I remember first reading a profile on Lanier in the Beyond Cyberpunk! hypercard, touted as a visionary for VR. I'm glad his takes on the dangers of social media have held up, but also relieved he's optimistic on the recent wave of social justice knowledge sharing.
Jaron Lanier on social media
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Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#12Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
Come on, Kardashian or Paris Hilton? I personally find Jaron Lanier to be the antithesis to those self centered and inane celebrities. He actually raises some very interesting points and even if his ideas were wrong, they are very interesting to think about. I also find him quite caring and humane, quite contrary to a lot of SV celebs
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#13Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
Is it a way to make him more humane or more of a prophet with long hair?
What?
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#14Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
Come on, Kardashian or Paris Hilton? I personally find Jaron Lanier to be the antithesis to those self centered and inane celebrities. He actually raises some very interesting points and even if his ideas were wrong, they are very interesting to think about. I also find him quite caring and humane, quite contrary to a lot of SV celebs
Agreed!
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#15Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
Maybe less the Kim Kardashian of VR and more the Ray Kurzweil of VR? I’ve had similar experiences, he’s been talking about this stuff for 25 years but he’s more like a philosopher or creative thinker/talker type of person. AFAIK his main achievements are getting speaking engagements and writing the occasional article, but he’s often presented as some sort of VR pioneer or some sort of big deal in the world of VR, whi…
I'm pretty sure he is.
You may have him confused with Palmer Luckey, if you think he was just in the right place at the right time with a big mouth.
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#16His waist/hip ratio is concerning. He needs to watch his diet & exercise.
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#17Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
If you were positing the same about Kevin Kelly, I would agree. But Jaron has actually made things.
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#18Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
It's not just you. Lanier is mostly famous for being famous: he is an inveterate social climber which is why he has so many juicy Epstein anecdotes[0]. In my experience (I used to live in Berkeley and have been to his house and otherwise in his presence a couple of times via mutual friends) he rarely knows what he's talking about. Saw him stiff two grad students on a split check as well, back when he was at SGI; couldn't believe it, and that's always how I'll remember him.
He's totally right about social media of course. Sadly. It would be a simpler world if all men of bad character were also wrong, but he's right as rain on this one.
[0]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-tran...
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#19Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
@S1mon - I think that is unfair, though he is a first class media hacker and quote giver. He has had a high-ish industry profile from his time as a developer at Atari Research in the early 1980s. He, Thomas Zimmerman and Mitch Altman et al formed one of the first commercial VR companies - VPL Research in 1984 and developed early generations of the data glove, eyephone (VR Headset) and datasuit (body tracking) and a visual programming language (VPL -BodyElectric) for building early VR apps. And its this which propelled him into the press visibility.
He got popular with press because he can give a great quote, hold an interesting conversation / PoV / interview and was accessible and very visible with the first generation of VR hype. VPL Research ended in bankruptcy circa 1991/92 with its patents eventually going to Sun Microsystems. After VPL - he worked on Tele-immersion at Internet 2 - doing remote telepresence over high bandwidth networks and also did some telepresence stuff with SGI. Since then he is probably better known by his books, industry commentary, press quotes (or music depending on your interests). However a bunch of the tools we use today (Occulus/Vive, visual programming in the likes of Unreal, telepresence robots etc) can be considered descendants of some of the stuff he helped pioneer or at least the ideas he helped plant for later generations of developers to run with.
Please see Don Hopkins note below for more history and correct product names :-)
Re: Jaron Lanier on social media
#20Is is just me or is Jaron Lanier the Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of VR? Journalists seem to dig him up every few years for some puff piece, but I have never really seen what he's done other than managing to be available when someone needs a quote about VR. This is from someone who worshipped Wired magazine and moved to SF to be around all the visionaries and "techno-pagans" and what not in 1994.
Maybe less the Kim Kardashian of VR and more the Ray Kurzweil of VR? I’ve had similar experiences, he’s been talking about this stuff for 25 years but he’s more like a philosopher or creative thinker/talker type of person. AFAIK his main achievements are getting speaking engagements and writing the occasional article, but he’s often presented as some sort of VR pioneer or some sort of big deal in the world of VR, whi…
> AFAIK, "I’m pretty sure"
But what if you don't know anything about his work in VR?
I mean he has worked his whole live in VR as founder in startups, Atari, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, National Telepresense initiative, Microsoft Research...