# Al Gore invented the Internet?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-invented-the-internet/17965>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 8, 2000, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-invented-the-internet/17965 "2000-03-08T22:34:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2000, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-invented-the-internet/17965/41 "2000-04-16T16:11:00Z")

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Sake Samurai wrote:

> [@](#):
>
> I think it’s safe to say that, were there no Al Gore, the Internet would be exactly as it is today. He helped the Internet like Bush helped end the Cold War.

There **was** one thing Gore did that, in my opinion, did help to make the Internet catch on.

Namely, his “Information superhighway” speech. This was the speech he gave to describe the new High-Performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991 that he’d voted for. The HPCC Act itself probably had little measurable impact on the Internet at all, but **everybody** remembered his Information Superhighway speech.

My guess is that this made all the big fat lazy heads of big businesses in this country stand up and say, “Hey, look! There’s this Internet thing out there! Why didn’t one of my flunkies send me a memo about this sooner?!”, which caused them to fire all their Yes-men and hire a completely **new** crop of Yes-men. Oh, and it put the Internet on their abysmally short-sighted radar screens, too.

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**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2000, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-invented-the-internet/17965/42 "2000-04-16T16:16:00Z")

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Any cite on that? That’s also been attributed to Quayle many times.

Oh, and add me to the list of Democrats who would have voted for McCain.

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Truth does not change because it is, or is not, beleived by a majority of the people.  
-Giordano Bruno

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