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We already knew that kids learned computer technology more easily than adults, It is as if children were waiting all these centuries for someone to invent their native language.

Jaron Lanier

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Jaron Lanier
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: May 3
Artificial Intelligence Researcher
Businessperson
Composer
Computer Scientist
Essayist
Programmer
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Technology
Centuries
Knew
Native
Waiting
Easily
Language
Adults
Kids
Computer
Someone
Already
Children
Learned
Century
Invent

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Separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection. Young people announce every detail of their lives on services like Twitter not to show off, but to avoid the closed door at bedtime, the empty room, the screaming vacuum of an isolated mind.
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A file-sharing service and a hedge fund are essentially the same things. In both cases, there's this idea that whoever has the biggest computer can analyze everyone else to their advantage and concentrate wealth and power. It's shrinking the overall economy. I think it's the mistake of our age.
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The wisdom of crowds works when the crowd is choosing the price of an ox, when there's a single numeric average. But if it's a design or something that matters, the decision is made by committee, and that's crap. You want people and groups who are able to think thoughts before they share
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Mobs and dictators were made for each other, and when mobs appear, dictators will soon flourish.
Jaron Lanier
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I think seeking perfection in human affairs is a perfect way to destroy them.
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Information is alienated experience.
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Eliminating wickedness is a different project from eliminating violence. Eliminating violence - the destruction associated with wickedness - is a practical program that I'm very willing to pursue.
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The great thing about crummy software is the amount of employment it generates.
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People try to treat technology as an object, and it can't be. It can only be a channel.
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If you love a medium made of software, there's a danger that you will become entrapped in someone else's recent careless thoughts. Struggle against that.
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I would argue that among musicians who work in technology today, the level of technological sophistication probably exceeds that of military programs, to be blunt. They are just really smart people attracted to making strange new sounds.
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You have to be somebody before you can share yourself.
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In the Sixties, the hippies said Make love, not war, and that was naive. But it might be less naive to say Make music, not war, in the sense that the people who create musical instruments are the same people who make up new weapons.
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Is war an inevitable outcome of competing interests in a complex society? In other words, would war be the same even if human nature were very different? There are mathematical models of large groups working together that lead to conflict on a reliable basis. So there's a whole other view of war that is not psychological at all.
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If there's any object in human experience that's a precedent for what a computer should be like, it's a musical instrument: a device where you can explore a huge range of possibilities through an interface that connects your mind and your body, allowing you to be emotionally authentic and expressive.
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Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.
Jaron Lanier
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Human beings either function as individuals or as members of a pack. There's a switch inside us, deep in our spirit, that you can turn one way or the other. It's almost always the case that our worst behaviour comes out when we're switched to the mob setting. The problem with a lot of software designs is that they switch us to that setting.
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In fact, one reason I am interested in developing things in virtual reality is that they're so fascinating. I can come up with problems that are harder than warfare to take up people's time.
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A remarkable thing about the Silicon Valley culture is that its status structure is so based on technical accomplishment and prowess.
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Humans change themselves through technology.
Jaron Lanier