Jaron Lanier on ‘The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy’

by Ben Atlas on 12.22.2010.5:31pm · 4 comments

Joseph Michael Gandy*, A vision of Sir John Soane's design for the Bank of England as a ruin 1830. Watercolor, Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London

This is the first *serious* article about WikiLeaks. The Atlantic – The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks.

“The ideology that drives a lot of the online world – not just Wikileaks but also mainstream sites like Facebook – is the idea that information in sufficiently large quantity automatically becomes Truth. For extremists, this means that the Internet is coming alive as a new, singular, global, post-human, superior life form. For more moderate sympathizers, if information is truth, and the truth will set you free, then adding more information to the Internet automatically makes the world better and people freer.

***

A financier, for instance, might not be able to resist the temptations of access to seemingly endless data. If you can really look down on the whole market from on high, then you ought to be able to just pluck money out of it without risk, which leads to the notion of a highly computerized, data intensive, brobdingnagian hedge fund. This is fine, for a while, until other people start similar funds and the whole market becomes distorted.

The interesting similarity between Mr. Assange and a typical financier who overdid it is that both attempted to align themselves with a perceived God-like perspective and method made possible by the flow of vast information on the Internet, while both actually got crazy and absurd. Wikileaks and similar efforts could do for politics approximately what access to a lot of data did for finance in the run up to the recession.

***

Anarchy and dictatorship are entwined in eternal resonance. One never exists for long without turning to the other, and then back again. The only way out is structure, also known as democracy.”

There is a contradiction that I find disturbing and Jaron points to it. I understand why WikiLeask is propelled by anonymity, they are being hunted, although the culture of the anonymous hackers was in place long before they got hold of the cables. How can you demand the absolute openness if you come from the culture of the absolute anonymity? (see the last quote from Lanier). Also people who hope that this issue will be resolved by the Law are denying the fact that the laws and philosophy hasn’t caught up with the new world.

Joseph Michael Gandy A vision of Sir John Soane's design for the rotunda of the Bank of England as a ruin 1798 Watercolor, Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London

*Joseph Gandy was the partner and illustrator for the famous neoclassical architect Sir John Soane. He was considered the great romantic artist and the genius in perspective drawing compared to Piranesi. He was placed in a private insane asylum. He died in the windowless room of the asylum on the Christmas Day in 1843.

Further reading:

Tagged as: anarchism, architecture, government, internet, jaron lanier, law, london, philosophy, politics, wikileaks