You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto

Amazing text on digital humanism, that is lucid when talking about Web 2.0 and less so when making grandiose pronouncements on music or the financial crisis. I probably will regularly recommend this book and mangle its arguments after a few drinks.

Slightly dry and with an ever-shifting focus, this book managed to leave me brimming with ideas about the future of human communication and technology after every chapter.

Every blogger, esp. Christian blogger, needs to read this book.

A passionate technology advocate arguing for restraint and moderation in technological advances? Where has he been all my life? Hee. Seriously, librarians and other tech-folk, take note: Lanier has some provocative things to say about technology and how we implement it, as well as humanity and how we must safeguard it. Kick-ass.

This book is a deep philosophical discussion of technology. It has some real implications for the limits we place on ourselves as we voluntarily give up our individual humanity to technology. It is not an easy read, and the author makes some points of comparison to religion which some will find offensive. However, if you love philosophy and technology, if you understand both music and MIDI...more

This book is a deep philosophical discussion of technology. It has some real implications for the limits we place on ourselves as we voluntarily give up our individual humanity to technology. It is not an easy read, and the author makes some points of comparison to religion which some will find offensive. However, if you love philosophy and technology, if you understand both music and MIDI language, if you want to understand friendship in a Facebook world - this books a great read.   hide

Darn. So there's a cultural dark side to all of the hot new tech in our lives? Author Jaron Lanier has been at the center of virtual reality technologies since the early days. So he's credible. "We Are Not a Gadget" casts a very skeptical look at some fashionable information technology concepts. Read this book if you seek an insider's philosophical counter-argument to trendy ideas like social...more

Darn. So there's a cultural dark side to all of the hot new tech in our lives? Author Jaron Lanier has been at the center of virtual reality technologies since the early days. So he's credible. "We Are Not a Gadget" casts a very skeptical look at some fashionable information technology concepts. Read this book if you seek an insider's philosophical counter-argument to trendy ideas like social media, the wisdom of crowds, open source, web 2.0, and the singularity (man merges as machine). Lanier looks at prevailing assumptions about computers of infinite intelligence, he assesses ideas like a world hive brain (Google) and he looks at the collective wisdom of crowds (Wikipedia). And he drives a cultural counter argument against it all. Lanier acknowledges that a social media like Facebook increase our connectivity but he also argues that social media narrows our humanity by essentially forcing it into a column (and a business model). He argues that we dumb ourselves down for computers (so I guess they're actually not smarter than us after all) and argues that a consolidation of minds on Wikipedia is useful but skin deep and not insightful (diversity within a single mind creates new things ... but a consolidation of minds does not"). Lanier adds himself to a growing list of thinkers who worry that the collectivist ideology of the internet quietly diminishes the individual and creativity and that it establishes the internet as an element of control (not liberation). I could go on but will simply say that this book is important and worth a read. Jaron Lanier establishes in reasonable terms a new humanist's point of view about the internet and the implications of how we are now designing computers and software (wrongly and narrowly in the interest of the "lords of the cloud" says he). More practically, he simply shows you a few tricks on how to be a heretic for the religions of Silicon Valley.   hide

Computer scientist Lanier, present at the creation of virtual reality, expresses concern about the loss of individuality in many aspects of the contemporary digital world (such as MIDI files, Wikipedia, Facebook pages, and comments). His presentation is occasionally herky-jerky, but his passion shines through and his anecdotes are frequently amusing.

Worth reading for its contrarian point of view, but unfortunately lacking in tangible, practical options for the everyday computer user (read: users of Web 2.0 & the other tech models that Jaron Lanier criticizes). I agree heartily with most of his critiques, the most memorable being that "digital culture...is comprised of wave after wave of juvenilia." But his proposed alternatives to standard...more

Worth reading for its contrarian point of view, but unfortunately lacking in tangible, practical options for the everyday computer user (read: users of Web 2.0 & the other tech models that Jaron Lanier criticizes). I agree heartily with most of his critiques, the most memorable being that "digital culture...is comprised of wave after wave of juvenilia." But his proposed alternatives to standard IT models, though intriguing, lack enough concrete details to make them useful. An example: visual transmission of data as color, which we could do using, um... some really cool but undeveloped tech imagined by Lanier. The book presents a strong opening, but otherwise feels too loosely organized, and essentially unravels as it ends; perhaps Lanier's ideas are better suited for other formats (or at least a more well-edited book).   hide

I'm still not really sure what a social marxist is but I'm pretty sure I have a cousin who is one.