You Are Not A Gadget
A Manifesto
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Something went wrong around the start of the 21st century. Individual creativity began to go out of fashion. Music became an endless rehashing of the past. Scientists were in danger of no longer understanding their own research. Indeed, not only was individual creativity old-fashioned but individuals themselves. The crowd was wise. Machines, specifically computers, were no longer tools to be used by human minds - they were better than humans.
Welcome to the world of the digital revolution.
Yet what if, by devaluing individuals, we are deadening creativity, endlessly rehashing past culture, risking weaker design in engineering and science, losing democracy, and reducing development - in every sphere? In You Are Not A Gadget, Jaron Lanier, digital guru, and inventor of Virtual Reality, delivers a searing manifesto in support of the human and reflects on the good and bad developments in design and thought twenty years after the invention of the web. Controversial and fascinating, You Are Not a Gadget is a deeply felt defence of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Computer scientist and Internet guru Lanier's fascinating and provocative full-length exploration of the Internet's problems and potential is destined to become a must-read for both critics and advocates of online-based technology and culture. Lanier is best known for creating and pioneering the use of the revolutionary computer technology that he named virtual reality. Yet in his first book, Lanier takes a step back and critiques the current digital technology, more deeply exploring the ideas from his famous 2000 Wired magazine article, "One-Half of a Manifesto," which argued against more wildly optimistic views of what computers and the Internet could accomplish. His main target here is Web 2.0, the current dominant digital design concept commonly referred to as "open culture." Lanier forcefully argues that Web 2.0 sites such as Wikipedia "undervalue humans" in favor of "anonymity and crowd identity." He brilliantly shows how large Web 2.0 based information aggregators such as Amazon.com as well as proponents of free music file sharing have created a "hive mind" mentality emphasizing quantity over quality. But he concludes with a passionate and hopeful argument for a "new digital humanism" in which radical technologies do not deny "the specialness of personhood."
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