Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s, was among the first to predict the revolutionary changes the World Wide Web would bring t...
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Jun 06, 2011
Chris
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Amongst other things, Lanier has opened my eyes to the fact that, in a world both more just and ideally situated for a continuation of the entrepreneurial capitalist culture that has raised the tide of global wealth like nothing before, each one of you moochers and looters would be paying me a fee for the opportunity to peruse these book reviews which appear upon your computer screens only after a tortuous, strangled combat producing rivulets of overly-descriptive and yet still somewhat nebulous
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3 comments
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Jun 04, 2011
Gordon
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This is a slim book that should have been slimmer. In fact, it should probably have been a couple of articles in Wired Magazine instead. I think the Wired readership is pretty much the core target audience for this book. The author is a long-time software engineer, musician, and philosopher of technology. I’m not sure I’ve ever read any book by a philosopher of technology, but that’s definitely what he is. The upside of that approach is that he thinks of technology within a framework of ethic
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Sep 02, 2010
Patrick
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Ever since I read about this book at Bookavore's excellent blog, I feared this book. How could I not -- I'm currently employed by a social media company. Surely this manifesto would make me rethink my career, my hobbies, how I spend my time. It had the potential to be a paradigm-shifting reading experience, the kind of experience I hadn't had since reading The Omnivore's Dilemma a few years back.
That it didn't realign my thinking on all things digital -- thankfully -- is not entir More...
That it didn't realign my thinking on all things digital -- thankfully -- is not entir More...
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Sep 06, 2011
zerospinboson
rated it: 
From reading the NYTimes review of the book, there seem to be major problems with this book already, that mark it out to be a book not to be approached if one is looking for insightful comments.
Like Andrew Keen in “The Cult of the Amateur,” Mr. Lanier is most eloquent on how intellectual property is threatened by the economics of free Internet content, crowd dynamics and the popularity of aggregator sites. “An impenetrable tone deafness rules Silicon Valley when it comes to the idea of autMore...
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Jun 13, 2010
Surfing Moose
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I really enjoyed this book and was already of the mindset that Jaron writes about. I do believe that sites like Facebook diminish the word "Friend" and give individuals a false sense of community. Sites like Facebook will go away eventually to be replaced by the next thing but hopefully something better and more meaningful.
I am an individual, not a member of a hive, not classifiable for marketing purposes (man does Amazon's recommendations get it wrong 95% of the time), and More...
I am an individual, not a member of a hive, not classifiable for marketing purposes (man does Amazon's recommendations get it wrong 95% of the time), and More...
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Apr 18, 2011
Mark
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At the outset, let me say that as a software developer myself I found this a compelling read despite some stylistic and tonal flaws.
Mr Lanier's primary bone of contention is with the way in which existing modes of digital conduct are enshrined as sacrosanct practices, when in fact their origins had far more to do with programmatic expediency rather than any kind of realistic, tangible human goal. Early in the book he uses MIDI as a larger metaphor for the concept of lock-in; in that i More...
Mr Lanier's primary bone of contention is with the way in which existing modes of digital conduct are enshrined as sacrosanct practices, when in fact their origins had far more to do with programmatic expediency rather than any kind of realistic, tangible human goal. Early in the book he uses MIDI as a larger metaphor for the concept of lock-in; in that i More...
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Nov 04, 2011
So who is Facebook's customer? You? Yes, someday when you have to pay for access to feed your habit, but you are not the big ticket. Facebook's real customer is the advertiser of the future. Vast data is being collected about people's likes and dislikes, habits and preferences, and the engine to truly mine all this data has yet to be created.
Even though the data here under-represents reality, Facebook still gets closer than any other social graph thus far.
Read the quot More...
Even though the data here under-represents reality, Facebook still gets closer than any other social graph thus far.
Read the quot More...
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Mar 18, 2011
Dav
rated it:
I intend to write a longer more thought-out review at some point, but as a quick brain dump:
Despite Lanier's failure to convince me of much of his opinions, a lot of pople should read this book. I wish it had a better editor perhaps. Lanier has a contrarian viewpoint that should be considered by all of us who build technology. We and our users can only benefit from it.
Some of the book is brilliant. Much of it is mad strawman arguments (in those cases maybe he has a point, b More...
Despite Lanier's failure to convince me of much of his opinions, a lot of pople should read this book. I wish it had a better editor perhaps. Lanier has a contrarian viewpoint that should be considered by all of us who build technology. We and our users can only benefit from it.
Some of the book is brilliant. Much of it is mad strawman arguments (in those cases maybe he has a point, b More...
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Jun 19, 2011
Donna
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I was so blown away by the excerpt of this book in Harper's that I deleted my facebook account before I even finished it. I also enjoyed the book, though I got lost about one exit after the 'songle'. But this is to be expected. Manifestos have a good first half or however much is apportioned to stating the problem. Therein lies recognition and the endorphin bath of connected dots. Solutions are harder to express. There's maybe one* person born per generation who can show us those unseen patterns
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Nov 14, 2011
Eric
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While I agree with a lot of his sentiments, these are obviously the thoughts of someone deeply immersed in the tech community. Compared to his average reader, he's speaking from the perspective of someone who has always been ahead of the curve, and I think this skews a lot of his opinions to the extreme.
Still, many of his basic points about the general devaluation of the individual are more or less correct. For all that the internet has improved our lives, it is also dangerously easy t More...
Still, many of his basic points about the general devaluation of the individual are more or less correct. For all that the internet has improved our lives, it is also dangerously easy t More...
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Feb 10, 2012
David
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Jaron Lanier recollects that, a couple of decades ago he remarked to a friend: You know, this is probably the most interesting room in the entire world. And--he was probably right. He was a pioneer, helping to develop the first true virtual reality; in fact, he popularized the term "virtual reality".
If you like Wired magazine, then you will love this book. It is about the philosophy of the digital age. Lanier is a true visionary. He is very opinionated, but his opinions are More...
If you like Wired magazine, then you will love this book. It is about the philosophy of the digital age. Lanier is a true visionary. He is very opinionated, but his opinions are More...
Feb 09, 2012
Kami
rated it:
Whatever your reaction to the assertions made within, this is a unique and fascinating book about computers because it's written in a flowery and rambling style more suited to a philosophical text - a style beaten out of me when I started writing academically about computers. This makes sense, as this is very much a philosophical book, and also makes it a valuable read for computer scientists who may not be used to seeing their world through this kind of filter.
My reaction is definit More...
My reaction is definit More...
Dec 28, 2011
Aaron
rated it: 
This book is, unfortunately, very poorly argued.
I was really interested in reading this book to get some ideas on how technology can be better applied to work for people in a more humanistic way. Unfortunately, the first three quarters of the book involve the author ranting against "web 2.0 technologists" without clearly attributing any specific arguments.
The last quarter of the book is where the author starts actually providing ideas on how technology can be applied in a More...
I was really interested in reading this book to get some ideas on how technology can be better applied to work for people in a more humanistic way. Unfortunately, the first three quarters of the book involve the author ranting against "web 2.0 technologists" without clearly attributing any specific arguments.
The last quarter of the book is where the author starts actually providing ideas on how technology can be applied in a More...
Oct 25, 2011
Mykle
rated it:
This book is all jism and dope smoke.
Jaron Lanier is really, really bothered by a laundry list of standard arch-conservative nemeses (Marxism! today's kids! filesharing! the breakdown of the social contract! foreigners stealing our jobs!) as well as a basket of useful-yet-imperfect modern technologies (Wikipedia! Blogs! MIDI! Linux!) He is aware of a sinister cabal of cybernetic totalists who are hard at work on a machine to xerox his brain and force him to use Facebook to meet More...
Jaron Lanier is really, really bothered by a laundry list of standard arch-conservative nemeses (Marxism! today's kids! filesharing! the breakdown of the social contract! foreigners stealing our jobs!) as well as a basket of useful-yet-imperfect modern technologies (Wikipedia! Blogs! MIDI! Linux!) He is aware of a sinister cabal of cybernetic totalists who are hard at work on a machine to xerox his brain and force him to use Facebook to meet More...
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Oct 15, 2011
Douglas
rated it:
Jaron Lanier points out dangerous trends in internet culture. A few things that stood out:
The web is neotenous, remaining young in both good and bad ways.
His discussion of remixing made me think of the Wood between Worlds, a fictional world with doorways to all the other fictional worlds. Suddenly, everyone can go explore everyone else's world. (That was my reaction not his point.) This idea is also a big part of Chronicles of Amber, Fables, and Sandman.
Wikipedia, like scri More...
The web is neotenous, remaining young in both good and bad ways.
His discussion of remixing made me think of the Wood between Worlds, a fictional world with doorways to all the other fictional worlds. Suddenly, everyone can go explore everyone else's world. (That was my reaction not his point.) This idea is also a big part of Chronicles of Amber, Fables, and Sandman.
Wikipedia, like scri More...
Aug 16, 2011
David
rated it:
Perhaps Jaron Lanier is a little cranky that people never embraced virtual reality like he thought they would, but this book has a lot of interesting ideas, so many that it worth a slow, careful read. I adimt that parts of those were a little over my head as my computer background is not the greatest.
His basic premise is that while technological advancements are moving ahead at a rapid pace,
innovation has not and we have failed to control the technology in
meaningful ways More...
His basic premise is that while technological advancements are moving ahead at a rapid pace,
innovation has not and we have failed to control the technology in
meaningful ways More...
Jul 26, 2011
Emily
rated it:
In this book, a rather strange man who plays a "Laotian mouth organ" and admires cephalopods tries to convince us to promote humanism in computing. I started this book in a skeptical frame of mind, since the argument could be pompous, point-missing, or Luddite, but it's none of those things. The author throws a lot of ideas out, and some of them are half-baked, and a few I disagree with, but overall there's a lot to think about here. His main argument--that computers give us amazing po
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Jan 19, 2011
mahatma
rated it:
rasanya,
kisah yang dipaparkan ini biasa saja. berkat keterbukaan informasi, maka banyak hal yang disampaikannya sudah terbuka juga buat kebanyakan orang sekarang. namun, berharganya buku ini -menurut saya- karena dikisahkan oleh orang yang terlibat yang nyaris tanpa jarak dengan object yang diceritakannya.
kisah merebaknya internet dan teknologi komunikasi itu belum lama munculnya.
tahun 90-an.
begitu pendek waktu untuk perubahan-perubahan. dengan kata lain- begitu cepat kom More...
kisah yang dipaparkan ini biasa saja. berkat keterbukaan informasi, maka banyak hal yang disampaikannya sudah terbuka juga buat kebanyakan orang sekarang. namun, berharganya buku ini -menurut saya- karena dikisahkan oleh orang yang terlibat yang nyaris tanpa jarak dengan object yang diceritakannya.
kisah merebaknya internet dan teknologi komunikasi itu belum lama munculnya.
tahun 90-an.
begitu pendek waktu untuk perubahan-perubahan. dengan kata lain- begitu cepat kom More...
Aug 11, 2010
Scott
rated it:
A somewhat cranky "manifesto" about the state of the internet--particularly, Web 2.0--that definitely has some good ideas and an interesting perspective on certain things but ultimately feel a bit too much ado about nothing (are stupid, nasty, anonymous blog comments really all that harmful to our future?). I liked his take on how recycled pop culture, especially music, has completely won over creating something new, because the web so relentlessly encourages and rewards mash-ups and t
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May 03, 2010
Jason
rated it:
The core ideas of this book are great, but they're explained in such a scattershot fashion that it's tough to recommend the book to people not heavily interested in technology's effect on culture. Buried here is a great criticism of the design philosophies of the current generation of web entrepreneurs and the wide leeway users have given them. Lanier's criticism, on the surface, can seem like an indictment of techno-utopianism in general, but in my opinion he is only focusing on techno-utopian
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Mar 27, 2010
Josh
rated it:
Jaron Lanier is clearly a genius and he has a lot of cool things going on in his head. He is, however, a poor cultural critic and this book is mostly cultural criticism. Lanier rails against what he calls "Digital Maoism." Falling under this umbrella are any collective projects on the internet (like Wikipedia), any open source software (like Linux), the Creative Commons, the Technological Singularity, and a few things I might have forgotten. According to Lanier, creativity in music
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Feb 23, 2010
Natali
rated it:
I want to give this book a higher rating but I don't think the author sufficiently completed his point. Organization and completion aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this read!
Jaron Lanier writes about how dangerous it is to be overly effusive about technology. He believes that too often we lock ourselves into limiting technology and delete humanity from the equation. He says that there is "an odd lack of curiosity about the limits of crowd wisdom. This is an indication of the faith- More...
Jaron Lanier writes about how dangerous it is to be overly effusive about technology. He believes that too often we lock ourselves into limiting technology and delete humanity from the equation. He says that there is "an odd lack of curiosity about the limits of crowd wisdom. This is an indication of the faith- More...
Feb 18, 2010
Book
rated it:
You Are Not A Gadget A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier is making a statement against the current state of the internet. He was one of the original creators of virtual reality and proponents for creative commons. He is arguing that the internet has become dehumanizing, mob ruled, economically destructive, and poorly designed. This book is an argument for a different kind of internet; a single payer web, a place with less anonymity, a place where authors are ac More...
Jaron Lanier is making a statement against the current state of the internet. He was one of the original creators of virtual reality and proponents for creative commons. He is arguing that the internet has become dehumanizing, mob ruled, economically destructive, and poorly designed. This book is an argument for a different kind of internet; a single payer web, a place with less anonymity, a place where authors are ac More...
Feb 17, 2010
Elijah
rated it:
As a disclaimer, Jaron Lanier was roommates with Richard Stallman, with whom I had a bit of an argument regarding epistemology while I was attending a conference at Harvard Law School a few years back. I was young and freshly baccalaureated with a degree in philosophy, and I realized that Richard Stallman, while by all accounts an excellent coder, was a miserable philosopher. Unfortunately, his former roommate isn't much better, either as a philosopher, a sociologist or a musicologist. You Ar
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Mar 20, 2011
Andrew
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Consciousness is situated in time, because you can’t experience a lack of time, and you can’t experience the future. If consciousness isn’t anything but a false thought in the computer that is your brain, or the universe, then what exactly is it that is situated in time? The present moment, the only other thing that could be situated in time, must in that case be a freestanding object, independent of the way it is experienced.
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In his manifesto, You Are Not A Gadge More...
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In his manifesto, You Are Not A Gadge More...
Jan 31, 2011
Alana
rated it:
Although I'm a fan of the Singularitarian branch of speculative tech writing, I was completely fascinated by this book, flaws and all. While I don't agree with many of the arguments presented, mostly what I perceived as his rejection of the potential of the 'cloud'/'hive mind' to solve problems, he still raises many good points and I do very much agree with his warnings that we are locking ourselves into a mindset that our current path is the ONLY path worth pursuing.
On another note, More...
On another note, More...
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Jun 15, 2010
Jill
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I have the feeling that I'm not going to finish this. When I first started to read it, I felt it should have been required reading for iSchool (or, as seemed more likely, underground reading for iSchool) -- the digital Maoism and techno-wishful thinking Lanier describes certainly corresponded to my experience in several classes (I KNEW I was right about the weirdly free-market language and the hints of libertarianism). Lanier's points about dehumanization are on target. But the book is starting
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Jun 15, 2010
Parker
rated it:
Two stars as in "it was ok."
Jaron Lanier is clearly a smart guy with an impressive set of credentials in computer science. He coined the term "virtual reality", for one. However, I found it a bit difficult to follow along with this book; I found myself agreeing with many of his observations and very few of his conclusions.
Lanier describes himself as a humanist, and positions himself in opposition to the ascendant "open culture" tribe of theor More...
Jaron Lanier is clearly a smart guy with an impressive set of credentials in computer science. He coined the term "virtual reality", for one. However, I found it a bit difficult to follow along with this book; I found myself agreeing with many of his observations and very few of his conclusions.
Lanier describes himself as a humanist, and positions himself in opposition to the ascendant "open culture" tribe of theor More...
Aug 28, 2011
Angela
rated it:
I tend to be leery of computer geeks waxing philosophical about social contracts or economic systems, usually because there's something so strangely entitled about them as a group. Why does being a hacker make you understand democracy and freedom better than everyone else? I'm looking at you, Anonymous. Is it just because you can bully others into hearing your viewpoint, because "information should be free!" is so simple a rallying call and Bank of America is so easy to hack? Anyway. J
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Jul 03, 2011
Will
rated it:
There are many ideas floating about in the mind of Jaron Lanier, the guy who popularized the term virtual reality, was with Atari in the beginning and has, for decades, been involved with VR as a teacher, consultant and architect. One of his notions, the core argument of this book, is that much of current internet interface design, so-called Web 2.0, is hazardous to users.
certain specific, popular internet designs of the moment—not the internet as a whole—tend to pull us into life patterns thaMore...
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