You are Not a Gadget: a Manifesto

by Jaron Lanier

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Book cover for You are Not a Gadget

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Something went wrong around the start of the 21st century. Individual creativity began to go out of fashion. Music became an endless rehashing of the past. Scientists were in danger of no longer understanding their own research. Indeed, not only was individual creativity old-fashioned but individuals themselves. The crowd was wise. Machines, specifically computers, were no longer tools to be used by human minds - they were better than humans.

Welcome to the world of the digital revolution.

Yet what if, by devaluing individuals, we are deadening creativity, endlessly rehashing past culture, risking weaker design in engineering and science, losing democracy, and reducing development - in every sphere? In You Are Not A Gadget, Jaron Lanier, digital guru, and inventor of Virtual Reality, delivers a searing manifesto in support of the human and reflects on the good and bad developments in design and thought twenty years after the invention of the web. Controversial and fascinating, You Are Not a Gadget is a deeply felt defence of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.
  • ISBN10 0307269647
  • ISBN13 9780307269645
  • Publish Date 19 January 2010 (first published 1 January 2010)
  • Publish Status Out of Stock
  • Publish Country US
  • Publisher Random House USA Inc
  • Imprint Random House Inc
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 209
  • Language English