What does Lanier see as the primary threat posed by digital networks? How would a proponent of the traditional libertarian theory of the press understand or interpret the threat?
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The primary threat Lanier sees in the technology of digital networks is if it helping us, in addition to if us humans will maintain the technology to continue to help us. Lanier makes the observation that it is failing, “Lately, network-empowered finance has amplified corruption and illusion, and the Internet has destroyed more jobs than it has created.” With today’s digital network people are more concerned with keeping up with the benefits the networks provide for society rather than paying attention to the bad conditions of the networks. This makes it easier for the digital networks to take advantage of civilians which has resulted with technology now violating the privacy rights of people, extracting their personal information for marketers to make a quick buck. Under the libertarian theory they would interpret this threat that there should be less government control so the people have more free will to exercise their own creativity through other means other than digital networks. Lanier compares this current situation to Aristotle and his communication techniques and he wonders how Aristotle himself would react to our unemployment rates today. Lanier continues to ask if Aristotle would continue to make machines, kick unneeded people out, or sit around and wait for the world to be depopulated. But in light he would like to think people still run on their own human thought. People ultimately need to take advantage of their human networking possibilities rather than the small constraints of online communication. It is not in the cyber world but in the real world of face-to-face communication where people can build comminutes and have the ability to create their own substantial rights.
Lanier centers many of his arguments around the destruction of the middle class, those who are not on the up-curve of today's culturally prominent winner-take-all distribution of, mostly, everything from wealth to recognition. By making information free and accessible through a digitized world, only a minority will survive Lanier's imagined Virtual Reality since only a few will be seen as “a commercial prospect,” or, important enough to waste resources on. In digitizing nearly every information-gathering process, we are, inherently and perhaps ignorantly, destroying the basis of the middle class because, in making information free, we are, as Lanier says, creating a world in which wealth, jobs and even old age will become moot and unnecessary worries. As everything will become commodities, societal standards will become based more on a winner-take-all limited distribution of resources. Those useful to such a society will become in themselves commodities, while the rest will be left by the wayside.
In terms of libertarian theory, the concepts Lanier discusses create a literal free marketplace of ideas. The information is literally free and easily available for the public to view at any time they please, so easily available that they do not need to be supplied the information by the middleman media, although, arguably, the media is necessary to sort through relevant and pertinent information. Lanier's ideas thus highly exemplify libertarian ideals. The elements of the digitized networks which are destroying the middle class do, in fact, allow people to bypass the a hegemonic governmental power threatening the sharing of ideas, making those who supply the free digitized information essentially “watchdogs.” The problem with the modernized use of digital information, though, is that much of the information shared through the internet is not the truth, or rather merely a part of the truth, so the problem arises in terms of libertarian of how to supply the public with relevant information in a vast world of irrelevant information.
Lanier explains that because so much of the world has and will continue to be digital and up for profit in the future it will eliminate the middle class. He used the example of how we used to have to pay for music to be on a CD and now we can just make a CD ourselves, or purchase the digital version of the song on something through the media. The fact that making a CD was once someones job is a good example of what he is trying to explain, while it is small scale its part of the bigger problem that modern technology has forced us to deal with but many people overlook. Its is taking away jobs across the board no matter how from making CDs to performing heart surgery. Under the Libertarian theory it is the media's jobs to relay the information of the negative effects that technology is imposing on the people, and assuming that the people are thinking rationally they would limit their use or find other ways to achieve their goals. The people do not need to run away from the technology that is out there, but just be informed of the potential risks that it is creating.
Lanier sees potential in digital technology, however he sees threats posed by digital networks. He wants it reoriented away from its main role so far, which involves “spying” on citizens, creating a winner-take-all society, eroding professions and the middle class. Internet technology threatens to destroy the middle class by eroding employment and job security, along with various “levees” that give the economic middle stability.
The traditional libertarian theory of the press as being the source of information for the public might understand the threat of digital networks. Having privacy rights violated by technology would mean anyone would have access to any information, and, in theory, would eliminate the need for the press. Lanier argues that people do not understand the value of data. They have been infused with the idea that where you obtain free services in exchange for personal data, is a fair trade. Instead of investigative journalism, people give their information away via the internet, making the trend indicate that eventually journalism will simply be a quick Google search.
Lanier sees technology and digital networking as a sort of contradiction of what people perceive it to actually be. Lanier uses economics and value, placed on both technology and the lives of the people who consume it, to make a point about how the information shared on various technologies is actually taking away what people think they are gaining from it, and giving the mass market undesirable consequences, specifically for the lower and middle class. In his argument, he illustrates that while technology on the surface continues and expands its ability to provide free information to millions and increasing your ability to consume what and how you achieve this information, your freedom and intellect is decreasing, with the gap between the upper class who are in control of the content of this information and technology, and the middle and lower class who already are losing money a grasp of “reality.” This issue of loss of reality is what Lanier claims will begin to deteriorate our sense of life, and what is valuable to us in the common class. He is saying that by consuming so much free online media, we are essentially devaluing our own efforts and products that the working class create by putting so much “worth” into free entertainment in information, thus placing this “worth” in the hands of the upper class that will continue to control and demolish the middle class. Libertarian theories of press may agree with this concern and be similar in ideologies when it comes to correcting the current path of modern technologies. Libertarians would embrace the sense of free technology by attempting to bring the power back to the hands of the middle and lower class, allowing them to “compete” in the marketplace of free information as well, and not have the whole system run by a few powerful people rather than the people themselves.
Lanier sees the contradictory nature as the major threat that digital networks pose. We often have a belief that technology is helping us advance our job market and economy, when in reality it has cut millions of working class jobs. Also, social networking sites like Facebook can create isolation and jealousy among its users.
Lanier posits that it should be used as true free marketplace of ideas. While in line with Libertarian theory, it seems a bit naive to think of people using the internet in this way.
The primary threat of digital networks is its degradation of human value for the purpose of acquiring greater amounts of information. This is a paradoxical threat in that all information comes from people (even if it really doesn’t appear so).
But, as Lanier asks, “What is so interesting about you that you’re worth spying on?” Money. Digital networks do everything in their power to acquire as much information about you as possible for advertising, marketing, and ultimately consumerist purposes. And by “as much information as possible,” I mean all the information about you that has ever surfaced on the Internet. I think Lanier is extremely against Internet surveillance because it focuses on capital rather than human dignity and ethical media reporting.
This consumerist use of information corrupts the implied rationality of humans and presents warped media that carries heavy consequences for the quality of public discourse and knowledge of citizens. Digital networks are hypercapitalist and do not care for human dignity and wellbeing.
In his book Who Owns the Future?, Jaron Lanier talks about a lot of the concerns that technology brings on. I found the most prominent concern of his to be the whole issue of economics that comes into play with the introduction of new technologies and digital networks. I would say that Lanier would say this is the primary concern. In the first couple of chapters, he talks a lot about the issue of money and the depleting middle class. There’s no denying the fact that the middle class has become increasingly smaller and Lanier tries his best to explain why he thinks this is so, mentioning how technology is doing the work that many people used to do in order to make money. He also brings up the fact that these digital networks are taking a lot of our information and selling it to advertisers and businesses so they know how to better target us, yet they’re not paying anyone for this information. I liked the analogy he used about how while he wishes people would pay for their music, he doesn’t think the public can actually be punished for “stealing music” simply because these digital networks are essentially “stealing” our information as well.
When it comes to the Libertarian Theory, I believe this can work alongside the ideas and issues that Lanier brings up. He seems to be advocating for a free marketplace of ideas, as does the Libertarian Theory, and one of the issues he has is that it’s essentially not free. Although free has many meanings and yes, we’re allowed to freely post what we want on these digital networks, it’s not free in the sense of money. Our ideas are actually worth a lot of money and are being sold for a lot of money, yet we never actually get to see any of that profit.
The central conflict Lanier points out is that the internet poses many contradiction in the narrative it presents to the consumer. Many feel that the increases in technology we have been experiencing are inherently positive for the advancement of society, the economy, and politically. When put under a microscope many of these beliefs people hold about the role of technology are false. Instead of making our society more free we now instead technology has created many ways in which the government can watch our actions, and conversations. The internet has already a few times severely effected our economic stability. The internet bubble of the late 90's is a perfect example because the insurgence of this technology made it difficult to make money for many small time business people. This technology does follow the Libertarian Idea because its purpose is supposed to provide free information to anyone. The way the government in our current society treats this tool does not fall into the libertarian ideas because there is far too much control exerted by the government. The libertarian view point in my opinion would highly value personal privacy.
The main threat that Lanier sees in technology is the elimination of the middle class. Even though he sees the potential of technology but overall he sees it detrimental. He says that there is so much advancement of technology and digital networking that it will emliminate jobs for the middle class and add more profit for the future. He states that by making essentially unlimited information free and available for everyone through a digitized world, only few will survive in his "Virtual Reality" since only few people will be seen as good enough to waste resources on. The people who are seen useful to society, AKA the wealthy, will be the ones who get the distributed resources. He also sees the elimination of middle class jobs such as labor jobs and in place of these jobs will be technology. He uses the examples of CDs. We used to go to the store and buy physical copies of CDs. Now we can download them digitally or even burn copies of our own CDs and DVDs.
Something we've talked about in class is the fact that we are constantly being monitored through technology. Corporations such as Google, and Facebook have every piece of information on us and we are in essence being spied on. He wants technology to move away from that use and aways from destroying middle class jobs.
The press should be discovering and reporting the truth, but in this manner it isn’t. Rather, the function of the press has become a twitter account, in that it is spitting out one-sided bits of information that the consumer believes as an absolute truth. The implications of this kind of reporting is a culture that doesn’t care about a higher, more sophisticated understanding of the given topic. By this, I mean that the press is holding our hand and feeding us rather than giving us proper context and undivided information so that society can actively make SMART democratic decisions. In this situation, the media yet again creates this ‘larger than life’ personality, making Nelson Mandela a kind of super hero that moves the American people (and gets good ratings too). I hope I’m not jumping too far ahead, but this reminds me a lot of what Neil Postman says about news becoming show biz. If the public’s interest is making informed decision than no, the press clearly isn’t serving us good, however, if the public’s interest is now to be entertained than I guess the press is doing a damn good job. I personally support Nelson Mandela's approach to fighting oppression, but nonetheless I also support our democracy and ethically reporting news.
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