Comment

Jul 10, 2012Jean-Pierre Lebel rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This is an interesting book and I recommend it to anyone that cares about the direction the internet and computational devices are taking us as a species. As much as I appreciated what Jaron Lanier has to say about various technological subjects I didn't find this book to be much of a manifesto - was more of a brain dump and felt like a collection of blog posts. That may be to say the book could have stood for some stronger editing, because Lanier has no shortage of insights, and interesting comments to share with the reader; for me it just didn't flow well. I imagine that he did this on purpose to avoid a stale kind of linearity one would find in typical technology books. Some of the subjects like the Singularity, virtual reality, and the impact MIDI has had on music I was right there with him. Other spots I couldn't follow, like when he talks about looking at a different ways of considering the financial sector. Stay with the book till the end and you'll get his overarching point: he would rather we welcome new forms of expressive communication that dignifies the individual than embrace the idea of 'The Singularity' where we become a hive mind and ultimate a gadget that gets boring.