Amiability and the Web: Lessons from Red Vienna and the Origin of Computing
Mark P. Bernstein · 2025
From 1919 to 1934, the socialist city government of Vienna fostered a remarkable increase in art, public architecture, and scholarship despite desperate economic conditions.Throughout this period, the Vienna Circle, a philosophical discussion group, examined with new rigor the question of what can be known.Their work built the theoretical foundations of computing.Much of this work was carried out in Vienna's distinctive cafés.This was not a quaint idiosyncrasy; the cafés were in the business of amiability.Parallels to the early Web and its precursors are not difficult to find, and the collapse of Red Vienna may parallel the current predicament of the Web.