If you read the book you’ll see that Lanier doesn’t dismiss technology so much as the “anti-human” ways it can be designed and put to use. At the end of the book he has a really long section about the ways he imagines technology augmenting and enhancing “human” experience, ie, allowing people to communicate with each other in a deeper and more immediate way. His philosophy about VR, for instance, is informed by this idea that technology can help people communicate “post symbolically”–He envisioned a world in which, rather than the mediation of sounds and symbols, people could inhabit 3-dimensional spaces in which they could literally recreate and share their dreams.

So it’s not fair to say he is renouncing his work in VR or (as some have done) that this book is the work of a Luddite. It’s by someone who feels we need to be careful with the way we design our technology and remember that it serves us, and is not an end to itself.

I wouldn’t dismiss what he’s saying just because he’s 50 and used to believe his own spiel.

The point I think makes a lot of sense is that the tools we use help to define how we express ourselves and our imaginations–and we’re getting fitted into particular boxes. I don’t believe that’s negated by the next generation. It’s easy to think that the break-down is generational, but I believe it’s more predicated on the kind of brain and personality each of us has. The “kids” are just as susceptible to this kind of thing.

Also, which part are you disallowing? The part about getting locked into certain systems or the part about a mob mentality, or…? A blanket dismissal of this doesn’t seem logical.

More importantly, I’m talking in the context of a writing career–contextualizing what I know of the guy’s book from the review.

JeffV