What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?
The digital pioneer and visionary behind virtual reality has turned against the very culture he helped create
- By Ron Rosenbaum
- Smithsonian magazine, January 2013, Subscribe
(Page 4 of 4)
Only Lanier would attribute Nietzschean longings to Violentacrez. “And he’s not that different from any of us. The difference is that he’s scared and possibly hurt a lot of people.”
Well, that is a difference. And he couldn’t have done it without the anonymous screen name. Or he wouldn’t have.
And here’s where Lanier says something remarkable and ominous about the potential dangers of anonymity.
“This is the thing that continues to scare me. You see in history the capacity of people to congeal—like social lasers of cruelty. That capacity is constant.”
“Social lasers of cruelty?” I repeat.
“I just made that up,” Lanier says. “Where everybody coheres into this cruelty beam....Look what we’re setting up here in the world today. We have economic fear combined with everybody joined together on these instant twitchy social networks which are designed to create mass action. What does it sound like to you? It sounds to me like the prequel to potential social catastrophe. I’d rather take the risk of being wrong than not be talking about that.”
Here he sounds less like a Le Carré mole than the American intellectual pessimist who surfaced back in the ’30s and criticized the Communist Party he left behind: someone like Whittaker Chambers.
But something he mentioned next really astonished me: “I’m sensitive to it because it murdered most of my parents’ families in two different occasions and this idea that we’re getting unified by people in these digital networks—”
“Murdered most of my parents’ families.” You heard that right. Lanier’s mother survived an Austrian concentration camp but many of her family died during the war—and many of his father’s family were slaughtered in prewar Russian pogroms, which led the survivors to flee to the United States.
It explains, I think, why his father, a delightfully eccentric student of human nature, brought up his son in the New Mexico desert—far from civilization and its lynch mob potential. We read of online bullying leading to teen suicides in the United States and, in China, there are reports of well-organized online virtual lynch mobs forming...digital Maoism.
He gives me one detail about what happened to his father’s family in Russia. “One of [my father’s] aunts was unable to speak because she had survived the pogrom by remaining absolutely mute while her sister was killed by sword in front of her [while she hid] under a bed. She was never able to speak again.”
It’s a haunting image of speechlessness. A pogrom is carried out by a “crowd,” the true horrific embodiment of the purported “wisdom of the crowd.” You could say it made Lanier even more determined not to remain mute. To speak out against the digital barbarism he regrets he helped create.
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Comments (79)
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The article is historically compelling. And gives rise to a rather provocative analogy of the psychology of human nature and its use of knowledge for the purpose of empowerment. Many great civilizations have risen and fallen based on their faculty to think, reason, acquire and apply such knowledge. For a creator to place a "warning label" on his creation should give those reading this article pause for thought. Artificial intelligence is a powerful and magnificent tool; but in all its glory it is tainted by a downside, that can only be tempered by the use of the very human element of empathic reasoning.
Posted by Priscilla Miller on May 11,2013 | 11:38 AM
dammit... and I thought it would take the rest of the world at least a month or two to catch up. Having given up on technology a few weeks ago, it's nice to see others close behind. The Androids of today do a fine job as typewriters and mailboxes, addressbooks and that's where I draw the line. Facepoop is a dated messaging system, and musicians gotz to pop their tunes on usb chips. Cheers !
Posted by dudermn on May 7,2013 | 05:46 PM
Well, this Jaron Lanier sounds like an interesting thinker. I do not feel, however, that the author made even the most remote attempt to understand the ideas presented. Technical error first: MIDI is a control protocol for "telling synthesizers what notes to play and the rhythms, as well as recording and playing back control information of various kinds" 2nd of all, why do we see all of these smart comparisons to known historical figures (like Chambers- oh no, there is no innuendo with THAT comparison, sir.) while our dear author seems incapable of comprehending or relaying the concept of mob rule and groupthink etc. Surely this concept is not a new concept, nor particularly difficult to comprehend. Why make Jaron look like an obscure figure, when his message is plain and simple? Thank You
Posted by aaron peacock on May 1,2013 | 11:05 AM
This guy is the tech version of Michael Moore and is laughing all the way to the bank...
Posted by Stone on April 8,2013 | 01:35 PM
Lanier's modus operandus is to go on on and about what he "advocated" and "promoted", leading lazy gullible easily confused minds to think that he actually had anything to do with creating or developing these things.
Posted by on March 18,2013 | 10:45 PM
"I have spoken with Jaron a number of times and it is clear that he is one of the most brilliant minds of our era. I'm a technology professional (telephone switching systems engineer) and share most of his critiques of the current status quo." He's brilliant because ... he agrees with you! Ever hear anyone say that someone is brilliant but they're wrong about everything?
Posted by Snort on March 18,2013 | 10:35 PM
"what is now known as Web 2.0—“information wants to be free,” “the wisdom of the crowd” and the like." The things you mention have nothing to do Web 2.0. Lanier has nothing to do with Web 2.0. All Lanier does is talk.
Posted by Snort on March 18,2013 | 10:22 PM
"Jaron Lanier was one of the creators of our current digital reality" No, really, he wasn't. The Web and VR have nothing to do with each other. Lanier's primary skill is as a self-promoter.
Posted by Snort on March 18,2013 | 10:18 PM
Author Ron Rosenbaum states that Jason Lanier's father "brought up his son in the New Mexico desert, far from civilization..." Please! In the 70's Mr. Lanier and teen-aged Jason used to come by our Dairy Goat farm a couple of miles from their place located in the lush and fertile Mesilla Valley on the outskirts of Las Cruces, New Mexico's 2nd largest city and home of New Mexico State University. Hardly "in the desert" or "far from civilization." Did Jason Lanier himself describe the area in those terms or did Rosenbaum just assume that we New Mexicans (all two million + of us) live under a cactus 15 miles from our neighbors? Poor old New Mexico has enough trouble convincing the "other 49" that we are part of the US. At least give us credit for being civilized. After all, some of us even subscribe to Smithsonian. Sincerely, Willa Hancock, Deming NM
Posted by Willa Hancock on March 3,2013 | 09:32 PM
Mr. Lanier came across as a gentle giant and I share his concerns about digital barbarism. Mr. Lanier is correct that Google translator and pirated music extract valuable societal assets. However, as a digital pioneer he could be prejudiced to ignoring the increase in value likely to attach to all non-digital (i.e. non-virtual) commodities (e.g. physical books, live music, the paper on which I am writing my letter). As the digital world deprives our senses of their genetically programmed wants, we humans will necessarily pay a higher price for products that have sensually restorative properties, such as the touch and feel of paper.
Posted by David Frank on February 27,2013 | 06:55 PM
This is basically a continuation of the discussion that nobody seem to want to have: what to do about all the services and jobs that will no longer be needed ? We have really only seen to the start of the internet age, there will probably be no need for translators or many many other service occupations that can easily be automated using big data and more processing power. Big data, AI and further innovations in automation will end up making most jobs more or less obsolete in the not so far future and we have only see the start of this yet. The question here is why the people in power doesn't have any real answers or solutions to this problematic future.
Posted by PL on February 6,2013 | 11:25 AM
This article mirrors my own concern regarding to techno-utopianism, I do see how anonymity gave a lot of people a license to become hate-filled trolls of the blogging-sphere.
Posted by Janet on January 29,2013 | 02:42 PM
The trouble with speaking out against the digital barbarism is that you have to somehow offer a path towards wherever it is that you want the digital world to go. Just say a few words about how you want things to be better.
Posted by Tom on January 27,2013 | 02:41 AM
So why did this guy defect again? I agree with several other readers... WHAT IS UP with this writer?
Posted by Gal on January 27,2013 | 01:56 AM
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