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Thread: Who Owns the Future?

  1. #31
    Dread, in case you're still link averse and/or still prefer to criticize without actually knowing what you're talking about, here's the wikipedia bio for your "hack" writer "known for little more than being paid to spread FUD about the Internet":

    Jaron Zepel Lanier (/ˈɛərɨn lɨˈnɪər/, born 3 May 1960) is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality (VR). A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves. In the late 1990s, Lanier worked on applications for Internet2, and in the 2000s, he was a visiting scholar at Silicon Graphics and various universities. More recently, he has acted as an advisor to Linden Lab on their virtual world product Second Life, and as "scholar-at-large" at Microsoft Research where he has worked on the Kinect device for Xbox 360.

    Lanier is also known as a composer of classical music and a collector of rare instruments; his acoustic album, Instruments of Change (1994) features Asian wind and string instruments such as the khene mouth organ, the suling flute, and the sitar-likeesraj. Lanier was the director of an experimental short film, and teamed with Mario Grigorov to compose the soundtrack to the documentary film, The Third Wave (2007). As an author, Lanier has written a column for Discover magazine; his book, You Are Not a Gadget (2010), is a critique of Web 2.0. In 2010, Lanier was nominated in the TIME 100 list of most influential people.
    More detailed version...

    Born Jaron Zepel Lanier[2] in New York City, Lanier was raised in Mesilla, New Mexico.[3][4] Lanier's mother and father were Jewish immigrants from Europe; his mother was a survivor from a Vienna concentration camp and his father's family had emigrated from Ukraine to escape the pogroms.[5] When he was nine years old, his mother was killed in a car accident. He lived in tents for an extended period with his father before embarking on a seven-year project to build a geodesic dome home that he helped design.[6] At the age of 13, Lanier convinced New Mexico State University to let him enroll. At NMSU, Lanier met Marvin Minsky and Clyde Tombaugh, and took graduate-level courses; he received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study mathematical notation, which led him to learn computer programming.[7] From 1979 to 1980, the NSF-funded project at NMSU focused on "digital graphical simulations for learning". Lanier also attended art school in Manhattan during this time, but returned to New Mexico and worked as a midwife. The father of a baby he helped deliver gave him a car as a gift; Lanier drove the car to Los Angeles to visit a girl whose father happened to work in the physics department at the California Institute of Technology, where Lanier met and conversed with Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann.[8]

    In California, Lanier worked for Atari, where he met Thomas Zimmerman, inventor of the data glove. After Atari Inc. was split into two companies in 1984, Lanier became unemployed. The free time enabled him to concentrate on his own projects, including VPL, a “post-symbolic” visual programming language. Along with Zimmerman, Lanier founded VPL Research, focusing on commercializing virtual reality technologies; the company prospered for a while, but filed for bankruptcy in 1990.[4] In 1999, Sun Microsystems bought VPL's virtual reality and graphics-related patents.

    From 1997 to 2001, Lanier was the Chief Scientist of Advanced Network and Services, which contained the Engineering Office of Internet2, and served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet2. The Initiative demonstrated the first prototypes of tele-immersion in 2000 after a three-year development period. From 2001 to 2004, he was Visiting Scientist at Silicon Graphics Inc., where he developed solutions to core problems in telepresence and tele-immersion. He was also visiting scholar with the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University (1997–2001), a visiting artist with New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and a founding member of the International Institute for Evolution and the Brain.[9]


    The Rules
    Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
    Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
    Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)

  2. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Again, you missed the point of this thread. Anyone can regurgitate the same economic memes you posted, but that's not the same as "thinking outside the box" to ponder the future, let alone who will "own" it. This isn't an either/or, good/bad, black/white topic, but an invitation to think, and post, in abstract terms.

    Amazing how you can't put 2 and 2 together.

    "But he argues these digital networks enrich relatively few people and do not enlarge the overall economy. In his new book, “Who Owns the Future?,” Lanier lays out his vision for how the middle class could benefit more from the new information economy.""

    Basically translates into "TECHNOLOGY THREATENS MIDDLE CLASS WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" Which fits right in with your absurd belief that robots and technology will mean no jobs for future generations.

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Amazing how you can't put 2 and 2 together.

    "But he argues these digital networks enrich relatively few people and do not enlarge the overall economy. In his new book, “Who Owns the Future?,” Lanier lays out his vision for how the middle class could benefit more from the new information economy.""

    Basically translates into "TECHNOLOGY THREATENS MIDDLE CLASS WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" Which fits right in with your absurd belief that robots and technology will mean no jobs for future generations.
    I would encourage you to read as well
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  4. #34
    Hell, he doesn't have to READ, but can listen to the podcast.



    To Choobs: the DR show is great, innit? I love that it's on the "free radio", too. Her staff manages to book really top-notch guests and experts, on all sorts of current events and thought-provoking issues. PS, I've started to collect Pentatomoidea (stink bugs) in a zip-lock bag and putting them in my freezer, instead of flushing them down the toilet.

  5. #35
    My cynical side says that "future" will belong to international, corporate, tax, or patent lawyers.

    I quoted myself, to get this thread back on track, and here's why:

    Newest technology moves faster than anything else in our world. Including cultural expectations, trade practices, policy, and legislation. In every field. We've had threads about seed patents, and how that impacts farmers, food production, and global hunger. We've had threads about R & D and funding high-tech innovation, from energy to education to medicine.

    Angelina Jolie's elective double mastectomy hasn't been mentioned yet (as far as I know), but it's part of the overall question of who owns the future. Or at least who guides it. She was fortunate enough to afford the breast cancer genome screening, the expert physicians, first-class surgeries, and cosmetic reconstruction. Kudos to her for going public! But genetic patent ownership looms large...especially for poor women with the same genetic risks, but no way to pay for owning their medical future like Ms. Jolie.

  6. #36
    That was not "back on track" in any way. I think you're losing the question.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  7. #37
    ('Back on track', as in away from Lewk's track. )

    Medicine's future is one part of the question. From the R & D funding (using public tax dollars)....to intellectual "ownership" rights (patents and laws)....and who gets to "own" the health benefits of that new medical technology.

  8. #38
    Some people think no one has heard of Jaron Lanier before. I have a feeling these people are just learning about him, which is why they are taking him so seriously.

    Once again, the issue isn't Jaron Lanier's experience with computing. It's Jaron Lanier's very silly misunderstandings of economics. A fun response on a blog:

    Means Are Not Ends
    by DON BOUDREAUX on MAY 15, 2013

    Here’s a letter to Salon:

    In your interview of Jaron Lanier you quote a passage from his book Who Owns the Future? – a book in which Mr. Lanier laments the modern economy’s facility at making available at very low costs many goods and services whose production in the past required a great deal of human labor: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?” (“The Internet destroyed the middle class,” May 12).

    Mr. Lanier sounds profound, I suppose, to people unfamiliar with history. So let’s re-write Mr. Lanier’s prose just a bit in order to put his fears in historical context:

    “At the height of its power, agriculture employed 90 percent of the population and produced output worth vastly more than half of U.S. GDP. It even invented countless plant hybrids and animal breeds. But today nearly all farms of the past have gone bankrupt (or, seeing the economic writing on the wall, were transformed to other uses). Agriculture today employs only about one percent of the workforce. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those good agricultural jobs created?”

    Sincerely,
    Donald J. Boudreaux
    Professor of Economics
    and
    Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
    George Mason University
    Fairfax, VA 22030
    By Mr. Lanier’s logic – and, to be fair, he’s hardly the only person who sees the world as he does – we’d all be made much wealthier if, suddenly, each gallon of water for human consumption had to be manufactured using many workers.

    http://cafehayek.com/2013/05/means-are-not-ends.html
    Also: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...talking-about/

  9. #39
    I mostly think these people, like you, can't read very well. Perhaps they have only come across the one paragraph and failed abysmally to grok even that one paragraph.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  10. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Once again, the issue isn't Jaron Lanier's experience with computing.
    *cough* Indeed. This thread isn't about one particular person or their book, but moving into the future with new technology....and how that will impact power and people. You don't have to agree with his conclusions, but FFS at least consider the questions.

    It's Jaron Lanier's very silly misunderstandings of economics.
    "Economists" have all the answers? They disagree within their own field and sub-fields all the time.

    Look, it doesn't take a genius, or even an academic, to see the growing gap between people wanting jobs, and available jobs. Some of that is a result of advancements in technology that created efficiency and productivity, but also skills and labor gaps. Some of it's due to globalization, and exploiting undeveloped nations' cheap labor. There are huge differences between Bangladesh and London and Austin, Texas.

    The common denominator is how people will be affected....by growing populations, changing opportunities, and transitions to high-tech societies. The efficient/productive future won't need so many "workers", but people will still need/want a job. The philosophical exercise is wondering what the middle will be.


  11. #41
    GGT I honestly think you've misunderstood what Lanier's saying, just like Dread has, but in the opposite direction.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  12. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post



    "Economists" have all the answers? They disagree within their own field and sub-fields all the time.

    Look, it doesn't take a genius, or even an academic, to see the growing gap between people wanting jobs, and available jobs. Some of that is a result of advancements in technology that created efficiency and productivity, but also skills and labor gaps. Some of it's due to globalization, and exploiting undeveloped nations' cheap labor. There are huge differences between Bangladesh and London and Austin, Texas.

    The common denominator is how people will be affected....by growing populations, changing opportunities, and transitions to high-tech societies. The efficient/productive future won't need so many "workers", but people will still need/want a job. The philosophical exercise is wondering what the middle will be.

    GGT with the advent of outsourcing, more efficient manufacturing (automated assembly lines), ATMs, on-line banking and internet shopping do you think the labor force participation rate since 1950 has gone up or down in America?

  13. #43
    Senior Member Flixy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    GGT with the advent of outsourcing, more efficient manufacturing (automated assembly lines), ATMs, on-line banking and internet shopping do you think the labor force participation rate since 1950 has gone up or down in America?
    I'd say labour participation rate increase was more due to emancipation, not the reasons you mentioned. Of course they did help economic growth and increased standards of living.

    Funny side note, the word sabotage comes from protests against looms that would put textile workers out of business.
    Keep on keepin' the beat alive!

  14. #44
    Women entering the labor force was probably the main cause of higher labor participation rates, but higher productivity was not far behind.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  15. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    I mostly think these people, like you, can't read very well. Perhaps they have only come across the one paragraph and failed abysmally to grok even that one paragraph.
    This isn't about reading comprehension but about hygiene. When someone poops in a barrel of water, I don't want to drink from the barrel.

    Maybe I just have better eyes for seeing the poop in the barrel, but you're the one lacing this with insults.

  16. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    This isn't about reading comprehension but about hygiene. When someone poops in a barrel of water, I don't want to drink from the barrel.

    Maybe I just have better eyes for seeing the poop in the barrel, but you're the one lacing this with insults.
    I'm sorry if you're offended by my assertion that you hallucinate about poop. The point is you're ranting about a misunderstanding of info taken out of context and most likely filtered through the confused brain of someone else who's misunderstood info he's taken out of context and yet seen fit to get mad about. I have no problems with you disagreeing with Lanier's views if you actually know what those views are but the truth is that you don't and this is just another way for you to demonstrate how much you've grown and how discerning your intellectual nose has become. I call shenanigans. Smell is in the nose of the smeller
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  17. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    GGT with the advent of outsourcing, more efficient manufacturing (automated assembly lines), ATMs, on-line banking and internet shopping do you think the labor force participation rate since 1950 has gone up or down in America?
    It's just one metric, and depends on other variables, in context. Like demographics---age of workforce, age of retirement, extended longevity. Plus what percentage of 18-29 yr olds are full-time students. And whether we're in a war or post-war era, and how much influence the 'military industrial complex' has over labor/job markets.

    Labor participation rates don't reflect underemployment or wage/income scales, but I'd say the 50's was probably a height, all things considered. After the Great Recession busted millions of retirees' savings, plenty re-entered the work force....at the same time many college grads couldn't enter the work force. I think it's a fluid and dynamic wave that constantly moves up and down, and shouldn't be used to define an economy's overall health.

  18. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Labor participation rates don't reflect underemployment or wage/income scales, but I'd say the 50's was probably a height, all things considered. After the Great Recession busted millions of retirees' savings, plenty re-entered the work force....at the same time many college grads couldn't enter the work force. I think it's a fluid and dynamic wave that constantly moves up and down, and shouldn't be used to define an economy's overall health.
    It really wasn't a high-point. It was the high-point if we just look at men but overall labor participation rates are quite a bit higher now. Back then, most women did not stay in the work force.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  19. #49
    Okay? The 50's was a post-WWII booming economy, with its technological and scientific advances, early globalization....and changing gender norms. Those things contributed to an unprecedented population boom. ie the Baby Boom generation.

    *edit---economic data collection was also different in the 50's, and didn't account for women participating in the informal labor force (taking care of children, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, ironing or sewing, or anything related to paid 'housekeeping') that employed thousands of women, outside their own households.*

    Like I said, labor participation rate isn't just a point on a graph, or a reflection of overall economic health.
    Last edited by GGT; 05-26-2013 at 05:22 PM.

  20. #50
    Wow, so you now want to count moms as being part of the labor force.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  21. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Wow, so you now want to count moms as being part of the labor force.
    What? If you actually read my edit, you'd know 'paid housekeeping' meant domestic workers, predominantly women, getting paid for work outside their own homes, in other peoples' homes. That work, and those positions, weren't "counted" in labor participation rates of the 50's.




    It really wasn't a high-point. It was the high-point if we just look at men but overall labor participation rates are quite a bit higher now. Back then, most women did not stay in the work force.
    And my reply to Fuzzy was meant to show how womens' "informal participation in the work force" wasn't appreciated as "work", let alone formally measured, in previous decades. But women surely worked, and brought income to households, whether that meant "babysitting", "taking in laundry", styling hair and doing "perms" for a fee....or housewives holding Tupperware 'parties'.

    The informal economy wasn't measured very well in those days. Most likely because women's roles weren't considered as valuable as men's. When it was a man's world, defined by men, and dominated by men, even in Academic and political circles, that worked for a while.

    But there's been a paradigm shift. About damn time, too.
    Last edited by GGT; 05-26-2013 at 06:28 PM.

  22. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Okay? The 50's was a post-WWII booming economy, with its technological and scientific advances, early globalization....and changing gender norms. Those things contributed to an unprecedented population boom. ie the Baby Boom generation.
    Sure, yes. Lewk was actually alluding to a good deal of that. So it has what all to do with your negative reply to him?

    *edit---economic data collection was also different in the 50's, and didn't account for women participating in the informal labor force (taking care of children, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, ironing or sewing, or anything related to paid 'housekeeping') that employed thousands of women, outside their own households.*
    Data collection did have differences but information you're talking about here was collected and published and was part of the formal numbers. I won't even begin to claim it was perfect and comprehensive (it still isn't) but it wasn't out and out missing from the data as you're alleging.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  23. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    Sure, yes. Lewk was actually alluding to a good deal of that. So it has what all to do with your negative reply to him?
    Fully related to his previous posts (that I'm an anti-tech luddite) when we discuss labor markets in transition.

    Data collection did have differences but information you're talking about here was collected and published and was part of the formal numbers. I won't even begin to claim it was perfect and comprehensive (it still isn't) but it wasn't out and out missing from the data as you're alleging.
    That *edit* was a reply to Loki conflating the informal economy/domestic workers as counting "moms" in the labor force.

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