[tlug] You are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier

[Charles Muller <cmuller-lst@example.com>]

This is off-topic to some extent, but I think worth mentioning on a
list like this inhabited by those who are concerned with the
relationship of computing and human culture.

I have just finished reading an extremely thought-provoking new book,
which I highly recommend to all. The summary on the book's jacket
(along with one parenthetical note from me) seems sufficient to
describe it. -- Chuck


Jaron Lanier. _You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto_. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf. 205 pp.


Jaron Lanier, known as the "father of virtual reality technology" is a
Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s, and was among the first to
predict the revolutionary changes the World Wide Web would bring to
commerce and culture. Now, in his first book, written more than two
decades after the web was created, Lanier offers this provocative and
cautionary look at the way it is transforming our lives for better and
for worse.

The current design and function of the web have become so familiar
that it is easy to forget that they grew out of programming decisions
made decades ago. The web’s first designers made crucial choices (such
as making one’s presence anonymous) that have had enormous—and often
unintended—consequences. What’s more, these designs quickly became
“locked in,” a permanent part of the web’s very structure.

Lanier discusses the technical and cultural problems that can grow out
of poorly considered digital design and warns that our financial
markets and sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating
the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and
judgment of individuals.

[He also shows how Wikipedia stifles individual creativity,
through its aggregation and absorption of individual creative research
into an anonymous, mob-ruled glob – a phenomenon he labels as "digital
Maoism." At the same time, the anonymous character of Wikipedia
entries shields its authors from criticism, creating a situation of
unhealthy unassailability.]

Lanier also shows:

** How 1960s antigovernment paranoia influenced the design of the
   online world and enabled trolling and trivialization in online
   discourse

** How file sharing is killing the artistic middle class;

** How a belief in a technological “rapture” motivates some of the
   most influential technologists

Why a new humanistic technology is necessary.

Controversial and fascinating, _You Are Not a Gadget_ is a deeply felt
defense of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment
on the way technology interacts with our culture.



-------------------

A. Charles Muller

University of Tokyo
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters
Center for Evolving Humanities
Akamon kenkyū tō #722
7-3-1 Hongō, Bunkyō-ku
Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
http://www.acmuller.net

<acmuller[at]jj.em-net.ne.jp>

Mobile Phone: 090-9310-1787