upvote
> There's always some nincompoop who brings that up. Al Gore deserves credit for what he did as a senator and vice president. He helped to pass legislation that enabled the NSFNET backbone to grow and to permit commercial traffic to flow on the government-sponsored backbones in the US. Had he not done that, it's pretty likely that the commercial sector would not have seen an opportunity to create a commercial internet that all of us can enjoy, so he does deserve some credit for what he's done.

— Vint Cerf, Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0rjtnwC9A>

reply
> Al Gore is definitely one of them!

Al Gore Jr.'s father, the Sr., was instrumental in enacting the US Interstate Highway system:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gore_Sr.#U.S._Senate

Which transformed the economy for physical goods. Jr saw parallels with the transportation of information, and coined a term (in 1978!) about it:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...

reply
> Al Gore is definitely one of them!

Absolutely correct — and that's not sarcasm or irony. (Gore never claimed to have "invented the Internet"; that was a calumny spread by Republicans.)

reply
1999 CNN interview where Gore stated: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet".
reply
And that was true, within his context as senator. He was instrumental in passing the laws that fostered the Internet.

It’s astonishing, I know, but the heavily-parroted meme was always reductive and is, at this point, misnformation.

reply
deleted
reply