Missing Persons

A summary of:
Lanier, J. (2010). You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto. Allen Lane: London.
Chapter 1: Missing Persons

Lanier urges us to act swiftly to change the bad bits of Web 2.0 before it gets "locked in" (3). Of particular concern is the way in which Web 2.0 "fragments" people and demeans interpersonal interaction (3).

Certain design choices favor the crowd over the individual, which means that continued design along these lines seeks "to make the pack mentality as efficient as possible," rather than "inspir[ing] the phenomenon of individual intelligence" (5).

Even at this early stage, we tend to think of the designs as being inevitable. Lanier reminds us that there were alternative visions of these internet technologies which were not adopted as the dominant design, which, it should be noted, does not reflect their inferiority. The example Lanier uses of how designs get "locked in" is that of MIDI, which solidified the notion of the atomized note to be used forevermore in various technologies requiring synthesized music (e.g. mobile phones). There is a profound difference between the kind of lock-in that occurs in science - such as the now accepted round earth, which is adopted based on the idea's merit - and the kind that happens with technology. Technological lock-in "removes design options based on what is easistest to program, what is politically feasible, what is fashionable, or what is created by chance" (10).

This same lock-in is already occuring in computing. The notion of the "file" became entrenched with the adoption of UNIX as the dominant design. At one point, an alternative, Ted Nelson's Xanadu, "conceived of one giant, global file," which effectively made it so that "the whole of a user's prdocutivity accumulated in one big structure, sort of like a singular personal web page" (13). I love this idea! Imagine the creative potential for interaction and engagement! Allowing people to have a personal experience with technology, rather than feeling like an anonymous pixel - that seems like a much more spiritual path.

It is easy to get hysterical, but I do not think Lanier exaggerates when he writes, "What Happened to Trains, Files, and Musical Notes Could Happen Soon to the Definition of a Human Being" (13).

The lesson from this is that in order to avoid lock-in, we must always consider design alternatives and be willing to take the more difficult path.

Lanier argues that people who develop technology have a great deal of power, and with that a responsibility to consider the impact of their technologies:

"We inventors of digital technologies are like stand-up comedians or neurosurgeons, in that our work resonates with deep philosophical questions; unfortunately, we've proven to be poor philosophers lately" (4).

The internet as we know it now was borne out of potentially admirable politics which sought to make digital resources available to not just the elite but to all people. Lanier calls the proponents of open culture/Creative Commons as "cybernetic totalists" or "digital Maoists" (16/17). I'm a big ole Commie myself, so I totally "get it." But something has gone wrong in the designs, such that the vision of universal access has been allowed to overshadow other critical design ideas, e.g. the valuing of each of these participating humans. In a sense, the cybernetic totalists have devalued the human, reducing each of us to our utility, and substituted our quality for our quantity (i.e. we are equal to our web presence, the number of hits we get when we Google ourselves). In short, we must consider how our reverie of the internet as a "superhuman creature" (14) may be catalyzing the "degredation of ordinary people" (15).

Lanier identifies the principle design mistake: "The deep meaning of personhood is being reduced by illusions of bits. Since people will be inexorably connecting to one another through computers from here on out, we must find an alternative" (20). Particularly when you consider his statement that "Spirituality is committing suicide. Consciousness is attempting to will itself out of existence."

Lanier seems to think that there are still healthier ways of engaging with our current technologies. He implores people to follow these principles (21):
1. Avoid posting anonymously.
2. Make sure you are not putting in more effort into your online life than your real life, e.g. if you spend time on a Wikipedia post, spend more time explaining these ideas to people face-to-face.
3. Avoid templatized anything - create your own websites to express something templates won't allow you to express.
4. Put effort into your contributions, value quality; e.g. upload a one minute youtube video that took at least 100 minutes to create.
5. Think before you post. Reflect.
6. Seek new modes of expression in any technological medium - e.g. be creative with your Tweets.
I would propose that while these are seemingly the best we can do at the moment, we should never settle for these as the solution to the problem. The only solution is to innovate. So point 7 should be to design your own interactions and technologies.