The Black Technologist Who Invented the First Internet Search Engine
daily.jstor.org
daily.jstor.org
There was always a story it was named after the comic, and after it there were the Veronica and Jughead systems which were named the same way. I just checked then and Wikipedia says he didn't name it after the comic and hated it. So there goes another 1990's myth.
Archie itself actually never worked very well, but nothing did in those days so we were amazed when it actually returned a result.
Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention the man's race, why don't you just actually ask yourself the question? Why does it matter that he is black? You all are great problem solvers. I think you can come up with some interesting answers.
;)
We lived in a world where racism exists, regardless of your own personal attitude. This is just like global climate change - simply because you personally are carbon neutral doesn't mean we don't have a systematic crisis on our hands. You are far, far too willing to wash your hands of the whole topic, and it is very naive. The fact of the matter is that advantages and disadvantages are built into your socioeconomic class, and race is a very strong indicator of your class affiliation. On top of this, like or it not, there are a huge number of racists of all types, ranging from people who proudly burn crosses to much more subtle or unintentional racism. Denying that people's attitudes is something that must be taken into consideration is just... staggering. To put it quite simply: the fact that you, an enlightened individual, do not take race into your moral consideration is laudable but it in no way affects the fact that hundreds of millions of people are already racist and you are willfully putting blinders on to this fact. The most concerning part is that many of these actively (or passively) racist people are in positions of power. Ignoring that is just childish. [There is a strong analogy to this comic by XKCD about the ridiculous beliefs of US Senators.](https://xkcd.com/154/)
> And if you can't accept that people view this issue differently and think there are different solutions, you are part of the problem.
Pot, meet kettle.
Is it better for me, as an individual, to treat you the same as I do anyone else and wait for gradual societal pressure to push others to do the same, or is it better for me, as an individual, to highlight the oppression that very much still exists, in a bid to make others notice?
I don't think there is a right and wrong answer here, just different approaches to a problem. The good thing is that we can all agree the problem exists, which isn't always a given.
However, in the end, my point is this: I am of the opinion that collective action is necessary to address this issue and I believe the weight of the evidence is on this side. The point that you (appear) to have made, and I am reacting to, is that ignoring the problem is the best way to address it, and I think that is demonstrably ineffective. It is just not the world in which we live.
I think you are misunderstanding the point treehau5 wanted to make. I think he wants to say the same thing as I [1], we should take action to boost disadvantaged groups in order to close existing gaps as quickly as possible but that should be done in away that avoids focusing on the distinction one wants to go away. It is not about ignoring an existing issue, it is about not additionally emphasizing it.
What good is it, if you want to get rid of racial bias, to point out the race in a context where it does not matter at all? Maybe you could argue that there are people believing that black people made no significant contributions to our world and you are trying to correct that but that does not seem a very strong argument to me.
> I understand the sentiment, but I also understand that if you truly want to get rid of racial bias, gender bias, whatever else bias completely, then not paying it mention in any sphere is how you get there.
I do not see how that is open to interpretation and it appears to run entirely contrary to your point.
My interpretation as a non-native English speaker focused on »mention« and so I did not interpret it as excluding any actions. But with you pointing this out and after having a second look I can see how »in any sphere« could make the point stronger than what I thought.
I the end I am neither in the position to judge what the correct interpretation of the phrase is, nor what statement treehau5 actually intended to make. I of course stand by my point, whether it is the same one treehau5 wanted to make or not.
However, here it is pretty clear to me, and likely why he deleted his post, that he meant "we should just ignore it." Which I don't think is a particularly defensible position.
There are black people who are very privileged (e.g. Obama) and white people who are very unprivileged (e.g. the homeless). So focusing on race will inevitable lead to bosting outcomes of some privileged people and ignoring other non-privileged people.
A better way to solve this problem would be to focus on people from disadvantaged backgrounds (== poor), regardless of race.
The playing field is not level. I truly do not know why this point is so hard to communicate.
You can be the wealthiest, smartest black man alive - you are never going to be a grand dragon in the KKK. That should be quite obvious.
Now back down from that hyperbolic example - what about being a black man in the Mormon Clergy? That was impossible until very recently.
Now what about being a black man as a corporate CEO? Definitely doable. There have been 14 such individuals in the history of the Fortune 500: http://fortune.com/2017/01/16/black-women-fortune-500/ # But it may be less doable depending on the organization. Don't you see there is a continuum here? That the qualifications of the individual, including their privilege, are irrelevant when the ladder that individual is trying to climb has a "no [characteristic] need apply" sign at the third or fourth rung? Why is this so hard to understand?
# Note that this is a pretty low number.
The status quo doesn't change if people don't talk about, analyse and challenge it.
Maybe it can help get through to people who write code all day that racism is built up technical debt, and ignoring it doesn't mean it will go away?
There are real divisions between people, socially constructed ones. That will likely always persist, and discussing categorical representation (or lack thereof) is an important part of making genuine strides toward diversity (in the workplace, in culture, etc). The goal is not to have everybody be the same, it's to make the 'thing' representative of the the diverse people that make up the 'thing'.
Do you not agree that a young black kid deserves black heroes that she can relate her own story to? Why ignore that aspect of the story?
If only. Far worse is the number of replies saying that he isn't black enough. It's so weird when you get racially policed by white people if you don't conform to a media stereotype, or if you're not dark enough.
How about "of sub-Saharan African descent?"
Also, it shouldn't be confusing that the descendants of northern Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans look Mediterranean. It really makes a lot of obvious sense.
Your statement is belied utterly by almost all of the below replies and it is savagely disheartening.
The alt-righters pop up once and again but they are usually downvoted out[0] when they turn to race baiting and blatant propaganda (posting of sketchy research supporting inherent differences between the races, for example).
[0] Hell, just look at the comments down in this section.
I'll respectfully disagree with that. I think the rules set up in HN around both manual and automatic flagging mean that controversial stories quickly get buried, and only very straightforward, non-controversial articles get visibility.
Many users think this is a positive feature. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but have come to accept that HN is simply not a place where controversial things are discussed with any measure of success. But don't mistake that for HN being a progressive haven.
EDIT: prophecy fulfilled. This submission got flagged off the homepage.
But power can be exercised in more subtle ways, including limiting what gets discussed in the first place or leaving comments like 'Thanks for not making it political' on threads about Haskell.
The flagging and downvoting of what I would call progressive but others would call 'political' themes falls under that category.
You might be making a meta statement regarding other stories. Still this is pretty benign stuff.
Its really not, though it includes some member of the progressive segment of the community (as well as the diametrically opposite segment) and a moderation policy which suppresses neither, so it can sometimes appear to be either extremely progressive or extremely regressive (but mostly just a mix of both, and positions in between and off to the sides.)
I can answer to this. His race is mentioned because today's radical left wing journalists think that separating minorities and putting them on a spotlight is progressive and going to fight against racism.
Well...that's pretty much absolute bullshit. Actually it's doing the complete opposite. For example in this article the credit for the achievement is stolen from the person himself and given to a generic group of people with only thing in common being the race. This is active way of telling his not "us", but his "them".
When journalists and people stop seeing black, white, yellow, green, gay, straight etc. or just stop caring about race and start seeing just people we most certainly won't have society without racism but we might have a society with much less racism from all sides.
"Alan has a set of shell scripts that automagically calls up some subset of our list of servers each night (to keep load down on any one machine) and do a remote 'ls' on that machine. We cycle through the entire list in about a month, so no entry can be more than that old. For what it's worth, we currently know of about 210 sites."
Archie allows anyone to rlogin into one of our machines and query our archive lists. Another one of my guys, (Bill Heelan, whe...@cs.mcgill.ca) wrote a bare-bones front end, which allows people to login, get a help message, ask for a specific string (using ed-like regular expressions) or get the contents of a specific archive server.
Currently, archie is pretty brain-damaged. The files are stored as flat ASCII files and the "prog" command just launches a "grep" with the appropriate arguments. Future plans (once we get the latest start of semester out of the way) is to add a real database (we've compiled postgres (sp?) and Alan has started to code the program to parse the raw input).
So that was Archie. That's like a library shelf list, or Active Directory, not a search engine.
Long before WWW search engines, there were computerized keyword and catalog databases. The US National Library of Medicine (MEDLARS) and Mead Data Central (later Lexis/Nexis) were early big ones. Big libraries also had online catalogs by 1990.
AltaVista was the first big full-text search engine. AltaVista was in the old telco building behind the Walgreens in Palo Alto. where PAIX is now. AltaVista was built as a demo of DEC Alpha servers. It was the first data center built telco-style, on open racks with the cables overhead. This was because they had the racks in place, but it became a trend.
[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.archives/LWVA50W8...
Recently heard about the news Google is discontinuing enterprise site search, not that that is such a huge problem, but it's just another example of the issues that arise from having a monopoly control everything with no alternatives. They can pull the plug and everyone is left lacking.
I believe they are able, for example, to know I want "Apache" the software organization even if I've never typed it before, because they've seen my previous software related searches. And...Injected some behavior based on searches by other people like me.
Someone else is getting much different results for the same term...Again, even if it's for the first time.
When I hear people say they don't like duckduckgo's results for a search term, it seems to usually trace back to "no tracking equals no personalization".
The second generation search engines killed the theme off (Altavista, Lycos, Webcrawler, Infoseek, etc...), but it was fun while it lasted.
I clearly recall connecting to archie.au and archie.nz to do (slow-ass!) searches back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Why those? Easy to remember!
It is not obvious to me that explicitly pointing out a distinction is the best way to get rid of said distinction, be it black or white, male or female, gay or straight. It is a historical accident that one of the groups in each case was at a disadvantage in the past and that this continuous on to today with the gap narrowing slower than one may want.
So I understand that it seems warranted to give the disadvantaged group special attention to close the gap as fast as possible. But does this necessarily require pointing out the distinction in the way this article or Black History Month does? Sure, any program targeting a specific group can not totally avoid making use of the addressed distinction, but would it not be better to keep this as inconspicuous as possible?
People mostly work to get rid of unfair discrimination that is based on an arbitrary distinction.
"My latest piece for JSTOR Daily looks at a hugely influential technologist who is strangely absent from most lists of Black inventors. Alan Emtage invented the world's first search engine -- so I look at the massive impact of search, not only on how the web works, but how our brains work, too."
P.s. Am notifying the author about the discussion here. If she has time & so inclined, to engage.
P.p.s. as for myself, I was hoping to see interesting HN discussion about search before pre-Google, & how search is affecting our brain + thinking process.
Any good information on the actual search engine? I'd never heard of it, it's before my time. TFA has about two paragraphs about it before bloviating into a philosophical discourse on the effect of search technology on society.
So the next time you ask that question or hear it being asked, be aware of how it's often heard. It might help you understand the potential reactions.
It seems to me that in doing so, one also indirectly makes the point that most people from race X don't succeed.
It's good sentiment at best and racism at worst.
It's a fine line. As more fields (I.e, CS) have visible minority successes, this need will fade. But we are not there yet.
I just don't see the point in poking a wound like that at frequent intervals...
I'm so glad I don't define who I am based on my skin color. Is the color of your skin of any importance when we are talking about your achievements? If he was white, would making the first search engine be less remarkable?
I cannot fanthom how anyone could call this person "black". If anything, his complexion is similar to what US people call "hispanic" (although to me that's just southern European, not a distinct race).
Life is full of such arbitrary nuance and complexity.
2:) That lighting makes his complexion look much lighter.
3:) If they say he's black, i'll take their word for it, skin colour varies significantly.
How pale a person looks doesn't really have bearing on whether they consider themselves black. We don't know what his parents looked like, but they might have been fairly dark. We don't know what his sibling look like, but you'd be surprised at the variation there is. I have a black family friend and he has some blond grandchildren. Don't know if they consider themselves black, but they have a better claim to it as I have to consider myself Swedish.
I also think you're off on what the US considers hispanic. While many hispanic people have some southern European origin, the term really mean people from Mexico on south from a Spanish culture of any race or ethnicity. It's a little weird, but you can have hispanic black Dominicans and hispanic Indian Brazilians. Actual Spanish people probably aren't hispanic in the US sense, although I get different answers on that. Filipinos are another people difficult to slot into the standard US hispanic definition.
As far as why he is considered black, it's probably because someone found it economically advantageous to consider one or more of his ancestors black at some point in their history, and the norm was that a son of a slave was also a slave (i.e. "black"), regardless of complexion.
Relevant: https://psmag.com/why-your-race-isn-t-genetic-559908897f93#....
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Alan+Emtage&source=lnms&tbm=...
I teach programming to a group of black young adults. Self image is very important to most young folks. Just seeing other black people who are successful computer programmers helps them imagine themselves as computer programmers.
Identity matters to young people who are trying to shape their own self image.
Could you not also say that almost every article caters specifically to Jewish people? Or would that be anti-Semitic in your mind?
Either you're right, and white supremacy is not a problem at all, or you're wrong, and culture today has made it acceptable to say "fuck white men", which is disgustingly racist and yet no one is willing to publicly acknowledge it except "white supremacists" themselves.
I'm also not convinced that xenophobia is the same thing as white identity.
White people are a majority in technology, so it's assumed to be obvious to white children that they too can be a technologist. There's not a significant gap in perceived identity between themselves and Mark Zuckerberg, for example.
So, that begs the question, why focus on encouraging specifically white children? They don't face racial barriers and have many famous role models. Preference for white people has a long and ugly history in America.
BS, have you seen us brown folks? we are literally the IT race. You could say white blokes are at a disadvantage. Point being, I feel kids should be taught their code and their core values are important, and should be also taught the art of not giving a shit about stuff that clearly doesn't matter. No black folks in tech? all the more reason to become a God
- whites are a non-diverse group of people
- whites (of all types, as a group) have been as historically unempowered as nonwhites in America
- whites think whiteness is underrepresented in America
- whites aren't bothered by how nonwhiteness affects outcomes
- messages about race are currently at peak broadcast capacity, so talking about race is a zero-sum game where prioritizing one audience takes a potential piece of information away another audience
- race is something other than ingroup/outgroup attribution
Even if we assume that this is true (despite the fact that it's not) what does it have to do with printing articles with headlines that read "{INSERT NON-WHITE RACE HERE} miraculously succeeds in life!"?
The reason people like headlines like that is that milestone accomplishments by minorities is inspiring.
Why? Because then the article isn't trying to claim that one of the most notable things about him (notable enough to be in the title of the article) is his race. Young black people would see him being lauded for his work, regardless of any other aspect about him.
Otherwise, you end up with the idea that the article is saying "Hey look! A black person actually did something notable in tech!" Not the message you want to get across.
The first two sentences of the article says
>At a time when “googling” has become the generic term for conducting an internet search, it can be hard to remember that search had a long history before Google came along. But it’s worth revisiting that past during Black History Month, because the pre-Google era saw one of the most momentous black contributions to the development of the internet: the invention of internet search itself, by Alan Emtage.
Emphasis mine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness_(race)_in_the_...
As to how someone could call them black... "it's not the color of your skin, it's the race of your kin"
In other words "making up shit". It's time to stop listening to this bullshit.
The guy's race matters because it's important that people from minorities see that people that look like them and sound like them can succeed. The guy's race matters because in the past history has been rewritten to give prominence to white faces even when black faces have carried out exactly the same roles [1]. It matters because they've had to overcome, in many instances, a system that is structurally biased against their success. And it matters because middle aged, white, heterosexual men, who completely coincidentally stand to gain the most from things staying as they are, are the ones who argue the loudest that we shouldn't recognize these structural biases. It matters because in order to succeed they have had to overcome obstacles that you haven't.
If you think that we are somehow overcompensating by even recognizing the color of someone's skin, perhaps you can also tell me why there were two BAME people in my year of four thousand people at Oxford. One of whom went to Eton.
Well, I wouldn't tell him, but I would definitely ask him if he claimed he was black. Then he would probably explain that he doesn't mean "black" as color but "black" as culture (same as "Jewish" religion vs. "Jewish" ethnicity) and that's fine.
> people that look like them and sound like them can succeed.
After a (semi-)black president, is this really still relevant?!
> why there were two BAME people in my year of four thousand people at Oxford
Maybe because Oxford is in England and England is predominantly white?
In general, I oppose such categorisations, because (1) they're racist, and in emphasizing race, they encourage other people to do so as well, and (2) race is far less relevant than other characteristics, in particular class (wealth), and by focusing on race, you're playing a divide-and-conquer game, making groups of people hate each other, while ignoring the most important inequality in existance. (Which, coincidentially, was the most likely cause of the discrepancy you saw at Oxford.)
When the current President has committed to rolling back much of what said President achieved socially, economically and culturally, it's fair to say that Obama being elected wasn't the panacea people thought it would be.
> Maybe because Oxford is in England and England is predominantly white?
The number is off then by two orders of magnitude - and there are specific patterns of underachievement amongst black youth in England which exist when you control for other factors such as class and wealth. Black youngsters in the U.K. are twice as likely to be unemployed as white ones.
Focusing resources on the specific problems these communities face is not playing 'divide and conquer' any more than is providing specific support to LGBT communities who have a higher prevalence of mental health issues.
http://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/how-black-young-men-are-o...
One black guy being elected President doesn't solve that - you need to see examples of black guys as doctors, lawyers, computer scientists, engineers for it to work. Studies have shown that one of the greatest predictors of whether someone goes on to do a certain career is whether they or their family knows anyone in that profession.
That's why it's important and not 'racist' to proactively point out examples of successful black people. It's not that there aren't successful white people as well - they're visible everywhere, and we recognize them anyway (ever see the Oscars?). We do it because sadly the status quo leaves some people without black role models.
A Black Technologist is an expert in Black (=incomprehensible to laypeople) Technology. Since we're talking about search engines, I figure that's accurate enough.
But it seems that "people of color" is the hot new Politically Correct term for black people (or non-white people depending on who you ask). Do not ask me why.
Effectively, racial labels and identities are more about ethnicity (that is shared cultural identity [on the identity side] or shared ascribed kind of "otherness" [from the imposed labelling side]) than biology (either phenotype and genotype), though the latter influences the former.
(And "hispanic" is explicitly an ethnic label/identity, which applies to people ranging from completely European descent to completely African descent to descent completely from the indigenous peoples of South and/or Central America, and every possible combination in between, as well as some others.)
Recently 'blacks' weren't allowed in certain venues/institutions and were required to take a generally subservient stance vis a vis 'whites'. White also receive(d) preference for admittance to the country and citizenship.
The non-denotative nature of the language is well-discussed: http://forward.com/opinion/318667/im-a-mizrahi-jew-do-i-coun...
If you read the first paragraph of the article, you'd know that his race is the reason the article was published:
At a time when “googling” has become the generic term for conducting an internet search, it can be hard to remember that search had a long history before Google came along. But it’s worth revisiting that past during Black History Month, because the pre-Google era saw one of the most momentous black contributions to the development of the internet: the invention of internet search itself, by Alan Emtage.