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Sep 06, 2013Stratified_nomad rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
In some respects "Who Own's the Future" is a continuation of "You Are Not a Gadget!", which discusses the missteps of early web development and how those misstakes -and social media like Facebook- have larvely homogenized humanity and severly curtailed the ability of the creative class to earn a living (file sharing, etc.). While WOTF reiterates some of the some arguments, Lanier focuses more on how what he calls "Siren Servers", specifically: Google, Amazon, and Facebook. He argues that these sites are only nominally free, but are dependent on the data/perspective of their unpaid users. He also argues that automation has the potential to elminate human jobs in virtually every field from health care to transportation. Most of his arguments are convincing, but some of what he forsees seems implausible, at least within the next few decades. For instance, it seems unlikely to me that robot technology will advance enough to replace human nurses anytime soon. Overall, Lanier makes a compelling argument that, as currently strutured, the web and other technology will render many human jobs obsolete unless the dominant techno-centric paradigm is replaced with something more humanistic. While he never pretends to have all the answers, he provides many details of how such a new paradigm might work. However, he doesn't really offer a method for implementation. This was the only minor shortcoming I found with YANAG, and while WOTF is more detailed, to great extent this flaw is repeated. Unlike YANAG -which is more concise- WOTF eventually feels somewhat redundant; it seemed like it could've been about 50 pages shorter. WOTF also contains several "interludes" between chapters. Some of these asides are often interesting and entertaining, and serve as effective illustratations; others only seem tangentially related, are somewhat distracting. Despite it's flaws, Lanier discusses vital issues that few other writers seem concerned with. If his proposed solutions seem inadequate that's more indicative of the monumental issues he describes than of shortcomings on his part.