

Why the web has gone sour  - bootload
http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/why-the-web-has-gone-sour-20100214-nzo5.html

======
carsonbaker
I'm halfway through his book _You Are Not a Gadget_ and I give it very low
marks so far, but not for the writing or the ideas presented -- the latter of
which, however, is disappointingly nebulous. The main problem is that Lanier
consistently chooses poor examples to make a point and presents very little
real evidence to support his claims. He mainly complains a lot about fuzzy
circumstances and persuades very little.

For example, on page 12 Lanier elucidates the idea that "entrenched software
philosophies become invisible through ubiquity." It begins, "An even deeper
locked-in idea is the notion of the file. Once upon a time, not too long ago,
plenty of computer scientists thought the idea of the file was not so great."
The section ends, "The idea of the file has become so big that we are unable
to conceive of a frame large enough to fit around it in order to assess it
empirically."

In between are three sparse paragraphs. The first paragraph mentions Xanadu
and the original iteration of the Mac OS as examples of systems that didn't
use files. The second and third paragraphs complain that now every system uses
files, that we're locked in to using filesystems, and we can't even conceive
of systems without files.

At this point while reading I'm very curious about Xanadu and trying to
conceive of file-less systems myself. I'm desperately waiting for the author
to support the analogy, but he quickly moves on to claim that "[lock-in] could
happen soon to the definition of a human being."

Wait, what? Stop, and tell me about these file-less organizational systems.
Why can't we conceive of them anymore? Why didn't they gain traction? Prove to
me that we're really locked-in and that's a bad thing. I'm not accepting your
segue -- how exactly is this a worthy example for your larger point?

And so it goes. I've picked one example, but it's truly page after page of
baseless assumptions, spacey ideas, thin examples, and doubtful conclusions.
_Where is the evidence?_ I'm screaming at the pages imagining my high school
english teacher scribbling "illustrate!" in red ink across the margins.

~~~
bootload
_"... In between are three sparse paragraphs. The first paragraph mentions
Xanadu and the original iteration of the Mac OS as examples of systems that
didn't use files. The second and third paragraphs complain that now every
system uses files, that we're locked in to using filesystems, and we can't
even conceive of systems without files. ..."_

Try reading up on Andrew Pam. I met Andrew for lunch one day around '95 and
remember him talking about Xanadu ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu> running on a new fangled thing
called a _"Be Box"_ ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox> At one stage you
could buy the software with a book in bookshops and I remember looking at it.
WWW was more interesting.

------
techiferous
"When I started to notice myself getting mean online I thought, 'Something is
missing here. Something has gone terribly wrong,"

I think the larger problem is that technology is not merely the addition of
something new, but it's the addition of something new at the expense of
something else, because technology abstracts. It's only a win if you don't
care about the "something else" that you lose in the abstraction.

With the Internet, we can communicate with more people and more quickly than
ever before. That's a gain. We lose the body language, human touch, voice
intonations, etc. More than merely making the communication more difficult,
experiences like seeing someone smile at what you just said (rather that
merely getting an upvote) and getting actual physical contact like a handshake
or a hug are part of our necessary social nutrition. The Internet is making us
more productive but if we aren't careful we can become socially malnourished.

------
bootload
_"... 'I observed myself getting into bizarre pissing matches. It's just
astonishing how it takes hold of you. It's like a demon or something.' ...
also noticed a disturbing tendency among the champions of the internet's "open
culture" to humiliate and attack those who had lost out in the online
revolution - the musicians, artists, journalists and others ..."_

Valid.

 _"... Lanier believes that by fetishising and over-stating the power of this
collective so-called intelligence we undervalue individual humans ..."_

Anonymous are doing some interesting things to highlight Internet censorship
in Australia ~
[http://www.google.com/search?q=australia+cyber+attacks+anony...](http://www.google.com/search?q=australia+cyber+attacks+anonymous)
Individuals would have a lot of difficulty in undertaking these - legally
questionable and technically difficult tasks ~
[http://www.google.com/search?q=australia+cyber+attacks+anony...](http://www.google.com/search?q=australia+cyber+attacks+anonymous)
The down side of this of course is moderation and control. The instability of
the mob. The possibility to do good one day, evil the next.

------
_delirium
The observation that the current set of networks / communication platforms
_"chop[s] up a network of individuals so finely that you end up with a mush"_
is interesting.

I do see something of a progressive decrease in community in my cyberspace
dealings, as everything gets more connected and networky: the BBSs I was on
had typically very strong community that persisted over time, early web stuff
was not quite the same but still reasonably strong (mailing lists, the heydey
of kuro5hin.org), and that's increasingly gotten sort of diluted.

------
fierarul
He might have some valid points but too bad he can't get into them too deeply
in any article since he's trying to sell this new book of his. Oh well, I'll
wait for it to hit the public library.

------
DanielBMarkham
I think as technically-inclined people we are all waiting for the next,
coolest, most radical way of becoming more and more integrated into the hive
mind. In fact, one of the most amazing things I've witnessed over the past
twenty years is the carelessness with which people give up all of their
personal details and lives into the void that is the net.

But Lanier's right: it's not all just wine and roses. Things come with trade-
offs. We need to keep having intelligent conversations about the things we're
giving up. Sometimes I get the feeling that instead of some master plan,
because of a lack of natural selection, we're not automatically evolving into
some better form of existence. Instead we're just randomly screwing around
with what makes us human, like a kid trying to fly a 747 by remote control by
pulling various levers and seeing how much "fun" the reaction is.

------
marshallp
Thats a load of hokey. Mr Lanier, if read any of his previous expositions, has
a habit of disregarding all established work and opinion, without giving any
data points, or even making his arguments in established terminology.

Jaron Lanier is a contrarian, and like most contrarians, gives a bad
reputation to discerning skeptics everywhere.

------
narag
Sorry for the off-topic, but hasn't this man got very fat? I've read today the
news about Kevin Smith thrown away from a plane, a few days ago I was scared
by a video of Kerry Livgren and now the photo of Lanier. Guys, you must be
eating some kind of poison over there. No way people gets like that just
overeating after 40.

~~~
m0th87
Perhaps you should be taking Lanier's anti-troll sentiments to heart :)

~~~
narag
Troll? Why? I admire this man, that's because it hurts. Moreover, is saying
someone is fat a way to discredit what he says?

