‘Missing Persons’ is the title for this book by Jaron Lanier; writer and computer scientist. After an introduction about the creation and early years of the Internet, he explains how it has been evolving. Lanier later prises Technology and what we, humans, have achieved to develop. However, he soon turns negative and calls out the misuse we have as well made of it.
“The central mistake of recent digital culture is to chop up a network of individuals so finely that you end up with a mush”, the author condemns. This sums up the idea of having a second life on the Internet. Not only for the anonymity option, but also for the online relationships that one may forge; caring more about them than about real-life ones in some cases. Lanier here shows himself pessimistic, and criticises the loss of individuality, quoting: “The deep meaning of personhood is being reduced by illusions of bits”.
Technology has been born and developed to ease our tasks, as for example looking for information in a faster way or helping develop human potential by proving tools to do so. This is why online free collaborations are in theory great, because it allows people from every part of the world exchange knowledge. But capitalism, as Lanier points out, corrupts all, and this leads to “not only empowered trolls, but to a generally unfriendly and unconstructive online world” too.
With all this power in form of Internet on our hands, today more than ever, we have to raise of voices and make ourselves known for our thoughts, rather than hide using anonymity. Everything that we post must be valuable content and be full of meaning and innovation. We should take advantage of Technology to improve our world and orselves, not the opposite. Sadly, Lanier sentences: “Spirituality is committing suicide. Consciousness is attempting to will itself out of existence” and we should fight against this view.
