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7thaccount
I remember Alan Kay writing that at Xerox Park they had the entire Whole Earth Catalog collection. I'm not sure why, but maybe to get the creativity juices flowing? He probably already stated in an interview somewhere.
Edit: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html
Here is a little text snippet:
But Kay had also found the Whole Earth Catalog. He first saw a copy in 1969, in Utah. "I remember thinking, 'Oh yeah, that's the right idea,'" he explained in 2004. "The same way it should be easier to do your own composting, you should have the ability to deal with complicated ideas by making models of them on the computer." For Kay, and for others at Xerox PARC, the Catalog embodied a do-it-yourself attitude, a vision of technology as a source of individual and collective transformation, and a media format—all of which could be applied to the computers on which they were working. As Kay explained, he had already begun to think of the computer as a "language machine where content was the description of things." When he saw the Catalog, it offered him a vision of how an information system might organize that content. He and others at PARC saw the Catalog as an information tool and, hence, as an analogue to the computer; at the same time, they saw it as a hyperlinked information system. In that sense, remembered Kay, "we thought of the Whole Earth Catalog as a print version of what the Internet was going to be." Kay and his colleagues in the Systems Science Laboratory paid particular attention to the Catalog's design. In the Last Whole Earth Catalog of 1971
CaptWillard
They recently put all of them up here: https://wholeearth.info/
Lots of history and related publications, too.
liampulles
Stewart Brand also wrote a book and made a docuseries about bottom-up architecture called "How Buildings Learn": https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrg__Ji1S58TnecKCIFNskj-Q...
A lot of it is inspired by the ideas of Christopher Alexander, who also inspired the notion of design patterns in software... it is an interesting rabbit hole to dive into.
racnid
Really great book I bought years ago from a recommendation on HN; of course.
hypertexthero
Nice! The ones at https://wholeearth.info/ start at 1970.
Purpose statement:
> We are gods and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.
fernly
This PDF is from a rather poor scan, with low resolution and lots of moire in the half-tone prints.
The one at TIA is much sharper, altho still some moire.
Interesting that at wholeearth.info the earliest they show is the 1970 issue. But very sharp, photographed in color rather than a monochrome scan.
bloopernova
If your workplace is very strict about nudity in internet content, please be advised that the linked PDF does have some very blurry naked people on a couple of pages.
I hate having to type that, but it might save someone a talk with their boss or HR. A very slim chance, to be sure.
xkcd-sucks
Hahaha I found a catalog in my parents' attic as a child, which contained an instructive article on female self-pleasure, complete with a full page nude. Also a story that began like "The sign said 'God wants you to drop acid', so Lizard ate some tabs".
Left it out on the floor, it mysteriously disappeared and parents denied knowledge of its existence. And I need to remember to look for it in the archive outside working hours
bloopernova
Yeah that catalog seems to be almost from a parallel universe where sexuality and body positivity were not considered scandalous.
I think I'd like to see how that universe turned out; what would they be doing differently in their 2023?
hypeit
More background on Stewart Brand:
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/stewart-brand-whol...
ishtanbul
excerpt from the film recently made about Stewart, "We Are as Gods". part of the film talks about the giant clock he is building in a mountain. https://youtu.be/pKuJBGb_pN4?si=5Y5EUw0Ecihqmopn
pstuart
Wow, I had no idea -- thanks for the insights. I loved looking at the Whole Earth Catalog when I was a kid.
hypeit
I thought it was cool too but then I found Brand's response to Joi Ito/Epstein to be super bizarre and inappropriate, so I started looking into him more and found a lot of info like this. From the article:
> As for politics, Markoff notes that leftists who met Brand assumed he was working with the CIA, an accusation that could be rated as indirectly to literally true, depending on the circumstances (later in life Brand would work alongside the CIA doing scenario planning). When he did take an unusual shine to someone political, as he did later in life with the environmentalist Wendell Berry and the cartoonist R. Crumb, Brand quickly turned them off. At a time when revolution gripped the country, the Whole Earth Catalog reflected his right-wing thought by omission. After one young staffer suggested ways to make the catalog more political, Stewart vetoed the notion with a surprising set of rules: “No politics, no religion, and no art.” What was left? Computers and shopping. As a futurist, he had that much right. The Whole Earth Catalog was an underground hit, and with the help of John Brockman
mistrial9
the Whole Earth Review offices near Sausalito in Marin County were a social hub, and mixing ground. By the early 80s, an edition of the Whole Earth Catalog was an established process, with volunteers of every kind showing up in small groups, and plowing through the hundreds of pounds of printed materials supplied in large shipping boxes, writing reviews of whatever struck their interest. Occasionally a tall, bossy guy with grey hair and strong athletic build would walk through without comment. Usually some aspirants of some kind would corner him for a comment or punditry. Thriving on the "commander" presence, Brand would deliver whatever it was they were asking for and then move on. Brand's past military experience and demeanor were obvious, but not in contradiction to the "all views considered" atmosphere, including prominently, his own.
Did counter-culture people work "for the CIA" ? hard to say, certainly not at the level of Eric Schmidt founder of Google, that is for certain! Lots of lips moved freely with gossip or ideas. Some of that gossip or ideas were repeated, maybe written down. Media was in a different age. Famously certain other LSD-oriented individuals did seek out and inform for money. Stewart Brand probably informed for the same reasons he did other things, because he decided it was interesting, that it made him more important, and continued his personal mission of whatever it was he was thinking about.
The role of the "secret mole" is not consistent with the presence of that man, in that project.
source: was there in the 80s in Marin, California
zztop44
A really interesting read, and super fun to boot. One feels the reviewer enjoyed themselves.
Rediscover
Years after I started down the path of studying/reading Bucky Fuller, Robert Anton Wilson, Tim Leary, et al, I came across the Whole Earth catalogs and promptly devoured every bit of them. CoEvolution Quarterly (and later Whole Earth Review) became my favorite periodical, with the later gossip column always being the first section to read. Signal and Fringe (and issue 57) elated me much more than I expected.
I was exposed to usenet and BITnet and FTP in the mid-to-late 1980s and having the Whole Earth dead tree publishings greatly helped guide my opinions on how I wanted the Internet to evolve. They also drove me into the rabbit hole of RFCs and the IETF for a good number of years.
The work of Stewart Brand (+ others involved) and the previously mention individuals provided the major foundation for my career choices and happiness (and a slight frustration at the way the 'net is currently).
pkdpic
This is amazing. I feel embarrassed but I never realized how philosophical and artistic this was.
Also embarrassingly I didn't realize the term "ghost in the machine" went back this far. In case anyone else is in that boat...
> The "ghost in the machine" is a term originally used to describe and critique the concept of the mind existing alongside and separate from the body.
> The term originates with British philosopher Gilbert Ryle's description of René Descartes' mind–body dualism. Ryle introduced the phrase in The Concept of Mind (1949) [...]
mwattsun
It's also the title of the best album by The Police
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q73LMKKxbc&list=PL6vwnon3sI...
pictureofabear
Whole Earth Catalog was pretty expensive.
$5 in 1968 is $45 today!
ljlolel
Physically it is very large and thick. It’s the size of 4 textbooks.
denton-scratch
How large and thick is a "textbook"?
As I recall, it was roughly foolscap format, and about an inch thick.
knodi123
I like page 16, where it says
> Metal to rubber of asphalt ribbons plugged into Vietnam and the price of aerosolled ketchup thru WDBJ Star City via the chromium telescoping finger. 700 miles of the great highway turn on, 13 hours of keeen-sell survival service and all the gear to keep the wheels flying. ... All the cardboard cities and the X-ray of us all on the giant billboards. And buy me, lay me hot dog-burgers.
I don't know if anyone has ever expressed that idea so succinctly. Beautifully put!
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The Internet Archive has a copy of the Whole Earth Catalogue from 1968 with text selection, read aloud, and search:
https://archive.org/details/whole-earth-fall-1968/page/n1/mo...
Additional issues:
https://archive.org/search?query=whole+earth+catalog