Quote

Funding a civilization through advertising is like trying to get nutrition by connecting a tube from one’s anus to one’s mouth.

Jaron Lanier

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Civilization
Tube
Inspirational
Tubes
Trying
Nutrition
Like
Funding
Connecting
Advertising
Mouth
Mouths
Anus

More quotes by Jaron Lanier

Image
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.
Jaron Lanier
Image
There will always be humans, lots of them, who provide the data that makes the networked realization of any technology better and cheaper.
Jaron Lanier
Image
Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.
Jaron Lanier
Image
I've occasionally been wrong about certain things, which is in a way more delightful than being right.
Jaron Lanier
Image
A real friendship ought to introduce each person to unexpected weirdness in the other.
Jaron Lanier
Image
Mobs and dictators were made for each other, and when mobs appear, dictators will soon flourish.
Jaron Lanier
Image
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
Image
America's Facebook generation shows a submission to standardization that I haven't seen before. The American adventure has always been about people forgetting their former selves - Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac went on the road. If they had a Facebook page, they wouldn't have been able to forget their former selves.
Jaron Lanier
Image
The interesting thing about advertising is that the things that annoy us sometimes about it are really human. It's us looking at ourselves - and like all human endeavors it's imperfect.
Jaron Lanier
Image
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.
Jaron Lanier
Image
We should talk about the ultimate cause of war. It's a question we should never stop asking, because if we do, there's a chance, however remote, that we might miss an opportunity to reduce the occurrence of war.
Jaron Lanier
Image
I fear that we are beginning to design ourselves to suit digital models of us, and I worry about a leaching of empathy and humanity in that process.
Jaron Lanier
Image
There is nothing more gray, stultifying, or dreary than life lived inside the confines of a theory.
Jaron Lanier
Image
I think seeking perfection in human affairs is a perfect way to destroy them.
Jaron Lanier
Image
Software breaks before it bends, so it demands perfection in a universe that prefers statistics.
Jaron Lanier
Image
Every time we give a musician the advice to give away the music and sell the T-shirt, we're saying, Don't make your living in this more elevated way. Instead, reverse this social progress, and choose a more physical way to make a living. We're sending them to peasanthood, very much like the Maoists have.
Jaron Lanier
Image
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.
Jaron Lanier
Image
If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty.
Jaron Lanier
Image
Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique - shinier than the original, perhaps, but still defined by it.
Jaron Lanier
Image
I'm an advocate of human nature.
Jaron Lanier