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A Manifesto
Knopf
January 2010
On Sale: January 12, 2010
224 pages
ISBN: 0307269647
EAN: 9780307269645
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s,
was among the first to predict the revolutionary changes the
World Wide Web would bring to commerce and culture. Now, in
his first book, written more than two decades after the web
was created, Lanier offers this provocative and cautionary
look at the way it is transforming our lives for better and
for worse. The current design and function of the web have
become so familiar that it is easy to forget that they grew
out of programming decisions made decades ago. The web’s
first designers made crucial choices (such as making one’s
presence anonymous) that have had enormous—and often
unintended—consequences. What’s more, these designs quickly
became “locked in,” a permanent part of the web’s very
structure. Lanier discusses the technical and cultural
problems that can grow out of poorly considered digital
design and warns that our financial markets and sites like
Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating the “wisdom”
of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and
judgment of individuals. Lanier also shows: How 1960s
antigovernment paranoia influenced the design of the online
world and enabled trolling and trivialization in online
discourse How file sharing is killing the artistic middle
class; How a belief in a technological “rapture” motivates
some of the most influential technologists Why a new
humanistic technology is necessary. Controversial and
fascinating, You Are Not a Gadget is a deeply felt
defense
of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to
comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.
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