So after reading some of Ted Nelsons writings, I found to my surprise that hypertext is something thats been floating around for a very long time indeed, and that it had put to some shameful use, or rather lack of use. His project Xanadu ( reminded me of Xanatos from the Gargoyles heh) is a software which utilizes hypertext to navigate bits of data and interconnects them in a rather sophisticated and well thought out way.

I don’t see how this is any different from what our internet has manifested itself into today which I suppose shines a bright light on the importance of this mans work and ideas, however his project Xanadu seems to have fallen into the annals of time and is now long forgotten and in its place the World Wide Web has thrived. The driving idea behind Xanadu was just way ahead of its time(big surprise there),however Ted seemed to have this sense of urgency in that if this idea  didn’t set off right there and then all humanity was to collapse into utter chaos (he was very prophetic in his writing) but the truth is that trying to convince the entire earth to stop what they’re doing and start using computers during a time that computers were just not easily accessible or affordable to most people or even heard of was just not a realistic demand. He should have realised from the start that trying to make such a huge change would’ve required some coaxing into. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The internet as a culture is a strange thing. Trying to pin the needle on it is like chasing the magic dragon because of its ever changing nature, or maybe thats just it. There are no rules in webspace, only rules that we as humans can try to enforce on each other, but that can only do so much. No, what I find more fascinating is the self governing ability it seems to have.

As a resident of the interwebz for some many years,I can personally vouch that this is an everyday occurrence as I’ve been on both ends of the argument. What I find most fascinating is that its resulted in a sort of self directed behavioral management, for instance whenever someone claims “First Post!” they tend to get ousted for being idiots and having nothing better to do with their lives, or particularly the now famous internet meme “OP is a fag”. OP stands for the Original Poster and has become the subject of criticism simply for being one to post something.

   Not to be an ass or anything, but Ted Nelson starts off Literary Machines by being quite the OP    about hypertext. (just sayin)

Anyway back to my point about the interwebz, yeah, people seem to be policing themselves from unsavory behavior, which is pretty interesting – having bad grammar in a youtube post and you’ll get lynched publicly, a screenshot of your shitty english posted on a popular site like 9gag or 4chan and you’ll always be the guy that said that dumb shit. The internet hate machine is restless!

I can certainly see a massive change in terms of content and peoples intellect, the arguments are becoming much more substantial and not just absolute drivel (although drivel is ever present) and the internet isn’t just a stupid place with random shit anymore, people are learning how to behave themselves online and are taking their online identities more seriously without a government telling them what to do or how to conduct themselves (all attempts to try have failed miserably). I’ve only just started learning about politics, but isn’t that sort of like.. the ideal?

I feel like there is certainly a lot  more to say about this, and where its headed, the internet certainly has become a greater power than anyone could have anticipated.

This is probably the one of the best ways to visualize it

Laters