Al Gore pushed for public funding to make the intenet what it is before the majority of computer professionals, let alone the public, had heard of it.
> Vinton G. Cerf, a senior vice president at MCI Worldcom and the person most often called "the father of the Internet" for his part in designing the network's common computer language, said in an e-mail interview yesterday, "I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president in his current role and in his earlier role as senator."
Please don’t post snarky or low-substance comments on HN.
As another commenter has pointed out, Vint Cerf himself credits Gore as playing a significant role in enabling the Internet’s emergence. He didn’t claim to have “invented” it.
Gore's actual words were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President."
~ peer linked wikipedia article.
Emphasis on actual words, with an obligatory side dish of context.
Yes, at the actual time it happened, and I saw it broadcast. As did Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.
The key is not taking a quip on a live light entertainment show out of context, and resisting the urge to cough up shallow takes decades later perpetuating a politically biased take.
Quoting from an earlier comment in this discussion:
There's always some nincompoop who brings that up. Al Gore deserves credit for what he did as a senator and vice president. He helped to pass legislation that enabled the NSFNET backbone to grow and to permit commercial traffic to flow on the government-sponsored backbones in the US. Had he not done that, it's pretty likely that the commercial sector would not have seen an opportunity to create a commercial internet that all of us can enjoy, so he does deserve some credit for what he's done.
I had already looked up the full quote; it’s right there with the full context in the Al Gore and information technology Wikipedia article [1].
In a 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, he said “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” What he meant was that he sponsored the legislation that enabled the Internet to be accessible to the public, and several key Internet figures including Vint Cerf acknowledge his crucial role in enabling the Internet to become a public utility, which was not a given prior to his efforts.
Sure, he was talking himself up in the lead-up to the election and his language could have been more precise, but it was on off-hand remark in an interview, not a prepared speech or published text, and he clearly never claimed he “invented the Internet”.
Created vs. Invented. I don't know, sounds like the same thing to me. If Trump said "I took the initiative to create the COVID vaccine" be honest with yourself - how would you respond?
Hacker News should be a place where we don't settle for the weakest-possible interpretation of things (and the guidelines ask that of us, at least in replies to comments and submissions). Gore didn't say “I invented” or “I created” the Internet. He had been a congressman for 22 years when he did that interview, and had studied at Harvard prior to that. He's clearly not a stupid person and clearly understood the difference between inventing a technology and sponsoring legislation.
It's been a bit of a thing of mine for much of my life to notice likely bullshit in commonly-held beliefs, and to dig a little to understand what really happened or what was really said or meant.
And yes, I have always done this regardless of the political side, including in cases where there was uproar about things Trump supposedly said, including about the pandemic. (For the record, I'm not a U.S. citizen/voter, and I've voted for both sides of politics in the country where I am a citizen/voter, and my bullshit detector has been applied to both/all sides, including whichever one I was voting for.)
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
That is not a claim that he “created the Internet”. He, of anybody, knows that sponsoring legislation to enable the creation of a thing is not synonymous with personally creating the thing.
If he got anything wrong it was to be clumsy with words in a live interview. Who among us has not occasionally been clumsy with words in live conversation? That doesn’t license people to keep insisting we said a thing we didn’t actually say.
To me it counts as a trope and the guidelines ask as to avoid posting Internet tropes, for the very reason that they’re more likely to elicit a groan than a laugh.
I guess this one stings because I hate that HN is a place where our idea of a joke is mocking the work of a politician who really is credited by the pioneering technologists of the field to to have played a crucial role in enabling our industry to develop.
> You can just hide things you don't like, or y'know, live and let live.
The same goes for you. Calling out bullshit and disinformation benefits the whole community,unlike nonsensical remarks. So if you don't appreciate efforts to counter nonsense by bringing facts to the discussion, just sit this one out.
