Jaron Lanier says Internet has fallen short

This is a big article, so I'm just going to pick out one piece of it:

> "If we do that to ourselves," Lanier says, "it'll be very hard or slow or impossible to change back. If the Internet gets stuck in place with something like permanent anonymity, that changes culture and personhood and society and culture forever. It's a big deal."

I think a good middle ground here is not anonymity, but pseudonymity. Someone with a pseudonym is still a person with a reputation and a single face. You can ban a pseudonym from a forum if that person is a useless troll. You can get to know other people by their pseudonyms.

And at the same time, pseudonymity gives people most of the good parts of the freedom that's usually associated with anonymity. People can speak more freely than they'd be able to do if they had to put their real name on everything. People who were abused as children and never talked about it to anyone can find support from friendly semi-strangers behind the mask of a pseudonym. People with unusual philosophical or political views can air them without worrying about becoming pariahs. People who are in some closet or another can speak with other people who understand. There's a lot of good that comes from pseudonymity. And yes, it is a huge change in society, that we have this additional kind of public identity; I just think it's a good change.

It is a strong opinion. Not sure I agree with it. I feel that in the online space, individuals have grown astoundingly more powerful in just the last five years alone - that is, the same force that makes us look up information on Google and Wikipedia reflexively and operate from a similar factual basis, also puts us on an equal playing field. If you want to get ahead in knowledge, not only are the old options of pounding pavement and hitting the stacks still available, but you can turn the results into more valuable information by publishing them. With solid evidence and persuasive arguments alone, your case can be made to the masses and change collective understanding. You need only look at how many people follow crackpots(and perhaps the number of times you yourself have been temporarily deluded into entertaining a crackpot theory) to see how works in practice.

Thus, in the short term: mobs. In the long term: Great Authors.

I too feel the internet is falling short in some ways. My take on the shortfalls is different, but related. The attempts to commercialize every aspect of the net have created this massive amount of noise that too much of the time gets in the way of the best information. In the early days it was a more select intelligent crowd that had discussions on the newsgroups. Some groups produced some real treasures as "FAQ" files. Most people doing casual searches now would have a hard time finding information not driven by a commercial motive. If not made dysfunctional by outright spam, many forum have paid trolls and shills.

Contrast U.S. commercial television with programming from the B.B.C. and P.B.S. to see just how destructive heavily monetizing media can be.

Here's the key quote from that article: "Sun Microsystems acquired VPL and Lanier's patents in 1999."

He had key, basic patents in 1999, and he had to sell them.

I personally have never been able to take Lanier seriously.

Halfway through his new book which is incredible - the best book I've read on digital culture yet, and I've read about 40 of those.

Jaron Lanier is the most significant thinker in tech today. Here is his long lecture, this is the most important video in the last 15 years: http://zocalopublicsquare.org/full_video_2010.php?event_id=3...

I guess count me in the 'Information should be free' camp. I strongly disagree with his opinions. Sure things are going to change but it's worth the pain. There's too much to gain from having free, unfettered, anonymous information exchange between people all over the world.