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You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto Paperback – 3 Feb 2011

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Jaron Lanier (Author)
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Jaron Lanier (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars 30 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (3 Feb. 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141049111
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141049113
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.4 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 117,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

Fabulous - I couldn't put it down and shouted out Yes! Yes! on many pages . . . This is a landmark book that will have people talking and arguing for years into the future. (Lee Smolin)

Lucid, powerful and persuasive . . . Necessary reading for anyone interested in how the Web and the software we use every day are reshaping culture and the marketplace (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)

There is hardly a page that does not contain some fascinating provocation (Guardian)

Mind-bending, exuberant, brilliant (Washington Post)

A pioneer in the development of virtual reality and a Silicon Valley veteran, Mr. Lanier is a digital-world insider concerned with the effect that online collectivism and the current enshrinement of "the wisdom of the crowd" is having on artists, intellectual property rights and the larger social and cultural landscape. In taking on such issues, he's written an illuminating book that is as provocative as it is impassioned. (Michiko Kakutani's Top 10 Books of the Year 2010 New York Times)

In the world of technologists, Jaron Lanier is that rare combination: a pioneer and a skeptic. A legendary computer scientist, he did crucial early work in the field of virtual reality (the phrase is his). But he now recoils at the way Web 2.0 and social media sell us short as human beings, both in our relationships and in our sense of who we are. In purposeful, reasoned steps, always informed by a profound understanding of how software really works, he lays out his vision of where it all went wrong and champions the power of the human brain in an age of ever smarter machines. (Lev Grossman Time Magazine Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2010)

About the Author

Jaron Lanier is a philosopher and computer scientist who has spent his career pushing the transformative power of modern technology to its limits. From coining the term 'Virtual Reality' and creating the world's first immersive avatars to developing cutting-edge medical imaging and surgical techniques, Lanier is one of the premier designers and engineers at work today. Linked with UC Berkeley and Microsoft, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the IEEE in 2009.

A musician with a collection of over 700 instruments, he has been recognised by Encyclopedia Britannica (but certainly not Wikipedia) as one of history's 300 or sogreatest inventors and named one of the top one hundred public intellectuals in the world by Prospect and Foreign Policy.

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsThought-provoking and useful
By J. Rutherford on 15 Feb. 2010
Format: Hardcover
If you have ever felt uneasy about the way things are developing on the internet... how creativity and originality seem to be being buried under a landslide of mash-ups, viral jokes and cut-and-paste blipverts... how the opinions of thousands of idiots seem to be more important than those of experts.

Read this, and find out why you are right to feel uneasy.

This book, from a man who helped design the way things are now, is explaining what has gone wrong and how it could get much worse if things are not fixed. It's not too technical, and he does a good job of linking it to current theories about artificial intelligence and linguistics, among other fields.

He's better at saying what's wrong than how to fix it, but very much worth a read if you have the slightest interest in modern computer technology and how it is affecting society.
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4.0 out of 5 starsThought provoking challenge to current digital thinking
By Steve Hearsum on 12 Jan. 2011
Format: Hardcover
The essence of the book is Lanier's attempt to answer the question: "What happens when we stop shaping technology and technology starts shaping us?"

An early Silicon Valley visionary, Lanier's book essentially has two halves. The first is an inquiry into what happens to human relationships the more we cede our social interaction to technology. He then shifts gear and expounds a new philosophy as he explores possible future directions for human society and our relationship with technology. I got a little lost in the latter, and I suspect the book could have done with a bit more editing (or my brain is not big enough; you decide....)

The strongest sections are when Lanier paints a coherent picture of what happens when technology is elevated above humanity. He talks of the "digital hive growing at the expense of humanity", and in many ways the first few chapters are a re-stating of the primacy of physical reality when it comes to the lived experience of human society. It argues that the 'noosphere' - a supposed global brain formed of the sum of all the brains connected to the internet - leads us to become little more than computer peripherals. Social networking is seen as something that reduces us as people. And 'the wisdom of crowds', increasingly invoked by some as both a 'good thing' and a possible solution to helping society find answers to the more intractable challenges we face, is challenged.

If you look at what Lanier is saying through the lens of a systems thinking, he is arguing for a reappraisal of the patterns that we are creating around human society and technology, and exploring what conditions we might change or add in order to improve things e.g. a reappraisal of how we pay for data/content.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsdystopia 2.0 anybody?
By moises pittounikos (a badly positioned hole near centre of chariot wheel) on 20 July 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Back in the 1990's, my friends and I would listen to Terence McKenna's spellbinding talks on the subject of the then embryonic information super highway. McKenna was convinced of the utopian possibilities of the internet. Cultural free for alls and other fun ontology's promised by the internet would free our minds from our Gnostic drudgery, awaken the collective unconscious, demolish the cultural pillars of Christian civilisation and kick the doors off heavens hinges; phew!. This brave new world was going to herald the cultural singularity and the new dawn; and finally, we were all to transcend to silicon light, (You had to be there I guess).

According to McKenna and indeed Jaron Lanier -and most silicon entrepreneurs at the time- the internet will allow us all an existence in the radiant afterglow of a post-western civilisation. Capitalist values will be swept away, along with adverts and 'male dominator' politics, "We'll go there and we'll leave the Earth and dance forever in the astral imagination" (McKenna)!

Jaron Lanier now admits this was foolish and he's trying to warn us all before 'lock in' will halt our humanness and turn us all into technological serfs.

Lanier is arguing that if we fast forward 20 odd years from now, then capitalism is indeed wobbling at the foundations (but not at the top you see). This means that we serfs are suffering down bellow; and it gets worse. While we work for nothing, like when we write unpaid reviews on Amazon or 'help' Wikipedia, the 'lords of the clouds' have monopolised the creative surplus and are squeezing the middle class until the pips squeak!Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsswimming against the tide
By CB on 22 April 2010
Format: Hardcover
I found You are not a gadget to be a compelling book, especially worthy of attention by anyone who has embarked on the perilous journey of making a living from the web.

Jaron Lanier is a man after my own heart: someone who is not afraid to swim against the tide, even when the gathering waters seem irresistible.

Lanier has taken on the mantle of the boy in the story of The Emperor's New Clothes and points out some essential home truths about the prevailing tide of enthusiasm for washing away established business models and human behaviour.

He is a global heavyweight who has substantial experience at the bleeding edge of technology and talent in the world of music.

Lanier is credited with coining the term Virtual Reality and has impeccable credentials in that field.

Now, in his book You are not a gadget Lanier swims against a tide, that he has formerly surfed quite happily, by speaking out against some of the fundamental tenets of Web 2.0, the Hive mind, Creative Commons, the Singularity and the so-called Long Tail; all of which he categorises as worrying elements in the previously inexorable trend towards what he terms Cybernetic Totalism.

The book is insightful and highly recommended.
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