Walt Disney

Article

Walt Disney is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 28, 2022 and September 18, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “because Walt Disney had grand plans to build the “Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow” (EPCOT)”; “Do you know how Disneyland came about? During WWII Walt became interested in (obsessed with) model railroads”; “Walt Disney has some parallels - was a technology innovator and pushed workers beyond what they imagined their creative limits”. It most often appears alongside 787, Achille Mbembe, adderallposting.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: June 28, 2022
  • Last seen: September 18, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

June 28, 2022 · Original source
Florida gave the territory as a charter city to the Disney Corporation back in 1967, when they were first planning Disney World. Partly this was so Disney could handle the services for their theme park, but partly it was because Walt Disney had grand plans to build the “Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow” (EPCOT), and Florida wanted to let him. According to Wikipedia:
EPCOT was to be a utopian autocratic company town completely controlled by Walt Disney himself and featuring commercial, residential, industrial and recreational centers, connected by a mass multimodal transportation system. Based on ideas stemming from modernism and futurism, it was designed to replace the inefficient infrastructure created by urban sprawl that was growing in the United States in the 1960s. Needing the flexibility and independence to establish and maintain his own specialized, personalized government, Walt lobbied the Florida Government to create what became the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
Reedy Creek Improvement District is a forty-square mile piece of Central Florida including the towns of Bay Lake, Lake Buena Vista, and - last but certainly not least - Disney World.
September 18, 2023 · Original source
Musk's hands-on learn-how-it's-done practice reminds me a bit of Walt Disney, of all people. Do you know how Disneyland came about? During WWII Walt became interested in (obsessed with) model railroads. So he went into the company's machine shop and learned how to use the equipment to build his own models from scratch. Then, after the war, he had the idea that his employees needed a park where they could relax with their families. That much I learned from two biographies, a thick tome by Neal Gabler, and a somewhat more sympathatic one by Mike Barrier (and, I believe, a bit deeper). So, you merge the idea of a park with the skill of building model trains and out comes Disneyland, the world's first theme park and, some have said, a masterpiece of urban planning.
Walt Disney has some parallels - was a technology innovator and pushed workers beyond what they imagined their creative limits. He also had his very sensible brother Roy handling the finance side. (The company was called Disney Bros. until Walt decided it sounded better with just his name.) The usual pattern was that Walt would push the company the point of bankruptcy on a dream project, Roy would call in favors to get a bunch of bankers in a room to hear about it, then Walt’s incredible pitching ability would convince the skeptical bankers it was worth keeping them solvent a little longer. When all else failed they would make a princess movie. What I take away from the Walt biographies is that Roy was working hard behind the scenes to keep everything afloat and that with him (and genius Ub Iwerks), Walt would have flamed out many times.
Disney, too, has been a controversial figure, very.