The digital pioneer and visionary behind virtual reality has turned against the very culture he helped create
Source: www.smithsonianmag.com
The very notion of a celebration of individuality, open commensality, and organic connectivity that the internet championed since it’s inception has turned into a kind of collectivism where crowds exhibit a mob mentality bordering on conformity and political correctness. Marketing, corporate and other advertising interests have made deep inroads into the web and uprooted the original concept of a free, sharing, and innovative space by appropriating images and meme’s to glorify capitalism, greed, excess and technological triumph which serves to further entrench vested-interests whose designs have been imprinted upon us from time-immemorial and allowing screens, avatars, and projections to filter and hide individuals, groups, and companies from their true natures, agendas, and even appearance and actual behavior/lifestyle (as opposed to the ‘image’).
• Coder’s coder and virtual-reality pioneer Jaron Lanier is author, You Are Not a Gadget. and Who Owns the Future? •
Akira Morikawa 