Jaron Lanier talks about the failure of Web2.0 with Aleks Krotoski

[knightschwartz]

he seems like a polymath. Quite intresting. Not sure if he's right wing or left wing. This is one of his worse interviews.

[EuropeanAnimation]

Just what is Web 2.0? I've looked on the web and gotten completely unrelated ideas.

[JanoLguz]

what does he mean by lock-in? i dont get it?

[GRIJZEKAK]

what is this guy's point? I don't really see what he is trying to say.

[OpenURmindWider]

@GRIJZEKAK thats cuz ur part of the pack mentality of dumb braindead ppl <3 but ull get over it

[GRIJZEKAK]

@OpenURmindWider : hehe. so tell me, what is his point

[Dinukhokar]

Web 2.0 does not work well in lynx. Not good.

[lordsonnyxixi]

Web 2.0 had some promise that was drowned in a sea of first posts, arrows to the knee and furry hentais.

[hydroshocksunwell]

i am going to have to read that book now. Very interesting interview

[godno1god]

The 30 years example is silly. The big beasts of the Net r the obvious kings, but smart people know there is plenty online. For example, if you’re into psychedelics, then u can get legal highs online, easy. Also, you can watch high definition porn or read Plato or Cicero. Wikipedia is indeed rubbish, but people like Lanier miss an important point. Encyclopaedias wr never meant to educate you. U must read books, or talk to nerds, so moaning about Wikipedia is like moaning that water is wet.

[unclefishbits]

How can you explain away social's impact on organization and lobbying, aka twitter being used to protect oneself during a terrorist attack (tracking terrorists during Mumbai attack), or the revolutions in Egypt, the middle east, etc. How in the living hell can this guy just say "nothing good has come of it". Mob mentality is in human nature, and the fact that human nature impedes the success of this new tool does not make it a failure. It's humans that are failing not the tech. He's so flip.

[greekfreakhot]

@unclefishbits I'm not going to say that Twitter has no social/organizational uses, but I do think that its influence in those revolutions was overstated. Malcolm Gladwell's article in the New Yorker explains some of this.

[unclefishbits]

@greekfreakhot Will look it up. Cheers. Thanks.

[guitargod10940]

This dude needs a make over

[Spacelines]

With all due respect, Jaron, Tim Berners Lee "openness" birthed the Web you dred head (I respect your Rastaness brada'), and this is but one ... of many examples of openness throughout history, which have benefited humanity.

[mratomix]

Jaron, I'm writing my senior thesis at cal about how virtual worlds are taking over our lives. It is not true that there is no identity online. The boy who killed himself after his roommates "outed" on the internet at Rutger's had an identity. The people stealing money online in Eve online had an identity. In search, in the cloud, as you say, there might be a "cyber balkanization" of people into amorphous mobs, but people in virtual worlds, without a doubt, have real identities felt by others

[helloworldolleh]

WHY CAN'T WE ROMANTICIZE THE PRESENT?

why do people always have to romanticize the past?

[Summerspeaker]

Lanier explicitly writes off socialism as too difficult in You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. I doubt eir views have changed significantly since then. And weird people like me don't fare too well under capitalism.

[jameswcollett]

What a great way to start this clip - from behind the fellow, so that you can admire his dreads.

This man has silly hair, but I'm going to listen to what he says anyway because (1) he is a computer scientist and has written a book, so perhaps he is not an idiot and (2) Aleks Krotoski is interviewing him.

[tubemeimbored]

This is why qulart.com was created. Look up on twitter och facebook or sign up instant on the homepage.

[Summerspeaker]

A rational economy for the common good would obviate the practical problems artists currently face. Unfortunately, Lanier belief in competition and hierarchy prevent em from supporting this solution. I find eir brand of bourgeois reaction particularly troubling.

[Beermuff]

I would add that capitalism actually holds back a lot of truly talented and revolutionary musicians by the very fact that the market for music behaves in a crowd like fashion. To me it doesn't seem like a couple of bands like the beatles make up for all the schlock, dumbing down of music, and watering down of folk traditions that capitalism has effected.

[Beermuff]

I don't believe that music improved much when the artistic middle class was created. Before this happened you had the patron system that resulted in the forward thinking and masterful music of beethoven. You also have folk traditions like the music of west africa that isbased in community and are open source in there own way. Some of that stuff is as dark and crazy and transcendant as any doom metal band. What is truly unique to the creation of an art class is pop music and sped up "progress"

[Setzer]

I don't feel like we're in quite the existential crisis Lanier seems to think we're in. I definitely feel like technology isn't as intuitive as I'd like it to be, but from what I see I think we're moving in that direction with amazing speed. As for open source and sharing products and ideas for free it's a bit of a conundrum. I don't think that it's been an absolute failure, but people have to get paid for their ideas or else they won't be able to spend their time working on them.

[malibuclaire]

If web 2.0 is dead, where are we heading? Paid for apps? Whats next?

[tekno2600]

Lanier didn't say anywhere in here that Web 2.0 is a failure. He said the Internet has been a huge success, but that the open source ideology has turned out to be counterproductive and the fanatics are just not willing to give it up.

[dtoliaferro]

@tekno2600 Yeah, but who knows what the Web would be like without it's open corner stones: HTML, PHP, Apache, and Linux? Yes they're examples of open culture products, but they're actually better than their closed counterparts. Why shouldn't people continue to support this movement when it does in fact produce good things?

[iidontcareeee]

To Bobbit -- Time was (i.e. late 1980s) when Lanier was the ONLY database on the planet accessible to mere mortals. He/they also built high-density storage systems for private use. There was a planet before you were born, dude.

[iidontcareeee]

To brotha... This video has only 4.5K hits. Enter "vomit" into the youtube search and see how many hits and views you find.

[iidontcareeee]

Am I the only one who wants to do an MST3K on the chick with the self-conscious hair? (Love JL's book.) Kell Brigan (I really do care, but by the time I found a youtube handle that the system would take, I was desperate.)

[brothamouzoune]

Jaron seems to think the collective will trump the individual in the web 2.0 model but it makes me think if it wasn't for the internet would I EVER know about this guy and his interesting ideas. I found his books on Amazon, his videotaped thoughts on Youtube, his articles on Google and referenced on Wikipedia. You gotta think this guy has something backwards, because this very video proves his point incorrect.

[morgs2020]

The idea of the free and open internet is great but our current ideologies haven't adapted.

thezeigeistmovement is a sustainability advocacy group that wishes to bridge the difference between nations and find common ground so we can eventually arrive at a world without class, property, war and environmental destruction. It's not perfect it's just better than the old ways.

[morgs2020]

Democracy has never existed and markets don't have a valid place in society anymore. Their are no biological meanness in humans it's learnt form the culture we have conjured. A culture of scarcity and competition that isn't based on reality but has continued to perpetuate itself.

Our current technologies are not used to their full benefit as they are held back like everything in our lives by the price system, it has to go.

[gregsc1]

@morgs2020

I'd guess you're a Marxist. I'm no huge fan of capitalism, but come on, look at the entire animal kingdom, at human histories and our few remaining Stone Age societies-- you'll see quite clearly that scarcity and competition have been fundamental facts of history. If you're brave enough to admit it.

There is no pure market and no pure democracy, but any hope for Earth's future does IMO include societal structures that encourage and reward personal responsibility.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 What makes you think I'm a Marxist ? I don't disagree that scarcity isn't part of history. I'm just saying that society hasn't caught up to technological developments. The price system doesn't have a benefit anymore. People are still motivated to do things when their not paid.

thezietgeistmovement

[gregsc1]

@morgs2020 I say I'd guess you're a Marxist because at least 90% of the dramatic economic declarations I see, such as yours, come from Marxists. It's not crucial but I was curious.

You're arguing that the price system is outdated because people do things when they're not paid. That's reductive and misleading. Some people do some (rewarding) activities for free when they have the time and resources to spare. Most important things, including survival issues, wouldn't get done that way.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 I say the price system is outdated because what traditionally gave something value such as the scarcity of an item or the amount of human labor required to create it no longer apply. Technology has allowed for an abundance to be created without the need for human labor for all essential products and services. For example automation could make the best known quality food, water, housing and transportation available to every person in the world.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 This has been a technical reality for some time, however as long as the price system remains the technology will never be profitable and thus never put into practice. Staying within the the price system however the cost of automation will continue decrease but the associated unemployment will contuse to decease the populations access to resources.

[gregsc1]

@morgs2020 What is this automation technology you speak of? (Links might help.) I can't talk about something I'm unaware of-- but, it seems logically necessary to me that if there is already technology that can create the bounty you speak of, it WOULD be profitable unless it's impractically expensive. Start-up costs don't stop the big corporations.

I personally think you're getting ahead of history, but I will consider any links.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 Sorry for the delay. Here's a 6 part video giving an overview of current socially relevant technologies. Youtube search "The Venus Project do we have the technology to pull this off 1-6" uploded by OliverKopec.

These technologies are as you guessed not profitable which is why as long as the price system remains will never be put into practice. When enough people are aware of the alternative they can supersede the old price system.

[gregsc1]

@morgs2020 thanks for your reply, and it's good to learn a little about the Venus Project. i must admit i consider it an impractical idealism, at least at this point in time. i study power structures pretty seriously, or at least enough to realize that they won't dissolve nicely just because some people-- or even a majority of people-- want them to. but, i suppose such ideas and ideals may prove fruitful in an open dialogue with other perspectives.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 Glad you enjoyed it. It's an interesting time to be alive. The social and environmental pressures along with the march of science will certainly bring around big changes weather their good or bad. I am optimistic that things will get so bad so quick for enough people that they will be open and supportive of such a system.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 And that support will become strong enough that even the most wealthy and corrupt will be able see the benefit for themselves. Either way I think if the current system isn't superseded the completive behavior it breeds will lead to our extinction.

[morgs2020]

@gregsc1 You might like a video called "the race for better science" linked on nvidia's us main web page. It shows the robotic surgery used in the previous video combined with image processing on the moving heart to automatically move the robotic arms in time with the beat of the heart so a surgeon can perform on the heart as though it was still.

[TimothyBragan]

epic troll, that is

[TimothyBragan]

what a b tard

[provoko]

This guy is painting a picture that is utterly not true, I feel sorry that he hasn't benefited from the internet, however, this video is on youtube and I would have never ever ever ever ever would have know about this dude if it weren't for the internet.

So this guy is just an asshole, haha.

[powerone1]

he has a religious hate of Wikipedia for some reason and all social networking sites, youtube included. :-D

[sturmovikdragon]

I think this aging hippie has a few misconceptions about the whole Free Culture movement. I don't know many people except similar misguided gurus who feel that the Internet will usher in some new Neo Marxist age.

The point of Free Culture ideas is to break down barriers to pushing the bounds of human achievement instead of wasting time r-inventing the wheel. When a service is replaced by a free one it means people can then use it to make something totally new they can sell for money.

[Thesupermadman]

@sturmovikdragon When he answered, "No, I can't think of anything good that came out of the free culture movement", I replied, "Haha, what? Not a thing? What do you think the internet is built on, you fool?"

[bluballzzz]

So this is bob Marleys white fat retarded gay cousin

[reallycoolguy121]

@bluballzzz

Jaron Lanier is a fucking genius. You have no idea how smart this guy is - seriously.

[WhatIAm99]

@bluballzzz Aha, that old gem, likening anyone with dreadlocks to Bob Marley.

I mean, it's not like dreadlocks pre-date western civilisation. Also, Bob Marley was the ONLY other person to EVER have dreadlocks.

[bobbit3]

what commercial software application or busniess has he been involved with???...none that I am aware of...and he said in another video that his "research" is paid for by Microsoft....so now open source sucks? they got to him....poor bugger

[2bsirius]

I've been very impressed with "You Are Not a Gadget." I'd looked forward to it's publication and had read Lanier's "Half Manifesto" on Edge and Wired.

YANG is an excellent read!