After the more biographical parts of the book he focuses on VR. What it is, the science of it, the dark side of it, his thoughts on everything about it. For me the idea of VR is that it will probably be mostly used for porn and video games, at least that's what its like now. However, Jarons' view on VR is much more optimistic and beautiful. He sees the human side to VR. He isn't interested so much in the creation of VR and the science of it as he is in the workers working together and learning through each other about VR-the humanitarian side of modern technology. That's something that isn't really talked about in the dozens of Wired articles I read. This guy is onto something, something interesting and spiritual, albeit a sort of electronic/human hybrid spiritualistic approach.
I enjoyed the very last ending of the book very much. In the Appendix he talks about ideas that he only touched lightly on in the book. For example he talked a lot about the idea of algorithms choosing things for us. What we watch, what people to be friends with, what music to listen to, who we have sex with, what events we should go to, etc. He believes that because of this we are allowing the computers to become smarter than we are. We aren't informed enough to make good decisions about all those things so instead we rely on Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder to decide all the 'hard' choices for us. In the long run I think he's right. The tech industry is dark, the whole thing with net neutrality is a good example. On the internet he has much to say.
He believes the internet was created for good intentions, with the sales of goods, trade, and expertise for trade between people. Instead some people make tons of money from the internet while others just have a really cool Facebook page, tons of Twitter followers, or write a great informative blog (like this one, I'm talking about myself). He talks about the history of the net and how links and web pages were supposed to go both ways. You were supposed to be able to click on something and tell where it came from, and they were suppose to be able to know where you came from upon finding it. Things like that. And the early ideas of monetization for the net was that people with trades skills were supposed to use it to exchange goods and services for cash, a sort of free enterprise for everyone. Of course it didn't turn out that way. The companies control cyberspace, the term coined by William Gibson in his 1980's science fiction novel Neuromancer. In many ways William Gibson was writing about Lanier (and his computer friends') lives.
The most fun part was reading his ideas on virtual reality within the universe. For example, if an advanced civilization could create virtual realities within a universe, the existence of one or many universes wouldn't matter because we would believe the virtual reality to be the universe. In the Appendix he talked about this idea that aliens could have some sort of compiler that could create VR within the world they or we live in. Sort of reminds me of the matter compiler in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. In the book the matter compiler is a device where you can get anything you want from thin air.
No matter what you think of VR or computers the fact remains that our world is shaped by these things, especially right now. In a speech on Youtube, Jaron talked abut the ideas of VR coming to fruition around 2030 and 2040, which isn't that far off. We're already almost there. From the beginnings of Orwellian 1984 to the Fake Russian News of the Trump Era, the times they are a-changin'.
In the book Jaron says the most technologically advanced 'computers' we have today are musical instruments. Maybe one day playing a musical instrument will be like computer programming, a valued and highly sought after skill. The musicians will have more jobs!
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