Sometimes the truth is painful

[essentialsaltes]

Interesting interview with virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier in Smithsonian:

“I’d been an early advocate of making information free ... I’d had a career as a professional musician and what I started to see is that once we made information free, it wasn’t that we consigned all the big stars to the bread lines. Instead, it was the middle-class people [in the music industry] who were consigned to the bread lines."

"[Anonymity on the internet] slowly is turning us into a nation of hate-filled trolls." (This last quote is actually the interviewer, not Lanier, but I think he'd agree with the sentiment.)

Comments

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I admit he's not a poster boy for clear thinking, but I think you're uncharitably interpreting some of what he says.

"Instead, it was the middle-class people who were consigned to the bread lines."
But what Lanier takes away from this is apparently that automation is bad.

What I take away is not that he's complaining about automation, but rather about filesharing of music: "I’d been an early advocate of making information free ... what I started to see is that once we made information free, it wasn’t that we consigned all the big stars to the bread lines. Instead, it was the middle-class people [in the music industry] who were consigned to the bread lines."

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

I quoted that paragraph because I wanted to use his "studio manager with cancer" line as a jumping-off point - he blames filesharing, and while that may be accurate in this instance, I think it's missing the forest for the trees. If unemployed people can't get health care, let's address the health care issue directly rather than pretending the problem is that people sometimes lose their jobs.

I should not have conflated that with his other arguments where he seems to disapprove of technology and automation in general - his attack on Google Translate for putting human translators out of work, for example. I disagree with that, but for different reasons (already covered above, so I won't reiterate.)

As I say, not all of his arguments are crazy. But some of his arguments are so ridiculous that I am disinclined to take him seriously as a spokesman for anything, especially when there are plenty of people who can advocate more cogently against filesharing or on-line anonymity. The fact that he was once on one side of an issue, and is now on the other side, is not definitive proof of sagacity.