Questions with Harper Nelson

Early in his career, Vanevar Bush developed close links to universities such as Harvard and Berkley. Would the development of the ARPANET cease to exist without Bush's close links to these institutions?

My Response: I do not think the development of ARPNET would cease to exist if Vanevar Bush did not develop the links with the universities. As the Universities provided resources and a means of development V Bush utilized, I believe that an individual or another institution would have provided these resources eventually. ARPNET could have altered slightly as the means of production was different, but would have been developed regardless, I believe.

In the beginning, why do you suppose that industrial companies showed little interest in the ARPANET?

My Response: I think that the Industrial companies showed little interest in ARPNET because they thought it was a fallacy. This technology never existed before, and the idea backing ARPNET was far fetched. I am sure that developments of the same scale may have failed previous to this project, which may promote skepticism among companies investing a lot of capital.

What do you think the world would be like without the invention of the world-wide-web? In other worlds, how would we live our daily lives if the web wasn't there?

My Response: Daily life would not be the same if the world-wide-web were not developed. Looking at the way we live our lives, realize how integrated we are with the web. How much time do you spend on the web? We invest a good portion of our lives into this development, of which time would use elsewhere without the Web. Social media would be completely different, if not non-existent. Our capability to share information would be much slower, our technology would be considerably different, and our overall lives would be much different. We would still be shuffling though reference cards in the library and talking to people face-to-face, to put it into perspective.