What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?

Page 2 seems to imply that part of Lanier's dislike of digital culture stems from the fact that MIDIs can't represent saxophone music. Was that really such an important part of the interview that it deserves space in what's clearly a short summary of a long interview? It sounds more like an aside that's been taken out of context.

Later on that same page, the article seems to imply that automatic translation is bad because "by taking value off the books, you’re actually shrinking the economy." That is, because technology allows something to be done more cheaply, it's actually hurting the economy by shrinking nominal spending. But that's precisely why technology has been the primary driver of economic growth since the industrial revolution. You can make a case that it hurts some people while helping people in the aggregate, but, read as written, his criticism is an attack on pretty much any technology, ever.

And then there's all the straw men, like the idea that "Web 2.0 intellectuals" think that "we shouldn’t be self-critical and that we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves is irresponsible." Isn't every other non-tech article on HN a critical piece? If anything, the consensus here seems to be that criticism is given too much attention (e.g., the most upvoted comment in many HN threads is a comment telling people not to be so harsh, the criticism of 'middlebrow dismassal' [1], etc.)

[1] If my comment qualifies, I apologize. I'm writing this because I literally don't understand why Jaron Lanier believes what he does or what this article is trying to convey. The article is full of logical fallacies and contradictions that are so absurd that they're surely not his real views. Other people around here seem to be familiar with Lanier; perhaps someone with more background can make sense of this article.

EDIT: his wikipedia page is decent, although it's a bit light on content: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier. I don't agree, but, unlike the article, wikipedia presents his opinions in a reasonable light.

EDIT2: Just as an aside, one of the biggest anti-features I find when I read HN is that there are often many comments expressing variants of the same opinion. They're not exactly redundant, because each presents a unique viewpoint, but it makes comment sections overly long.

I'll often delete my comments after other, similar, comments pop up, to reduce the reading load. I'd delete this, because there are now six other comments expressing the opinion that either Lanier's opinions aren't cogent or that the article isn't representative of Lanier's opinions (and only one dissenter), but it's bad form to delete a comment after someone's quoted it, so I'll leave it here for posterity.

> Page 2 seems to imply that part of Lanier's dislike of digital culture stems from the fact that MIDIs can't represent saxophone music.

from the article:

Indeed, one of the foundations of Lanier’s critique of digitized culture is the very way its digital transmission at some deep level betrays the essence of what it tries to transmit. Take music.

One of the foundations is a general process, and music is used as an example for that process. Which is so far from what you turned it into, I'd really suggest reading it all again.

> Later on that same page, the article seems to imply that automatic translation is bad because "by taking value off the books, you’re actually shrinking the economy." That is, because technology allows something to be done more cheaply, it's actually hurting the economy by shrinking nominal spending.

What he actually says:

[With translation] you’re producing this result that looks magical but in the meantime, the original translators aren’t paid for their work—their work was just appropriated. So by taking value off the books, you’re actually shrinking the economy.

The way I understand that: If you don't pay the people who do the work, and people who make a collage out of their work get paid, you'll end up with much fewer new translations being undertaken. You take money from the people who do the work and give it to those who made a collage from it, and the total amount is much less. His argument isn't "it's bad because it's cheaper" -- rather your counterargument seems to be "that [criticism I kinda missed] is made up for because it's cheaper".

And I disagree. If I can buy a bun for 20 cents, or someone could rob the baker and give it to me for 5 cents, I'd rather have the bun for 20 cents, because that means more delicious bun tomorrow, and the day after that.

> Isn't every other non-tech article on HN a critical piece?

Critical, yeah. Self-critical (big difference) in the sense of "why I didn't succeed or how I could succeed harder", yeah. But in the sense of "wtf am I doing, why, and should I really be doing it?" -- not so much. You say every second non-technical article? Can you link me ten from the last 7 days? Not because I don't believe you, but because I want to read them, and at the very least I want to know what kind of article you think qualifies for this. Also, if the consensus here is that criticism is given too much attention (which doesn't even mean there's a lot going on, just that what of it is going on is already too much for some people - logic!) kinda confirms is point instead of refuting it.

But it's not about criticism anyway, it's about being self-critical. Plus, HN isn't the whole industry. So how would that even be a valid counterargument if it was true? (which also makes me asking for those self-critical articles kinda moot; I just like to be throrough)