50th anniversary of Vannevar Bush's passing

thetech.com

13 points·ricksunny··3 comments

First time I’ve seen such a hand-wringing and apologetic attempt to celebrate Vannevar Bush. Despite openly observing the hindsight-based view of consternation, this author skips any deeper consideration of contextualizing Bush to the state of the world he actually lived in.

I agree that this name should be much better known. I don’t think that should be pursued so heavily drenched in shallow, contemporary “optics”. If you must put such focus on the “critique”, at least provide some interesting and plausible counterfactuals.

Hand wringing? I kept having to feel to be sure that I still had my wallet with sentences like this:

> I feel the reason for this lack of familiarity is that the Institute hasn't collectively introspected during the intervening decades over what it means to be so closely associated with this pivotal individual, even while it was irrevocably transformed by him in practice.

Slide 31 has a counterfactual exercise. >at least provide some interesting and plausible counterfactuals.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Mf6ppwK0xkxMFXRo6X_r...

PS I am the author of the posted piece + the deck.

I do hand-wring. On the one hand, I am overjoyed that we the allies won WWII in no small part due to innovation that VB led. On the other hand, we all live with an atomic-sword-of-Damocles hanging over all of our heads. I explore ways that might have been otherwise.

Would a hagiography have been preferred? I find it interesting that in his obit in The Tech of 50 years ago, it elides mention of his role in kickstarting the Manhattan Project. Whoever wrote it - family, administrators - didn't seem to be in a hagiographic mood either.

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