If we allow our self-congratulatory adoration of technology to distract us from our own contact with each other, then somehow the original agenda has been lost.
Interpretation
This quote warns against letting technology overshadow personal connections and relationships.
Jaron Lanier emphasizes the importance of maintaining meaningful human interactions in the face of overwhelming technological advancement. He suggests that excessive pride in technology can lead us to neglect the fundamental human need for genuine connections, thereby losing sight of what truly matters in life.
In practice
During a conference on digital communication, you might quote this to remind attendees of the importance of face-to-face interactions.
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.
We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.
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.
Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future.
Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day.
I mean, you can't have advertising be the only official business of the information economy if the information economy is going to take over.
Because of cyberattacks and fake news, we can already imagine the problem all democratic societies will face in future elections: how to limit lies when they threaten democracy?
The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services.
The truth is I've been doing Kickstarter before there was Kickstarter; there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes.
You can't defend. You can't prevent. The only thing you can do is detect and respond.
We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform and transmit data - the lowest cognitive form - has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information.
Essentially, every technology you have ever heard of, where electrons move from here to there, has the potential to be revolutionized by the availability of molecular wires made up of carbon. Organic chemists will start building devices. Molecular electronics could become reality.
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