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                          Edge 74


   For the last twenty years, I have found myself on the inside of a
   revolution, but on the outside of its resplendent dogma. Now that the
   revolution has not only hit the mainstream, but bludgeoned it into
   submission by taking over the economy, it's probably time for me to cry
   out my dissent more loudly than I have before.

   ONE HALF OF A MANIFESTO
   By Jaron Lanier
   EdgeVideo (3:30 min.): [10]DSL | [11]Modem | Requires [12]Real Player

   [jaron200.jpg]

   Introduction
   Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, musician, and currently the
   lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, worries
   about the future of human culture more than the gadgets. In his "Half a
   Manifesto" he takes on those he terms the "cybernetic totalists" who do
   not seem "to not have been educated in the tradition of scientific
   skepticism. I understand why they are intoxicated. There IS a
   compelling simple logic behind their thinking and elegance in thought
   is infectious."

   "There is a real chance that evolutionary psychology, artificial
   intelligence, Moore's Law fetishizing, and the rest of the package,
   will catch on in a big way, as big as Freud or Marx did in their times.
   Or bigger, since these ideas might end up essentially built into the
   software that runs our society and our lives. If that happens, the
   ideology of cybernetic totalist intellectuals will be amplified from
   novelty into a force that could cause suffering for millions of people.

   "The greatest crime of Marxism wasn't simply that much of what it
   claimed was false, but that it claimed to be the sole and utterly
   complete path to understanding life and reality. Cybernetic eschatology
   shares with some of history's worst ideologies a doctrine of historical
   predestination. There is nothing more gray, stultifying, or dreary than
   a life lived inside the confines of a theory. Let us hope that the
   cybernetic totalists learn humility before their day in the sun
   arrives."

   Read on.....

   [13]JARON LANIER, a computer scientist and musician, is a pioneer of
   virtual reality, and founder and former CEO of VPL. He is currently the
   lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative.

   [14]Join the Edge public forum at [15][feed_sm25.gif]
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   [16]Reality Club: George Dyson, Freeman Dyson. Cliff Barney, Bruce
   Sterling, Rod Brooks, Henry Warwick, Kevin Kelly, Margaret Wertheim,
   John Baez, Lee Smolin
     __________________________________________________________________

   ONE HALF OF A MANIFESTO
   By Jaron Lanier

   For the last twenty years, I have found myself on the inside of a
   revolution, but on the outside of its resplendent dogma. Now that the
   revolution has not only hit the mainstream, but bludgeoned it into
   submission by taking over the economy, it's probably time for me to cry
   out my dissent more loudly than I have before.

   And so I'll here share my thoughts with the respondents of edge.org,
   many of whom are, as much as anyone, responsible for this revolution,
   one which champions the assent of cybernetic technology as culture.

                                                        [17]Continued.....

References

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