Jaron's Internet Class critique

Jaron Lanier's book "You are Not a Gadget" was so revolutionary and clear headed in its critique of internet culture or really, lack of culture.  In fact, Lanier presented evidence that the internet was actively destroying culture.

His main argument was that cultural music, films, photos, television shows were being decontextualized from their time period, mixed and mashed into meaningless bits.  Our cultural heritage, both high art and pop, were  being ground into meaninglessness.  In turn, new ideas were being subjected to the same grindstone so that nothing new was taking hold.  The music of the 1960's and 1970's into the 1980's had a distinct sound.  But everything past the 1990's, when the internet culture took hold, is generic and rehashed.

In essence our culture has frozen in time.  We are in stasis.

Unfortunately, Lanier's amazing book did nothing to wake anyone up from their dreams.  The Internet class is still spouting off the decayed and contaminated mantra of the opensource web.  While unable to see that it destroys IT jobs and benefits only the richest few.

Now Lanier is back with a new book that carries on with what he discovered in his last.

He granted an interesting interview with Salon

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/

This time Lanier digs deeper into why the internet and its no culture locust mentality is actively destroying the middle class.  His interview reveals that outlier success ventures on Youtube and other social networks are masking the damage being done to the middle class worldwide.

The interview goes into interesting views on the fall of Kodak and that internet success story of Jenna Marbles is built on a mountain of failure and ponzi scheme dynamics.

Anyway the his new book, "Who owns the Future" has my attention and I plan to get my hands on it as soon as possible.