Stewart Brand speaking September 5, 2004

Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois) is an author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog and CoEvolution Quarterly. His intent with the Whole Earth Catalog was to enable people to find virtually any sort of information useful to themselves, in the belief that humans would then develop a new, positive and sustainable culture and technology for themselves; in this way, his ideas were forerunners of the Internet. Hence, Brand later pioneered the online community The WELL. Brand is noted as an editor who published writings by many of the now-acknowledged innovative thinkers of today, early in their careers. He is one of the co-founders of the Global Business Network. Brand was also one of a group of "futurists" consulted in the planning stage of the feature film Minority Report. Download high resolution version (1037x878, 50 KB)(Processed Jimbo Wales Original) Photo of Stewart Brand speaking at Ars Electronica festival, Sept. ... Download high resolution version (1037x878, 50 KB)(Processed Jimbo Wales Original) Photo of Stewart Brand speaking at Ars Electronica festival, Sept. ... December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about Rockford, Illinois. ... An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ... An Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... The Whole Earth Catalog was a sizeable catalog published twice a year from 1968 to 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. ... CoEvolution Quarterly (later re-named Whole Earth Review) was one of the publishing ventures of the same visionary biologist (with interests in cultures and in art) who launched the Whole Earth Catalog and an early Internet community, still functioning, called the WELL. Stewart Brand is the name of this editor... For the Scottish football team, see Motherwell F.C. The Whole Earth Lectronic Link (or The WELL) is one of the oldest virtual communities still online. ... Minority Report is a 2002 film by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Samantha Morton, Kathryn Morris, and Colin Farrell. ...

Life and work

During Brand's childhood, his father worried that school was not stimulating Stewart to independent, creative thinking. His parents' response was to send him to Phillips Exeter Academy. From there, he went on to study biology at Stanford University, graduating in 1960. In the U.S. Army, he was a parachutist and taught infantry skills; he was later to express that his experience in the military fostered his competence in organizing. A civilian again, in the year 1962 he studied design at San Francisco Art Institute, photography at San Francisco State College, and was a participant in a legitimate study of the then-legal drug LSD, in Menlo Park. The Academy Building Phillips Exeter Academy (also called Exeter, Phillips Exeter, or PEA) is a co-educational independent boarding school for grades 9-12, located on 471. ... The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University (or simply Stanford), is a private university in Stanford, California, USA. It is incorporated as The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. ... The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) is an accredited undergraduate and graduate school of contemporary art located in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California, United States. ... San Francisco State University is a branch of the California State University system. ... For other uses, see LSD (disambiguation). ...

Brand has lived in California in the years since. Through scholarship and by visiting numerous Indian reservations, biologist-artist Brand familiarized himself with the Native Americans of the West. Native Americans have continued to be an important cultural interest, an interest which has re-emerged in Brand's work in various ways through the years. BIA map of Indian reservations in the continental United States. ... An Atsina named Assiniboin Boy Native Americans in the United States (also known as Indians, American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Original Americans) are the indigenous peoples within the territory that is now encompassed by the continental United States and their descendants in...

By the mid '60s, he developed an association with author Ken Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters," and in San Francisco, Brand produced the Trips Festival, a pioneering effort involving rock music and light shows. Ken Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American author, best known for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and as a cultural figure whom some consider a link between the beat generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. ... The Merry Pranksters were a circle of people who collected around American novelist Ken Kesey and Beat literature figurehead Neal Cassady, as well as main cohort Ken Babbs. ... Nickname: The City by the Bay Official website: http://www. ...

In 1966, Brand initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the then-rumored satellite image of the entire Earth as seen from space. He thought the image of our planet might be a powerful symbol. In a 2003 interview, Brand explained that the image "gave the sense that Earth’s an island, surrounded by a lot of inhospitable space. And it’s so graphic, this little blue, white, green and brown jewel-like icon amongst a quite featureless black vacuum." It was during his Earth-photograph campaign that Brand met Richard Buckminster Fuller, who offered to help him in his projects. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Richard Buckminster Bucky Fuller (July 12, 1895 - July 1, 1983) was an American visionary, designer, architect, inventor, and writer. ...

Earth from Space

In late 1968, Brand assisted electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart with The Mother of All Demos, a famous presentation of many revolutionary computer technologies (including the mouse) to the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. Download high resolution version (1085x724, 102 KB)Earth flag created solely from public domain sources and released into the public domain by Derrick Coetzee. ... Download high resolution version (1085x724, 102 KB)Earth flag created solely from public domain sources and released into the public domain by Derrick Coetzee. ... Douglas Engelbart Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart (born January 30, 1925 in Oregon) is an American inventor of Norwegian descent. ... Douglas Engelbarts 1968 demonstration at the Convention Center in San Francisco is often called The Mother of All Demos. ... Operating a mechanical 1: Pulling the mouse turns the ball. ...

Brand surmised that, given the necessary consciousness, information, and tools, human beings might reshape the world they had made (and were making) for themselves into something environmentally and socially sustainable. The fact that he had builders, designers, and engineers as friends surely influenced his reasoning.

In 1968, using the most basic of typesetting and page-layout tools, he and cohorts created issue number one of The Whole Earth Catalog. That first oversize Catalog, and its successors into the '70s and later, reckoned that many sorts of things were useful "tools": books, maps, garden tools, specialized clothing, carpenter's and mason's tools, forestry gear, tents, welding equipment, professional journals, early synthesizers and personal computers -- the list was broad and nearly endless. Brand invited "reviews" of the best of these items from experts in specific fields, as though they were writing a letter to a friend. The information also made known where these things could be located or bought. The Catalog's publication coincided with the great wave of experimentalism, convention-breaking, and "do it yourself" attitude associated with the "counterculture". The Whole Earth Catalog was a sizeable catalog published twice a year from 1968 to 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. ... See also: DIY Network, a cable TV network. ... In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream, a cultural equivalent of a political opposition. ...

The influence of these Whole Earth Catalogs on the rural back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, and the communities movement within many cities, was widespread, being felt in the U.S. and Canada and far beyond. A 1972 edition sold 1.5 million copies and in the U.S. won a National Book Award. Many people first learned about the potential of alternative energy production (e.g., solar, wind, small-hydro, geothermal) through the Catalog. (See also renewable energy.) The National Book Award is one of the most important literary prizes in the United States, presented annually for the best books by living U.S. citizens published in the U.S. The awards have been presented since 1950 in at least one category, and are presently awarded in each... Future energy development face great challenges due to an increasing world population, demands for higher standards of living, demands for less pollution and a much discussed end to fossil fuels. ... Renewable energy (sources) or RES capture their energy from existing flows of energy, from on-going natural processes, such as sunshine, wind, flowing water, biological processes, and geothermal heat flows. ...

To carry on this work and also to publish full-length articles on specific topics in natural sciences and invention, in numerous areas of arts and social sciences, and on the contemporary scene in general, Brand founded the CoEvolution Quarterly in 1974, aimed primarily at the savvy, educated layperson. Brand never better revealed his outlook and reason for hope than when he ran, in CoEvolution Quarterly #4, a transcription of technology historian Lewis Mumford’s talk “The Next Transformation of Man,” containing the statement: "... man has still within him sufficient resources to alter the direction of modern civilization, for we then need no longer regard man as the passive victim of his own irreversible technological development." CoEvolution Quarterly (later re-named Whole Earth Review) was one of the publishing ventures of the same visionary biologist (with interests in cultures and in art) who launched the Whole Earth Catalog and an early Internet community, still functioning, called the WELL. Stewart Brand is the name of this editor... Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian of technology and science, also noted for his study of cities. ...

Content of the Quarterly often wandered through the risky edges of futurism, or the risqué byways of modern life. Besides giving space to unknown writers with something valuable to say, Brand presented articles by many highly respected authors and thinkers, including Lewis Mumford, Howard T. Odum, Witold Rybczynski, Karl Hess, Christopher Swan, Orville Schell, Ivan Illich, Ursula K. LeGuin, Gregory Bateson, Amory Lovins, Hazel Henderson, Gary Snyder, Lynn Margulis, Peter Calthorpe, Sim Van der Ryn, Paul Hawken, John Todd, J. Baldwin, Kevin Kelly (future editor of Wired magazine), and Donella Meadows. In ensuing years, Brand authored and edited a number of books on topics as diverse as computer-based media, the life-history of buildings, and ideas about space colonies. Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian of technology and science, also noted for his study of cities. ... Howard Thomas Odum (1924-2002), commonly known as H.T. Odum or Tom Odum, was an eminent American ecosystem ecologist and a professor at the University of Florida. ... Witold Rybczynski (born in 1943, in Edinburgh, Scotland), is a Canadian architect, professor and writer. ... Karl Hess Karl Hess (May 25, 1923–April 22, 1994), was a libertarian writer whose career included stints on both the Republican right and the New Left. ... Chritsopher C. Swan is an articulate and technically sophisticated American advocate for the futher development and future of photovoltaic solar energy systems and for light rail (rail transport) systems. ... Orville Hickock Schell III (born May 20, 1940) is the Dean at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and author of numerous works on the history of China. ... Ivan Illich Ivan Illich (Vienna, September 4, 1926 - Bremen, December 2, 2002), polymath, polemicist. ... Ursula K. Le Guin at an informal bookstore Q&A session, July 2004 Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (born October 21, 1929), is an American author. ... Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904–4 July 1980) was a British anthropologist, social scientist, linguist and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. ... Amory Bloch Lovins (born November 13, 1947 in Washington, DC) was trained in physics and has worked professionally as an environmentalist. ... Known as a Futurist and a Evolutionary Encomiast Hazel Henderson the author of several books including Building A Win-Win World, Beyond Globalization and Planetary Citizenship (the later with Daisaku Ikeda). ... Young Gary Snyder, on one of his early book covers Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. ... Lynn Margulis. ... Peter Calthorpe has been named one of twenty five innovators on the cutting edge by Newsweek magazine for his work redefining the models of urban and suburban growth in America. ... Sim Van der Ryn is acknowledged as a leader in sustainable architecture. ... Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and best-selling author. ... Dr. John Todd (1939- ) is an important biologist working in the field of ecological design. ... James Tennant Baldwin (whose books and articles have been published under the names J. Baldwin, Jay Baldwin, and James T. Baldwin) is an American industrial designer and writer born in 1934. ... Kevin Kelly Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and former publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog. ... Wired can refer to: Wired magazine, a monthly technology magazine. ... Donella Dana Meadows (March 13, 1941 Elgin, Illinois, USA - February 20, 2001, New Hampshire) was a pioneering environmental scientist, a teacher and writer. ...

In 1977-79, Brand served as "special advisor" in the administration of California Governor Jerry Brown. In 1985, Brand and Larry Brilliant founded The WELL ("Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link"), a prototypic, broad-ranging online chat room for intelligent, informed participants the world over. Edmund Gerald Jerry Brown, Jr. ... Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Brilliant is a medical doctor, epidemiologist, technologist, activist, and author. ...

The WELL won the 1990 Best Online Publication Award from the Computer Press Association. Logo of The WELL This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... For the Scottish football team, see Motherwell F.C. The Whole Earth Lectronic Link (or The WELL) is one of the oldest virtual communities still online. ...

In 1986, Brand was visiting scientist at the Media Laboratory at MIT. Soon after, he took up the role of private-conference organizer for such corporations as Royal Dutch/Shell, Volvo, and AT&T. In 1988, he became a co-founder of the Global Business Network, which explores global futures and business strategies informed by the sorts of values and information which Brand has always found vital. GBN has taken a leadership role in the evolution and application of scenario thinking, planning, and complementary strategic tools. In other connections, Brand has sat on the board of the Santa Fe Institute (founded in 1984), an organization devoted to "fostering a multidisciplinary scientific research community pursuing frontier science." He has continued also to promote the preservation of tracts of wilderness. The Wiesner Buildings Atrium The MIT Media Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engages in education and research in the digital technology used for expression and communication. ... Royal Dutch Shell plc/Koninklijke Nederlandse Shell NV is a major Anglo-Dutch energy company, one of the three largest Super Majors (vertically integrated private-sector oil, natural gas, and petrol companies) in the world, along with BP and ExxonMobil. ... AB Volvo (or Aktiebolaget Volvo) is a world-leading Swedish manufacturer of commercial vehicles, buses and construction equipment, drive systems for marine and industrial applications, aerospace components and services. ... AT&T Inc. ... The Santa Fe Institute [SFI] is a non-profit research institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico founded by Murray Gell-Mann in 1984 to study complex systems and disseminate the notion of a separate interdisciplinary study of complexity theory. ...

Brand still stands behind his original insights. Well aware that there are plans afoot to mine the Moon for minerals, as a biologist he has been keenly aware that minerals are not the only need that Earth's life forms have, by any means. In a 2003 interview, he said “this [Earth] is all we’ve got and we’ve got to make it work. There’s no back up.”

A few of Brand's more recent aphorisms (on which he has elaborated) are: "Civilization’s shortening attention span is mismatched with the pace of environmental problems," "Environmental health requires peace, prosperity, and continuity," "Technology can be good for the environment," and (perhaps his most famous), [1] "Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine---too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better." (Spoken at the first Hackers' Conference, and printed in the May 1985 Whole Earth Review. It later turned up in his book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, published in 1987.)

Stewart Brand is the founder of the following institutions:

• The Whole Earth Catalog in 1968
• CoEvolution Quarterly in 1974, with proceeds from The Whole Earth Catalog.
• Point Foundation
• Global Business Network (co-founder)
• The WELL in 1985, with Larry Brilliant
• Hacker's Conference
• Long Now Foundation in 1996, with computer scientist Danny Hillis— one of the Foundation's projects is to build a 10,000 year clock, the Clock of the Long Now

The Whole Earth Catalog was a sizeable catalog published twice a year from 1968 to 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... CoEvolution Quarterly (later re-named Whole Earth Review) was one of the publishing ventures of the same visionary biologist (with interests in cultures and in art) who launched the Whole Earth Catalog and an early Internet community, still functioning, called the WELL. Stewart Brand is the name of this editor... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1974 calendar). ... The Point Foundation was a non-profit organization founded in 1972 by Stewart Brand. ... The Global Business Network is a consultancy firm that advises businesses on possible future scenarios. ... For the Scottish football team, see Motherwell F.C. The Whole Earth Lectronic Link (or The WELL) is one of the oldest virtual communities still online. ... This article is about the year. ... Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Brilliant is a medical doctor, epidemiologist, technologist, activist, and author. ... The Long Now Foundation was established in 1996. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... A wall clock A clock (from the Latin cloca, bell) is an instrument for measuring time. ... The Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a mechanical clock designed to keep time for 10,000 years. ...

Books

• II Cybernetic Frontiers, 1974, ISBN 0394492838 (hardcover), ISBN 0394706897 (paperback)
• The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, 1987, ISBN 0670814423 (hardcover); 1988, ISBN 0140097015 (paperback)
• How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built, 1994. ISBN 0670835153
• The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility, 1999. ISBN 046504512X

As editor or co-editor

• The Whole Earth Catalog (original editor, winner of the National Book Award, 1972)
• Whole Earth Epilog: Access to Tools, 1974, ISBN 0140039503
• The (Updated) Last Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools, 16th edition, 1975, ISBN 0140035443
• Space Colonies, Whole Earth Catalog, 1977, ISBN 0140048057
• As co-editor with J. Baldwin: Soft-Tech, 1978, ISBN 0140048065
• The Next Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools, 1980, ISBN 0394739515;
• The Next Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools, revised 2nd edition, 1981, ISBN 0394707761
• As editor-in chief: Whole Earth Software Catalog, 1984, ISBN 0385191669
• As editor-in-chief: Whole Earth Software Catalog for 1986, "2.0 edition" of above title, 1985, ISBN 0385233019
• As co-editor with Art Kleiner: News That Stayed News, 1974-1984: Ten Years of CoEvolution Quarterly, 1986, ISBN 0865472017 (hardcover), ISBN 0865472025 (paperback)
• Introduction by Brand: The Essential Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools and Ideas (Introduction by Brand), 1986, ISBN 0385236417
• Foreword by Brand: Signal: Communication Tools for the Information Age, editor: Kevin Kelly, 1988, ISBN 051757084X
• Foreword by Brand: The Fringes of Reason: A Whole Earth Catalog, editor: Ted Schultz, 1989, ISBN 051757165X
• Foreword by Brand: Whole Earth Ecolog: The Best of Environmental Tools & Ideas, editor: J. Baldwin, 1990, ISBN 0517576589

An Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... The National Book Award is one of the most important literary prizes in the United States, presented annually for the best books by living U.S. citizens published in the U.S. The awards have been presented since 1950 in at least one category, and are presently awarded in each... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ... James Tennant Baldwin (whose books and articles have been published under the names J. Baldwin, Jay Baldwin, and James T. Baldwin) is an American industrial designer and writer born in 1934. ... In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. ... A foreword is a literary device that is often found in the beginning of a piece of literature, before the introduction. ... Kevin Kelly Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and former publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog. ...

References

• Phil Garlington, "Stewart Brand," Outside magazine, December 1977.
• Sam Martin and Matt Scanlon, "The Long Now: An Interview with Stewart Brand," Mother Earth News magazine, January 2001 [2]
• "Stewart Brand" (c.v., updated October 2001) [3]
• Massive Change Radio interview with Stewart Brand, November 2003 [4]
• Whole Earth Catalog, various issues, 1968-1980.
• CoEvolution Quarterly (in the 1980s, renamed Whole Earth Review, later just Whole Earth), various issues, 1974-2002.

Mother Earth News Cover For the Early 1900s anarchist magazine, see Mother Earth (magazine) Mother Earth News is a bi-monthly American magazine that has maintained a readership of over a million people for more than three decades. ...

External links

• Edge.org
• Global Business Network
• Stewart Brand bio at "The Well"
• Listen to MP3 of Stewart Brand interviewed by Jennifer Leonard
• Cities & Time, seminar by Stewart Brand at the Long Now Foundation