I wouldn't see this as a precursor to the internet. In fact, I'd see it as the opposite of the internet in important ways. The internet is a big decentralized network where knowledge ends up accumulating through the countless individual actions of users, often in ways that are not terribly well organized from a logical standpoint. Of course, most of the important services that run on the internet are centralized now, but neither the internet infrastructure nor the world wide web is centralized or centrally planned, nor does it have a hierarchical structure; information is spread out, duplicated, codified etc. in different ways on different centralized services.
In contrast, the Mundaneum seems to have been an attempt to create a top-down complete encyclopedia of information, organized in a rigid, rationalized, hierarchical logical structure. A beautiful logical diamond that would contain all knowledge. The project failed, and in fact all such projects have failed and will fail, although they continue to be appealing for some reason. Their rigid structures cannot cope with the diversity of information, its rapid change, or its amorphous nature in the same way that an unstructured network of linked servers or hyperlinked pages can. The success of the internet refutes the philosophy of the Mundaneum: rigid logical structures cannot contain human knowledge or activity; only something more freewheeling can work.
I don't quite agree with that assertion. The fundamental problem remains the same in all cases: discovery of information.
The Web as hypertext/hypermedia links documents and information, allowing for the creation of models that approach the heuristics used by humans to find information: following the trail of bread crumbs. However, catering to the need to find relevant information in an efficient way is a hard problem since 'relevance' is in all instances heavily tied to context.
Google et al. are perceived as 'good' at helping someone to discover relevant information because they are experts at automatically gathering contextual information and leveraging that out-of-band while you just perform a fuzzy search based on a handful of keywords.
Without these powerful affordances made available by a handful of large tech companies, the Web would be very hard to navigate in one's search for relevant information. Moreover, even though the Web seems to be doing a better job then physical library or encyclopedia: that's still perception.
The "dark" part of the Web is still very large since it either isn't indexed or ranks very high in search results made available by major indexing tools like Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. If you want to do scholarly research, you're most often relegated to dedicated catalogues and instruments which rely on their own domain-specific classification systems to make information readily information in a digital fashion. So, it's not just about what you can discover on the Web, but - more importantly - about awareness of what you can't readily discover for lack of access through catalogues, indexes, search engines, etc.
What really changed the way we look at information is that the Web allows pepole to not have to physically dive into index cards, catalogues and libraries to discover information. That one can just jump from library to library from the comfort of one's own home. And that was exactly what people like Otlet or Vannevar Bush or Ted Nelson were dreaming about.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies (fiction podcast) also did a story set in the Mundaneum. It makes sense as an object of inspiration for a certain type of nerdy person I think.
Thought it was about following the principles of the mundane or something like that based on the name. Maybe a poor choice of name if it is rather about attempts at categorizing knowledge. Or maybe a self-aware jab at the futility of attempting to manually categorize knowledge?
There are two definitions of the word mundane. You are interpreting the name with the wrong definition of the two. It's perfectly good choice of a name, that covers the purpose well.
To let others better answer your question: how long have you used Google and for (roughly) what purposes?
An answer from me, during lunch break, sorry I didn't have time to make it shorter:
I started using Google somewhere between 2001 and 2003.
Back then it was a no brainer since all other engines either
- had much smaller indexes,
- were full of ads,
- mixed ads and results
- didn't respect your queries
Today Google:
- probably has the largest or second largest index (I'm not really sure about the NSA index : )
- yet you cannot get to the results you know are there because they insist on using you as a guinea pig for their AI that (roughly speaking) silently and transparently rewrites your question to something else that they rather want to answer.
- they have at least two ways to override this AI: doublequotes and the verbatim operator, -but conveniently let the AI override this too.
- if you end up in the wrong cohort you end up having yourself and your family insulted by their incredibly annoying ad targeting until you enable your ad blocker.
- up to half the pages are now ads
- and they keep experimenting with ways to make ads more visually similar to organic search
This is just the beginning, before we start talking about their lousy customer service, their eagerness to please China etc.
In fact, the quality is so bad now that Duckduckgo is just as good.
I'm optimistic though:
People keep blaming it on black hat seo and webspam but already we see a number of other engines doing interesting things in this space. I switched to a competitor recently and can happily say that what was supposed to be a brief test now seems to be a permanent solution: So far it feels like I have my Google from 2008 back (Decent index, smart matching, intelligent ranking ) and then some (lenses and various other smart features).
You could be direct and admit "I don't have any measurable evidence to substantiate my claims at this time. They are based on my personal feelings on the matter", rather that exhaust everyone with mental gymnastics.
Insisting on metrics does not make you more rational, it just makes you more obnoxious.
Not every insight requires quantitative metrics to be useful or trustworthy and not every insight based on quantitative metrics is correct or superior: https://mcnamarafallacy.com/
> Those who are concerned about falling into the trap of the McNamara Fallacy shouldn’t abandon quantitative measurements and metrics. Quantification is a valuable analytic tool, when it’s applied properly.
This is a discussion forum. You know - where people discuss things. Not everything is a ‘claim’ that has to be ‘substantiated’. Haranguing someone in this way is not what the site is about.
Again, read the thread. Nobody is supporting your behavior.
Here are some pointers from the site guidelines which may explain why:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Paul Otlet Envisioned the Internet Before Computers, Without Computers (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22043441 - Jan 2020 (14 comments)
The Internet Before the Internet: Paul Otlet’s Mundaneum (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21560749 - Nov 2019 (2 comments)
Mundaneum - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10104269 - Aug 2015 (2 comments)
Mundaneum - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783046 - June 2015 (6 comments)
Dec. 10, 1944: Web Visionary Passes Into Obscurity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=988008 - Dec 2009 (2 comments)
Amazing anticipation of the web from 1934 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=81030 - Nov 2007 (0 comments, but still interesting)