Spirituality is committing suicide. Consciousness is attempting to will itself out of existence. Jaron Lanier More Quotes by Jaron Lanier More Quotes From Jaron Lanier Individuals achieve optimal stupidity when they're given substantial powers while being insulated from the results of their actions. Jaron Lanier individualstupidityaction We already knew that kids learned computer technology more easily than adults, It is as if children were waiting all these centuries for someone to invent their native language. Jaron Lanier technologykidschildren We imagine "pure" cybernetic systems, but we can prove only that we know how to build fairly dysfunctional ones. We kid ourselves when we think we understand something, even a computer, merely because we can model or digitize it. Jaron Lanier computerkidsthinking Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future. Jaron Lanier profoundideasthinking A fashionable idea in technical circles is that quantity not only turns into quality at some extreme of scale, but also does so according to principles we already understand. Some of my colleagues think a million, or perhaps a billion, fragmentary insults will eventually yield wisdom that surpasses that of any well-thought-out essay, so long as sophisticated secret statistical algorithms recombine the fragments. I disagree. A trope from the early days of computer science comes to mind: garbage in, garbage out. Jaron Lanier yieldcirclesthinking The network by itself is meaningless. Only the people were ever meaningful. Jaron Lanier meaninglessmeaningfulpeople The beauty of HTML was that one-way linking made it very simple to spread because you could put something up and take no responsibility whatsoever. And that creates a society in which people display no responsibility whatsoever. That's the problem. Jaron Lanier htmlresponsibilitysimple Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine, but, eventually, as computers get more and more powerful, it will kill off all middle-class professions. Jaron Lanier musicianpowerfulclass Style used to be an interaction between the human soul and tools that were limiting. In the digital era, it will have to come from the soul alone. Jaron Lanier styletechnologysoul I would argue that among musicians who work in technology today, the level of technological sophistication probably exceeds that of military programs, to be blunt. They are just really smart people attracted to making strange new sounds. Jaron Lanier smarttechnologymilitary Human beings either function as individuals or as members of a pack. There's a switch inside us, deep in our spirit, that you can turn one way or the other. It's almost always the case that our worst behaviour comes out when we're switched to the mob setting. The problem with a lot of software designs is that they switch us to that setting. Jaron Lanier designbehaviourway Information is alienated experience. Jaron Lanier informationexperience It's as if you kneel to plant the seed of a tree and it grows so fast that it swallows your whole town before you can even rise to your feet. Jaron Lanier townsfeettree In history, in most cultures, and at most points in time, if you want to find the most advanced technologies, you can look principally in two places. One is weapons and the other is musical instruments. My hypothesis is that instruments are usually ahead of weapons. In fact, I think you can find many examples of instruments being predecessors of weapons and very few in the reverse. Jaron Lanier technologytwothinking Here’s a current example of the challenge we face. At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only thirteen people. Where did all those jobs disappear to? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created? Jaron Lanier photographyclassjobs I'd much rather see a world where, when you make some quirky comment on a blog or news story or you upload a video clip, instead of just a moment of fame for your pseudonym, you'll get 50 bucks. The first time that happens, you'll realise that you're a full-class citizen. You have the potential to make money from the system. Jaron Lanier news-storiesquirkyclass Making information free is survivable so long as only limited numbers of people are disenfranchised. As much as it pains me to say so, we can survive if we only destroy the middle classes of musicians, journalists, and photographers. What is not survivable is the additional destruction of the middle classes in transportation, manufacturing, energy, office work, education, and health care. And all that destruction will come surely enough if the dominant idea of an information economy isn't improved. Jaron Lanier painclassideas Chemotherapy is a good thing even though it kills healthy cells. But we still hope for something better. We'd like to prevent cancer in the first place. Jaron Lanier cancerhealthycells There is nothing more gray, stultifying, or dreary than life lived inside the confines of a theory. Jaron Lanier drearygraytheory Governments oppress people, but so do mobs. You need to avoid both to make progress. Jaron Lanier progressgovernmentpeople
