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ABORIGINAL_ENGLEBART


                                             July 16, 2021

Englebart's use of the word "aborigine" here (in
his 1962 research proposal) is particularly
grating to the modern ear, I think:

    "For instance, an aborigine who possesses all of
    our basic sensory-mental-motor capabilities, but
    does not possess our background of indirect
    knowledge and procedure, cannot organize the
    proper direct actions necessary to drive a car
    through traffic ...."

And later:

    "While an untrained aborigine cannot drive a
    car through traffic, because he cannot leap
    the gap between his cultural background and            This seems like the
    the kind of world that contains cars and               standard comparison
    traffic, it is possible to move step by step           of Modern Man to
    through an organized training program that             those old-fashioned
    will enable him to drive effectively and safely."      primitives that used
                                                           to be a common
                                                           feature of overblown
      The question would be why would you say              pretentious
      "aborigine" rather than "child"?                     rhetoric.

                                                               PRIMITIVE_MODERNS
      The central point seems to be that there
      are a number of tasks that require some
      training and education, which would seem
      to be an obvious enough point.




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