I had already looked up the full quote; it’s right there with the full context in the Al Gore and information technology Wikipedia article [1].
In a 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, he said “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” What he meant was that he sponsored the legislation that enabled the Internet to be accessible to the public, and several key Internet figures including Vint Cerf acknowledge his crucial role in enabling the Internet to become a public utility, which was not a given prior to his efforts.
Sure, he was talking himself up in the lead-up to the election and his language could have been more precise, but it was on off-hand remark in an interview, not a prepared speech or published text, and he clearly never claimed he “invented the Internet”.
Created vs. Invented. I don't know, sounds like the same thing to me. If Trump said "I took the initiative to create the COVID vaccine" be honest with yourself - how would you respond?
Hacker News should be a place where we don't settle for the weakest-possible interpretation of things (and the guidelines ask that of us, at least in replies to comments and submissions). Gore didn't say “I invented” or “I created” the Internet. He had been a congressman for 22 years when he did that interview, and had studied at Harvard prior to that. He's clearly not a stupid person and clearly understood the difference between inventing a technology and sponsoring legislation.
It's been a bit of a thing of mine for much of my life to notice likely bullshit in commonly-held beliefs, and to dig a little to understand what really happened or what was really said or meant.
And yes, I have always done this regardless of the political side, including in cases where there was uproar about things Trump supposedly said, including about the pandemic. (For the record, I'm not a U.S. citizen/voter, and I've voted for both sides of politics in the country where I am a citizen/voter, and my bullshit detector has been applied to both/all sides, including whichever one I was voting for.)
In a 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, he said “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” What he meant was that he sponsored the legislation that enabled the Internet to be accessible to the public, and several key Internet figures including Vint Cerf acknowledge his crucial role in enabling the Internet to become a public utility, which was not a given prior to his efforts.
Sure, he was talking himself up in the lead-up to the election and his language could have been more precise, but it was on off-hand remark in an interview, not a prepared speech or published text, and he clearly never claimed he “invented the Internet”.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...