Of the many tech policy-related books I’ve read in recent years, I can’t recall ever being quite so torn over one of them as much as I have been about Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. There were moments while I was reading through it when I was thinking, “Yes, quite right!,” and other times when I was muttering to myself, “Oh God, no!”
The book is bound to evoke such strong emotions since Lanier doesn’t mix words about what he believes is the increasingly negative impact of the Internet and digital technologies on our lives, culture, and economy. In this sense, Lanier fits squarely in the pessimist camp on the Internet optimists vs. pessimists spectrum. (I outlined the intellectual battle lines between these two camps my essay, “Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s Impact on Society.”) But Lanier is no techno-troglodyte. Generally speaking, his pessimism isn’t as hysterical in tone or Luddite-ish in its prescriptions as the tracts of some other pessimists. And as a respected Internet visionary, a gifted computer scientist, an expert on virtual reality, and a master wordsmith, the concerns Lanier articulates here deserve to be taken seriously— even if one ultimately does not share his lugubrious worldview.
On the very first page of the book, Lanier hits on three interrelated concerns that other Net pessimists have articulated in the past:
- Loss of individuality & concerns about “mob” behavior (Lanier: “these words will mostly be read by nonpersons–automatons or numb mobs composed of people who are no longer acting as individuals.”)
- Dangers of anonymity (Lanier: “Reactions will repeatedly degenerate into mindless chains of anonymous insults and inarticulate controversies.”)
- “Sharecropper” concern that a small handful of capitalists are getting rich off the backs of free labor (Lanier: “Ultimately these words will contribute to the fortunes of those few who have been able to position themselves as lords of the computing clouds.”)
Again, others have tread this ground before, and it’s strange that Lanier doesn’t bother mentioning any of them. Neil Postman, Mark Helprin, Andrew Keen, and Lee Siegel have all railed against the online “mob mentality” and argued it can be at least partially traced to anonymous online communications and interactions. And it was Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, who has been the most eloquent in articulating the “sharecropper” concern, which Lanier now extends with his “lords of the computing clouds” notion. [More on that towards the end.] Continue reading →
The PBS documentary series Frontline aired a new program last night called “Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier.” [You can watch it online at that link.] Produced by Rachel Dretzin and Douglas Rushkoff, the 90-minute special touched on several themes we have debated here through the years including:
- concerns about information overload and multitasking;
- the role of computers and digital technology in education & learning; and,
- the nature and impact of virtual reality and virtual worlds on real-world life and culture.
As a student of information history, I’m particularly interested in these subjects because I’ve written frequently about the lively debates between techno-optimists and techno-pessimists throughout history. (See my latest essay: “Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s Impact on Society.“) I thought Dretzin and Rushkoff did a nice job covering a lot of ground in a very short amount of time and providing balance from folks on both sides of the optimist/pessimist spectrum. Below I’ll just summarize a few notes I took while watching “Digital Nation” and offer a few thoughts on these controversial topics. Mostly, I’ll just discuss the first two, interrelated issues. (My thoughts on the third issue — virtual worlds and virtual reality, can be found in these videos from my recent speech in Second Life).
Continue reading →
I recently finished Tyler Cowen’s latest book, Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World. Like everything he writes, this book is worth reading and it will be of interest to those who follow technology policy debates since Cowen makes a passionate case for “Internet optimism” in the face of recent criticisms of the Internet and the Information Age in general.
Cowen is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the co-author, along with Alex Tabarrok, of the wonderful MarginalRevolution.com blog. And if you haven’t read Cowen’s In Praise of Commercial Culture, stop what you’re doing and go get yourself a copy right now. Brilliant book. Compared to that book, Create Your Own Economy is a difficult book to summarize. Seriously, this book is all over the place… but in a good way. Even though it sometimes feels like “Tyler’s Miscellaneous Ramblings,” those ramblings will keep you engaged and entertained. Cord Blomquist did a pretty good job of summarizing the general themes of the book in this post two months ago when he noted that, “despite cultural reflexes that would have us do otherwise, we should embrace… new technologies as means to be more selective about what information we absorb and therefore welcome the increased volume of bytes into our lives. In his new book, [Cowen] explores technology as a vehicle to help you determine what you really value, not a series of a email-powered torture devices.” That’s a pretty good summation, but the book is about much more than that.
Instead of a full-blown review, I want to focus on some of passages from Cowen’s book about coping with information overload, which I think readers here might find of interest. In doing so, I will contrast Cowen’s views with those of John Freeman, who just penned “A Manifesto for Slow Communication” in The Wall Street Journal. As we will see, Cowen and Freeman’s differences exemplify the heated ongoing debate taking place among “Internet optimists & pessimists,” which I have discussed here many times before. Continue reading →
A few months ago, Adam Thierer penned The Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed in response to calls from “Internet pessimists” for increased regulation of the Internet on many fronts. Adam’s recent 4-way debate with pessimists Larry Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain (as well as optimist Declan McCullagh) inspired me to pen the following cheeky homage to Lessig, the Father of Internet Pessimism, whose work has launched a thousand efforts to increase government control of the Internet in the name, ironically, of “freedom:”
Our Lessig, who art in Harvard,
Hallowed be thy blog.
Thy Free Culture come.
Thy Code be done,
In Washington as it is in thy Ivory Tower.
Give us this day our Net Neutrality.
And forgive us our trespasses against Internet Openness,
As we forgive those who question thy genius,
And lead us not into trusted systems of perfect control,
But deliver us from digital rights management and architectures of identity.
For thine is the wisdom,
and the clairvoyance, and the coolness,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Lest I become the Salman Rushdie of pragmatic Internet optimists/regulatory-skeptics, let me emphasize that my techno-blasphemy is meant in good humor. But then, that’s probably what poor Rushdie said…
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
