vision presented by Licklider and Taylor in
"The Computer as a Communication Device"?
 
Reflect on:
- Which aspects of their vision are realized through Usenet?
- What aspects have evolved differently from what they imagined?
 
Feel free to respond to comments made by your classmates as well.

Usenet is the Founding Father of today's social
media and it fit Licklider and Taylor's ideology through
its easy access to a wide range of topic discussions through the newsgroups.
It allows the centralization of communication from anywhere
across the world, fitting the description of "geographically separated
members" able to communicate seamlessly with each other.
However, the rising of more graphically-inclined
and accessible programs such as actual social media platforms fits more
Licklider and Taylor's vision of "fast and flexible graphic display" that
was very difficult to produce in their times. Usenet is at the end only
a forum and Licklider and Taylor's hopes for code sharing, remote code
execution, permissions controls, etc. wouldn't be fulfilled through Usenet
but by much more recent applications such as GitHub, desktop sharing
applications, etc.
But evidently, none of these could've existed without Usenet paving
the way first.