James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© December 25, 2012
Christmas Eve dinner was a festive occasion in our home as I suspect it was in most others. The conversation was not about the joy of being together, or of meaningful experiences during the year. It was about the latest technological gadgets and how they could do so many things, and with their many aps, programs, options, and of course the readiness of those present to display mastery of these machines.
Then the conversation, while still focused on technology, related to how a child, only four, could already do her numbers, recognize words, navigate the aps, and play games.
Then one in the group, in an attempt to be humorous, made the remark that I, meaning me, would still only be comfortable with a stone slab and a chisel.
This was a veiled indication that my reservations about the Information Age was not only suspect, but dated me to be oblivious to the times.
To defend me, another person, said, “we are always evolving with changing times.”
It was then that I reacted, and not tactfully, to the cliché, and then left the room.
Techno-utopia is a matter not only that I have thought much about but have committed many missives to my blog, as well as written one on the subject in a book, soon to appear on Amazon Kindle, “Time Out for Sanity! Blueprint for Dealing with an Anxious Age."
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The January 2013 issue of Smithsonian magazine has an interview with digital genius Jaron Lanier, who expresses apostate views consistent with ones I have expressed. He, of course, has much more credibility, as he is one of the giants of this digital age.
Lanier, one of the creators of digital reality, desires to subvert the “hive mind,” as he sees the web world has become, before it engulfs us all, destroys political discourse, economic stability, the dignity of personhood, and leads to “social catastrophe.”
He attacks the "complicity of the crowd," something that Gustave Le Bon wrote about some one hundred years ago (check this out on this blog). This mania of conformity is not new. The Information Age is simply its newest iteration.
While the idea, Lenier says, was the belief that it would result in ever-upward enlightenment, it is just as likely that the crowd will devolve into an online lynch mob.
Although one of the creators of Web 2.0 futurism, he now sees it as “digital Maoism,” indicating that “internet intellectuals” such as Facebook and Google creators are actually “spy agencies.” He continues:
“I think you can draw an analogy to what happened with communism, where at some point you just have to say there’s too much wrong with those experiments.”
The idea seems innocent enough, “information wants to be free.” It is “the wisdom of the crowd." But is it?
A confidante of Steve Brin and Steve Jobs, he has watched with some apprehension virtual reality becoming reality.
“There’s no vehicle that wasn’t designed in a virtual reality system first. And every vehicle of every kind built – plane, train – is first put in a virtual reality machine and people experience driving it (as if it were real) first.”
Why is he so concerned?
The crowd pours their hearts and minds unto the web; they share their most private intimate thoughts, and worst of all, give up (for free) their intellectual capital for the big stars and celebrities of the medium to consume while everyone else is consigned to the bread lines.
Who are these people? He claims it is the middle class, which is shrinking rapidly. Google and Facebook, among others, “monetize the work of the crowd.”
How does it do this? It sells people (their advertiser-targetable personal identities, buying habits) back to themselves. Lanier sees a file-sharing service and a hedge fund essentially the same exploitative systems.
It goes back to the biggest the fastest not only being the best but also the most beneficial when this is seldom the case. What it does mean is that the biggest computer can analyze everyone's data swiftly and to its advantage, which translates into the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
“Meanwhile, it’s shrinking the overall economy and that is the mistake of our age.”
He goes on,
“I think it’s the reason why the rise of networking has coincided with the loss of the middle class, instead of an expansion in general wealth, which is what should happen. But if you say we’re creating the information economy, except that we’re making information free, then what we’re saying is we’re destroying the economy.”
He sees a connection between techno-utopianism, the rise of the new machines, and the Great Recession of 2008.
“W are outsourcing ourselves into insignificant advertising-fodder. Nonobytes of Big Data that diminish our personhood, our dignity.”
Lanier sees it also as a morality and spiritual issue as well (there is another article in this issue about the newborn: “Born to be bad?” This covers the new science of morality).
[An aside: I could see it around the dinner table on Christmas Eve. The young people at the table have little interest in the true Christian meaning of Christmas, while the adults seemed more preoccupied with talking about making money or about the newest big cars, material things.]
The digital genius continues:
“The problems with techno-utopians are not just about the crashed economy, but that they’ve made a joke out of spirituality, and worshiping, the Singularity – the Nerd Rapture …(it is) the belief that increasing computer speed and processing power will shortly result in machines acquiring artificial intelligence, consciousness, and that we will be able to upload digital versions of ourselves into machines and (thus) achieve immortality.”
Perhaps the most interesting point Lenier makes, which resonates with my writing is that of the irresponsibility of the age, the failure of the nanosecond generation to face growing old and therefore the need to grow up to accept these primary conditions of life, which are the inevitability of pain, the necessity for struggle, and the vital importance of failure in a meaningful life.
To avoid pain is to retreat from life. To circumvent struggle is to remain in a vegetated state. And to not embrace failure is never actually to experience success.
The Web 2.0 creator has a slightly different take on this. To be obsessed with technology and its elaborate tool kit is “to forgo taking responsibility, saying, ‘oh, the computer did it not me’.” The loss of the middle class, 'oh, it’s not me. The computer did it'.”
He then goes into the cruelty and anonymity of networking outlets that surreptitiously have been known to destroy people’s lives. It is what Gustave Le Bon called “the psychopathology of the crowd.” Lenier again:
“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.”
Having spent a lifetime going against the grain when the sense of the times made nonsense to me, I share his concern. I’ve never joined Facebook or LinkedIn, but I do use google, and I do have a website, which I use to express my concerns.
Lenier is a critic, and I think a healthy one, of an industry and a way of life that will increasingly dominate the globe more than it does today. I am a dinosaur, and my time is past. But as long as I have the breath of life, I will express my views. It is encouraging to find someone within the techno-utopian sphere has similar concerns to my own.
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