gadget

Virtual reality trailblazer Jaron Lanier has a somewhat curmudgeonly, critical new book out called You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. Here's an excerpt: 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 to musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than with truth or beauty. If content is worthless, then people will start to become empty-headed and contentless. The combination of hive mind and advertising has resulted in a new kind of social contract. The basic idea…