Whole Earth Index

(wholeearth.info)

83 points | by bookofjoe 7 days ago ago

9 comments

  • ziptron an hour ago

    Project like this make me stop and truly appreciate the time someone took to make this... and make me wish I had more time in my day to consume this beauty in its entirety. So much knowledge retained here.

  • behole 3 hours ago

    This is pretty COOL! Right up my alley. I have been working on a similar project with PUNK ZINES. I have a lil loop going with Internet Archive - Scraped all of their zines and any new submissions I upload to them. Yours is much prettier than mine. NICE NICE job. Bookmark.

  • zackmorris an hour ago

    This is great! I remember a turning point for me when I was feeling very low at the height of the War on Terror and jingoism appeared to have taken over the world. Just before the housing bubble popped and politics would swing the other way, but we didn't know that was going to happen yet.

    John Mayer was playing music at Macworld 2007 (wish I could find the video) and said "Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just make life more fun. It's like the opposite of terrorism":

    https://www.cnet.com/culture/live-macworld-coverage/

    I think of stuff like the Whole Earth Catalog as the opposite of neofeudalism and tech bro culture's revisionist history.

    It doesn't have to be this way. Wealth inequality isn't invincible, or even inevitable. Back to basics works. We can get our hacker culture back. We can restore the timeline that's been stolen from us, the one we were on in the 90s before financialization and ensh@ttification ruined all the fun.

    • silisili an hour ago

      Inspiring comment. I hope you're right, if nothing else for the next generation's sake. I'm a bit more pessimistic here.

      > We can restore the timeline that's been stolen from us, the one we were on in the 90s before financialization and ensh@ttification ruined all the fun.

      It'd have to be a cultural change. Consumers at large have decided with their wallet they'll buy products made anywhere, of any quality, with missing or abusive support, if it means they can save a dime. Or that they'll sign away every ounce of privacy if it's free. Until we fix that problem, fixing anything else is going to be hard.

      I like that younger generations care, or at least pretend to, about causes and sustainability. Not that that itself isn't being abused, but it's a glimmer of hope.

  • curl-up 2 hours ago

    Jobs called it "Google in paperback form" [1].

    I wonder what obscure (probably online?) source of information of today we'll be comparing to the mainstream sources of tomorrow.

    [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/oct/09/steve-job...

    • WillAdams 2 hours ago

      I have a book which lists companies which sent out mail order catalogs back in the 70s --- I'm pretty sure it was listed in a Whole Earth Catalog (might even have been published by them).

    • Kye 2 hours ago

      Probably books like the Imponderables and Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series. It wasn't always the most accurate, but they at least made an effort.

  • thesuitonym 2 hours ago

    I'm not familiar with the publication, so I was imagining a joke website that purports to index every object on the Earth.

  • andrewmutz 2 hours ago

    I clicked on the link ready to invest in this ETF but was disappointed