Philosophy & Cyber-Libertarianism

Excellent Slate Article on Techno-Panics & Fears of Info Overload

by on February 16, 2010 · 1 comment

Ryan Radia brought to my attention this excellent Slate piece by Vaughan Bell entitled, “Don’t Touch That Dial! A History of Media Technology Scares, from the Printing Press to Facebook.” It touches on many of the themes I’ve discussed here in my essays on techno-panics, fears about information overload, and the broader optimists v. pessimist battle throughout history regarding the impact of new technologies on culture, life and learning. “These concerns stretch back to the birth of literacy itself,” Bell rightly notes:

Worries about information overload are as old as information itself, with each generation reimagining the dangerous impacts of technology on mind and brain. From a historical perspective, what strikes home is not the evolution of these social concerns, but their similarity from one century to the next, to the point where they arrive anew with little having changed except the label.

Quite right. And Bell’s essay reminds us of this gem from the great Douglas Adams about how bad we humans are at putting technological change in perspective:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

So true, and I wish I would have remembered it before I wrapped up my discussion about “adventure windows” in the review of Jaron Lanier’s new book, You Are Not a Gadget, which I published last night. As I noted in that essay:

Our willingness to try new things and experiment with new forms of culture—our “adventure window”—fades rapidly after certain key points in life, as we gradually get set in our ways. Many cultural critics and average folk alike always seem to think the best days are behind us and the current good-for-nothing generation and their new-fangled gadgets and culture are garbage.

Continue reading →

SHARE: 1 comment

book review: Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget

by on February 15, 2010 · 616 comments

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:

  1. 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.”)
  2. Dangers of anonymity (Lanier: “Reactions will repeatedly degenerate into mindless chains of anonymous insults and inarticulate controversies.”)
  3. “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 →

SHARE: 616 comments

Glen Robinson, Communications Law Giant, Speaks at George Mason Law Thursday 2/18 @ 4 pm

by on February 14, 2010 · 0 comments

Glen Robinson, my favorite professor back at Virginia Law, will be giving a lecture about “Regulating Communications: Stories from the First Hundred Years” at George Mason Law School this Thursday (2/18) at 4 pm. You simply couldn’t find a better person to give that talk. Robinson isn’t quite old enough to first-hand stories all the way back to the birth of the Federal Radio Commission in 1926 and the FCC in 1934, but he started practicing communications law back in 1961, was an FCC Commissioner 1974-76, and has taught at UVA since 1976 (until finally retiring in 2008).

Reading about his long career is a bit like watching the British comedy series Black Adder: Somehow, like Rowan Atkinson’s character Black Adder, Robinson keeps popping up again and again at pivotal moments in communications law history—most notably, he worked to draft early anti-cable rules in the 1960s and voted for the FCC’s indecency prosecution against George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue. But unlike Black Adder, who always happens to be at the right place at the right time, make the wrong decisions and foolishly learns nothing, Robinson sometimes made the wrong decision, but demonstrated that rare ability to rethink his approach and admit he was wrong—an intellectual honesty most famously exemplified by FA Hayek. Robinson grew to become among the most trenchant, and certainly the most sage, critic of the FCC’s constant evolution towards censorship and curtailing competition in the communications industry. His general skepticism about administrative regulation is perhaps the most thoughtful and refined you’ll find in academe—and not just in communications law.  Continue reading →

SHARE: 0 comments

Nobel Peace Prize Should Go to Berners-Lee or Robert Taylor

by on February 6, 2010 · 12 comments

Mashable has reported that “The Internet” has made the list of Nobel Peace Prize nominees this year.  This prize has already had its fair share of controversial and sometimes even comical nominees and recipients, but this sort of nomination is disappointing in a whole different way—it ignores the fact that individual human beings actually invented the technology that created the Internet.

The sentiment behind this nomination, popularized by Italy’s version of Wired, is understandable.  The Internet has had such an effect on the world in such a short amount of time its impossible to calculate the enormity of its effects on science, the arts, or politics.  It has generated a mountainous amount of wealth, exposed the barbarism of tyrannical regimes worldwide, and has made more knowledge accessible to more people than ever before.

But people like Tim Berners-Lee or Roberty Taylor should be considered for the prize given their tremendous contributions to Internet technology.  Both Berners-Lee or Taylor have already been recognized for their contributions to technological progress—Berners-Lee has an alphabet soup of honor-related suffixes after his name—but awarding the Nobel Prize isn’t just about accolades, it’s also about money.  The 2009 prizes were roughly $1.4 million each, which would be a nice sum for a foundation dedicated to the advancement of Internet technologies, like Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation.  When considering this, its clear that awarding the prize to an individual would do a lot more good than if the concept or idea of the Internet received the prize.

Even so, Web 2.0 evangelists, prominent intellectuals, and even 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi have backed the notion of the prize being awarded to the Internet itself—a new campaign is calling this “A Nobel for Each and Every One of Us.”  While the power of the Internet does indeed flow from its uniting “each and every one of us,” the technology that allowed this miracle to exist was invented by people like Berners-Lee and Taylor who dedicated years of their lives to the advancement of human understanding.  Even in this era of wise crowds, social networks, and “collective intelligence,” this sort of individual accomplishment should be recognized.

If you’d like to nominate any other person involved in the advancement of Internet technology for the Peace Prize, please drop a name in the comments.

SHARE: 12 comments

Another Sky-is-Falling Zittrain Editorial

by on February 5, 2010 · 7 comments

Harvard Berkman Center professor Jonathan Zittrain has published another pessimistic, Steve-Jobs-is-Taking-Us-Straight-To-Cyber-Hell editorial building on the gloomy thesis he set forth in his 2008 book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. His latest piece appears in the Financial Times and it’s entitled, “A Fight over Freedom at Apple’s Core. Concerning the recent Apple iPad announcement, Zittrain warns: “Mr Jobs ushered in the personal computer era and now he is trying to usher it out.”

I’m not going to go into yet another lengthy dissertation about what it so misguided about his thesis that cyberspace is becoming more “regulable” and that digital “generativity” is dying because of the rise of devices like the iPhone & iPad, or sites like Facebook.  Instead, I will just point you to the many things I’ve written before explaining just how far off the mark Prof. Zittrain is on this point. [See the complete list down below + video of our debate.]

But let me just say this… Ignoring that fact that he is an iPhone user himself — which makes no sense considering that he thinks of Apple as the font of all cyber-evil — he can’t muster any substantive empirical evidence proving that the Net and digital devices are being more “closed, sterile, and tethered,” as he repeatedly claims in his book and editorials.  And that’s not surprising because the reality is that the digital world is more open and generative than ever, and even if there are some “closed” devices and systems out there, they are actually quite innovative and not perfectly closed as Zittrain suggests. The spectrum of “open vs. closed” systems and devices is incredible diverse and nothing is perfectly “open” or “closed.”  We can have the best of both worlds: many open systems with some partial “walled gardens” here and there (or hybrid systems combining both). Regardless, we are witnessing greater digital “generativity” and innovation with each passing year. Until Zittrain can prove the opposite, his thesis must be considered a failure.

Finally, I want to associate myself with this excellent critique of the Zittrain thesis by Prof. Ed Felten, who points out that Zittrain’s argument doesn’t even work for the iPad, which I would agree is a fairly “closed appliance” in the Zittrainian scheme of the things:

Continue reading →

SHARE: 7 comments

Some Thoughts on PBS “Digital Nation” Documentary

by on February 3, 2010 · 21 comments

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:

  1. concerns about information overload and multitasking;
  2. the role of computers and digital technology in education & learning; and,
  3. 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 →

SHARE: 21 comments

Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s Impact on Society

by on January 31, 2010 · 194 comments

[I’ve been working on an outline for a book I hope to write surveying technological skepticism throughout history. I first started thinking about this topic two years when I noticed that a great number of recent books about Internet policy could generally be grouped into one of two camps: Internet optimists vs. Internet pessimists. I subsequently penned an essay on the subject that generated a fair bit of attention. So, I figured I must be on to something, and the more Net policy books I read, the more I realized that the divisions between these two camps were growing wider and increasingly heated. Thus, I thought I would share this very rough draft (much of it still in outline form) of the opening chapter of that book I want to write about this great intellectual war over the impact of technology on society. I invite reader input. Update Jan. 2011: I finally published a full-length essay on this topic. You can find it here. ]

__________

The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene.

The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These “techno-pessimists” predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation’s hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped).  Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred.

The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order.  If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such “techno-optimists,” progress means some norms and institutions must adapt—perhaps even disappear—for society to continue its march forward.

Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it—or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy. Continue reading →

SHARE: 194 comments

YouTube meets econ 101 — Keynes & Hayek rap it out

by on January 28, 2010 · 4 comments

Spike TV’s John Papola and GMU economics professor Russell Roberts teamed up to create an exceptional and entertaining “rap video” pitting John Maynard Keynes against F. A. Hayek.  If you ever wondered what would happen if the two famous economists went out drinking together, here’s one answer.  Now this is a great use of social media.

http://www.youtube.com/v/d0nERTFo-Sk&hl=en_US&fs=1&

SHARE: 4 comments

Our Topsy-Turvy Tech World

by on December 22, 2009 · 9 comments

Gee, if only the technology sector weren’t so gosh-darn static and slow-to-change, maybe we wouldn’t need government to keep tinkering with the market to make sure big, bad incumbents didn’t reign on high, oppressing us with their monopolistic control of our cyber-lives. But since the Big just keep getting bigger and “network effects” make it impossible for new competitors to get in the game, it’s a good thing we have so many Federal agencies looking out for us poor consumers (FCC, FTC, DOJ, NTIA, etc.) with antitrust interventions, common carriage mandates and 1000 other regulatory “tweaks”—not to mention all those oh-so-tech-savvy state legislators and attorneys general, always eager to leap into action!  “Fire, ready, aim, boys!“

I mean after all, it’s only a matter of time before Time Warner/AOL uses their combined $100 billion might as “gatekeepers” to digitally enslave us all, right?  Oh, wait…

http://www.youtube.com/v/pm7FyShb7Bk&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Uh, yeah, well never mind… As Adam and I have noted: Continue reading →

SHARE: 9 comments

The Deontological Case Against Net Neutrality Regs

by on December 20, 2009 · 29 comments

We’ve spent a lot of time here at TLF talking about the sound economic arguments against net neutrality regulation. We argue that net neutrality regulation will result in worse consequences than leaving the internet relatively unregulated. But to me, the more important point is that net neutrality regulation is itself unjust.

Why do I make such a strong claim? Simply put, people own their stuff. People can decide what to do with their stuff. People can enter into mutually-consensual agreements about what to do with their stuff. As long as both parties agree on the terms, both parties are deciding what to do with the property they each bring to the table. All that is just. It is unjust, on the other hand, to take someone’s property. It is similarly unjust to use force upon someone (e.g. by taking their money, which is other property they own) as a punishment for doing something just. So, it would be unjust for me to reach into your wallet and take a “fine” from you because I don’t like that you sold your copy of Anarchy State & Utopia to Berin for what I think is far too low of a price. I could argue to you that Berin is giving you a bad deal or tell Berin to stop exploiting you, but it is unjust for me to steal from you to enforce my personal desires about the terms of your agreement. Continue reading →

SHARE: 29 comments

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →