The crowd may not be so wise as was thought

14 years ago

According to CNET News, Internet pioneer Jaron Lanier believes that “the wisdom of crowds”, embodied in sites like Wikipedia, is actually causing more harm than good.

Online culture, he goes on, “is a culture of reaction without action” and rationalizations that “we were entering a transitional lull before a creative storm” are just that–rationalizations. “The sad truth,” he concludes, “is that we were not passing through a momentary lull before a storm. We had instead entered a persistent somnolence, and I have come to believe that we will only escape it when we kill the hive.”

His new book, “You Are Not a Gadget”, might be a worthwhile read for us tech geeks.

2 thoughts on “The crowd may not be so wise as was thought”

  1. I don't think I'd call him an Internet pioneer. He's had some interesting ideas and I've read some stuff he wrote, but he's always seemed to me to be rather impressed with his own importance.

    I haven't seen VRML really take over things, no matter how great he thought it was…

    Reply

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