{"id":3774,"date":"2010-09-08T09:07:39","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T09:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3774"},"modified":"2010-09-08T09:07:39","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T09:07:39","slug":"digital_maoism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3774","title":{"rendered":"Digital Maoism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Economist<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The Economist:<\/a> <\/p>\n

FROM \u201cWikinomics\u201d to \u201cCognitive Surplus\u201d to \u201cCrowdsourcing\u201d, there is no shortage of books lauding the \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d era and celebrating the online collaboration, interaction and sharing that it makes possible. Today anyone can publish a blog or put a video on YouTube, and thousands of online volunteers can collectively produce an operating system like Linux or an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Isn\u2019t that great?
\n


\nNo, says Jaron Lanier, a technologist, musician and polymath who is best known for his pioneering work in the field of virtual reality. His book, \u201cYou Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto\u201d, published earlier this year, is a provocative attack on many of the internet\u2019s sacred cows. Mr Lanier lays into the Web 2.0 culture, arguing that what passes for creativity today is really just endlessly rehashed content and that the \u201cfake friendship\u201d of social networks \u201cis just bait laid by the lords of the clouds to lure hypothetical advertisers\u201d. For Mr Lanier there is no wisdom of crowds, only a cruel mob. \u201cAnonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless,\u201d he writes, \u201cbut as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.\u201d
\n


\nIf this criticism of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia had come from an outsider\u2014a dyed-in-the-wool technophobe\u2014then nobody would have paid much attention. But Mr Lanier\u2019s denunciation of internet groupthink as \u201cdigital Maoism\u201d carries more weight because of his career at technology\u2019s cutting edge.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Economist: The Economist: FROM \u201cWikinomics\u201d to \u201cCognitive Surplus\u201d to \u201cCrowdsourcing\u201d, there is no shortage of books lauding the \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d era and celebrating the online collaboration, interaction and sharing that it makes possible. Today anyone can publish a blog or put a video on YouTube, and thousands of online volunteers can collectively produce an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,5,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}