Douglas Engelbart: "The Man Who Invented the Future"

Valerie Landau, author of the fascinating January 2018 Smithsonian article The Man Who Invented the Future, notes a poignant truth about the subject of her article, Douglas Engelbart: "The great proponent of collaboration was, ironically, unable to collaborate." She observed that when he became frustrated with someone's inability to understand his concepts he would end the conversation by declaring, "You just don't get it."

In the 1950s, Engelbart envisioned much of the technology revolution that has transformed the world. Landau quotes Alan Kay, who ran Xerox' PARC lab in the 1970s, as saying, "I don't know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug's ideas." There may not be a risk of that happening any time soon. Engelbart, who passed away in 2013, told Landau in 2006 that only "about 2.8 percent" of what he had envisioned had been achieved.

In the spring of 1951, Engelbart was newly married and well-established at his job. He thought about what would be most meaningful for him to accomplish. Landau writes:

"It just went 'click,'" he told me later. "If in some way, you could contribute significantly to the way humans could handle complexity and urgency, that would be universally helpful." He had a vision of people sitting in front of computer monitors, using words and symbols to develop their ideas, and then collaborate. "If a computer could punch cards or print on paper," he said, "I just knew it could draw or write on a screen, so we could be interacting with the computer and actually do interactive work."

Landau describes Engelbart's vision, and how Engelbart presented that vision in 1968 to a San Francisco audience of 1000 people: "Engelbart didn't just come up with the notion of using computers to solve the urgent and multifaceted problems facing humanity. He also gave the first-ever live demonstration of networked personal computing. Today, it's known as 'the mother of all demos,' a precursor to every technology presentation that’s happened since--and arguably more ambitious than any of them."

Engelbart's attempts to fully implement his vision were thwarted in the 1970s due to lack of funding. Xerox' PARC lab, under Kay, took the lead in the computing field but focused on developing the personal computer, not the network that Engelbart proposed. Only the mouse, which Engelbart considered the simplest of his innovations, was fully developed--and Engelbart could not understand why the three button mouse that he devised was "dumbed down" to a one button mouse by Apple.

Landau asserts that Engelbart not only foresaw the technology revolution to come, but that his proposed methods are still superior to the techniques utilized today:

Because his system was designed to present the same information from different angles, it was more than a rudimentary version of the software we use today. I believe it was better equipped than Apple's or Microsoft's programs to solving problems like peace, income inequality, sustainable development and climate change. He designed it for sophisticated knowledge workers--writers, designers, data analysts, economists. Even Google's collaborative apps are less ideally suited to do serious work that integrates libraries of data, documents, graphics, text and information maps. Engelbart's system came with a learning curve, but he believed the result was worth it. When people praised other software for being more intuitive, he asked them whether they'd rather ride a tricycle or a bicycle.

Engelbart's story demonstrates the frustrations inherent in being so far ahead of your time that the rest of the world simply "doesn't get it." Maybe in 50 years the world will catch up to Engelbart--but who is today's Engelbart, and what great ideas are now being relegated to languishing in the shadows of the mind of a lone visionary?

Carl Sagan's Legacy

Carl Sagan's groundbreaking PBS series "Cosmos" introduced millions of people to the wonders and mysteries of the universe. Sagan often spoke of "great demotions," meaning that humanity has been forced to accept that the Earth is not the center of the solar system, that our solar system is not the center of the galaxy and that our galaxy is not the center of the universe. Sagan began "Cosmos" by telling the viewers, "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."

Joel Achenbach's Smithsonian article Why Carl Sagan is Truly Irreplaceable describes Sagan's influence as a science popularizer and explores his core beliefs, "including the sense that there is an order and logic to the universe, that it is fundamentally a benign place, congenial to life and even intelligent life. His cosmos was primed for self-awareness. He sensed that humanity was on the cusp of making a cosmic connection with advanced civilizations (and no doubt that a certain Brooklyn native would be in on the conversation!). In effect, he believed he was fortunate enough to live in a special moment."

Sagan did not think that evidence supported the notion that UFOs are spacecraft piloted by intelligent extraterrestrial beings but, like Fox Mulder from "The X-Files," it could be said that Sagan wanted to believe. Shortly before Sagan passed away, he told Achenbach, "I'd rather there be extraterrestrial life discovered in my lifetime than not. I'd hate to die and never know."

While Sagan spoke about "great demotions," David Grinspoon--son of Sagan's best friend Lester Grinspoon--promotes a concept called "Anthropocene," meaning that "human beings are changing the Earth so rapidly and dramatically that our presence is becoming part of the geological record. And we can't pretend it's not happening. We have to learn to manage this place. Grinspoon made an analogy: It's as though we've just awoken to the fact that we're at the wheel of a speeding bus on an unfamiliar road. And we realize we don't know how to drive."

Achenbach concludes that Sagan would not be disturbed by Grinspoon's ideas:

Would Sagan have been able to square his great demotions with this new Anthropocene concept? Of course. The universe isn’t about us. The Earth is but a grain of sand. But upon this humble rock we will make our stand. It’s a task that will require science and reason--but also courage and far-sightedness. So it is that Grinspoon says of his old "Uncle Carl": "Lord knows we need him now."

George Ohr: "The Mad Potter of Biloxi"

"Mozart died a pauper/Heine lived in dread/Foster died in Bellevue/Homer begged for bread/Genius pays off handsomely--/After you are dead"--Yip Harburg

"When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--George Ohr

Imagine being the very best at what you do, an innovative trendsetter with boundless energy and creativity. That may sound wonderful but often the Faustian "bargain" that comes with such a tremendous gift is that the rest of the world does not recognize your greatness until long after you have died--Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas before he killed himself at the age of 37, yet more than a century after his death one biographer rightly declared that Van Gogh "produced an incredible number of masterpieces that will continue 'living' for the rest of human history."

You have most likely never heard of George Ohr. When he died of throat cancer at the age of 60 in 1918 he was considered--by the few people who even knew who he was--to be a flamboyant eccentric. More than 7000 pieces of pottery that Ohr lovingly created languished in crates stored in the garage of an auto repair shop run by his sons in his native Biloxi, Mississippi. If not for a chance encounter between a New Jersey antiques dealer named James Carpenter and Ohr's son Ojo it is likely that the world would never have known about Ohr's distinctive works.

Although Ohr was mocked during his lifetime and had trouble selling his pottery even to his few admirers, Ohr had boundless confidence. When he set up his wares, Ohr proudly posted a sign that read, "'Greatest' art potter on Earth. 'You' prove it contrary." In a 1901 interview, Ohr acknowledged his lack of commercial success by lamenting "I have a notion...that I am a mistake" but his prescient prediction from that same interview indicates that he knew that the "mistake" was really the lack of insight shown by his contemporaries: "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come." In his shop, Ohr hung a hand-lettered sign with the Latin phrase Magnus opus, nulli secundus/optimus cognito, ergo sum! (A masterpiece, second to none/The best, therefore, I am!).

How thin is the line between being a genius who is celebrated during his lifetime and a genius who is not recognized as such until long after his death? Consider that Albert Einstein--whose name has become synonymous with the word genius--worked six days a week for seven years as a patent clerk because he could not obtain a full time academic position. During his spare time, Einstein wrote five papers that completely revolutionized the way that we perceive the universe--and yet even after the "annus mirabilis" (miracle year) of 1905 in which Einstein composed and published those papers it took until 1908 before Einstein became a full professor. Wouldn't you love to eavesdrop on some of those job interviews? "We're sorry, Herr Einstein, but you just are not quite qualified to teach at our institution." What must Einstein have thought after being rejected numerous times by people who had just a fraction of his intelligence? A quote from a letter that Einstein wrote during this frustrating period provides a glimpse of how he perceived the academics who refused to hire him: "From now on I’ll no longer turn to such people, and will instead attack them mercilessly in the journals, as they deserve. No wonder little by little one becomes a misanthrope."

Although Einstein had to suffer slings and arrows from many fools, he eventually achieved the fame and respect that he deserved, which provided him what he most wanted--the opportunity to work on his theories in solitude, undisturbed by the rest of the world. The huge advantage that Einstein enjoyed over Van Gogh and Ohr is that it became possible to experimentally verify some of the fantastic theoretical predictions that Einstein made in his 1905 papers; when Arthur Eddington's 1919 eclipse observations confirmed Einstein's assertion that gravity bends light Einstein instantly became a figure of worldwide renown not only in the scientific community but among the general public. Sadly, such instant verification of genius does not exist in the literary or artistic fields.