You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto : Jaron Lanier: Books

Amazon.com: You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (9780307269645): Jaron Lanier: Books.

I haven’t read the book. I know of Lanier from his views on the debates at Edge. His takes, as I have had occasion to discover, are refreshing, though you might not subscribe to the same.

Why am I talking about something that I haven’t read? Do I know anything about it? At all? The answer to that is – No. However, the link above leads to the book’s page on Amazon.com where a Q&A with Lanier is published. And the responses from Lanier are interestingly provocative – which, I suspect, is the whole idea behind the writing in the first place.

Expression. Communication. Internet.

Devaluation of the Individual. Now that’s a big belief / assertion. Since, like I mentioned, I haven’t read the book, I shall go along with his response – “There are so many things wrong with this, that it takes a whole book to summarize them“, along with the caveat that I find the statement following it quite dubious – “Web 2.0 is a formula to kill the middle-class and undo centuries of social progress”. It sounds just too much ideological. The problem with ideology is that there really isn’t any independent basis to for preferring one over the other. Just like a personal belief, no matter how well-informed it might be.

It gets interesting when he says that the internet has become anti-intellectual because Web 2.0 collectivism has killed the individual voice – he justifies this by pointing out that it has become increasingly disheartening to write about any topic in depth because people will only read what the first link from a search engine directs them to, typically the collective expression of the Wikipedia. I’m not comfortable with this rationale. If blogs be considered individual expression, then the state of writing, under no external coercion, indicates a few things – People like to communicate. People believe they are being expressive, in whatever form that they are. People read what is convenient and comforting to them. People are not ‘really’ interested in a quirky or considered take on a subject.

It could be distressing if you were to have been operating under a belief that the immediacy, freedom and architecture of the internet heralds new forms of expression and, consequently, behaviour. However, there is a different way of looking at it. You can jazz up the medium all you like – sooner or later, if the numbers scale up, you ought to be looking at an accurate reflection of what was, till now, offline – the  way people are / have been. And that ought to be reassuring, I’d say. Nothing has really changed. People are still people.

The iPhone as a shining example of the individual achievement as opposed to the unremarkable nature of the collective’s fascination with UNIX and its variants, a three-decade old technology. I’m bemused at the choice of take here. At a more basic level, the iPhone still works on a layer derived from the same tech. It could not have, as a design, existed thirty years ago quite simply because the physics behind the hardware had not developed to the extent that it has. Next question – Is it a unique design? Or is the first, really polished, such design? Think of the alternatives available. The next thing to contend with is the summary dismissal of LINUX as something unremarkable. Sure. It does not do anything special that a lot of other polished, expensive, privately developed products do not  - Windows, Mac. However, I feel the question is being asked the other way around – What is it about these specially developed systems that makes me want to opt for them over and above a rugged and reliable, albeit ‘unremarkable’, commercially-free system? And the answer to that, quite simply, boggles the mind – Nothing. As far as the question of being remarkable is concerned – What is it about a thirty-year old technology that still finds favour with its developers? Is the collective so blind to subsequent developments? That it continues to invest unpaid efforts in development and proliferation of the subject of its fascination? Isn’t that remarkable? I see that this opens up an entire discussion by itself and note that it is nothing new. Again.

A collective of programmers can copy UNIX but cannot invent the iPhone. Did they want to? If they did, could it have been possible earlier? The only meaningful question is that of manufacture -supported by R&D. And therefore, the only remarkable aspect of the invention of the iPhone is that someone was willing to put money into the project and oversee it till release into profit.

Lanier’s reduction of the Wikipedia and LINUX to examples of the delusions of the collectives they represent fails on a singular count. When you look at the web as it portrays the nature of opinions and affiliations to ideologies, would you not be surprised to find that we actually have two examples of reliable systems emerging from a diverse and often fractious set of communities? And the fact that they exist and are fairly invaluable, in spite of the same reason – isn’t that remarkable? It would also be interesting to note the percentage of webservers that run on Linux to provide your iPhone with stuff that makes it useful.

What do I feel?

Its only been about a decade and half for the internet. Taking a cue from my geographical location – there is a lot of Humanity that has yet to log on / connect up. It might be sensible to start forming notions of what the web is and can / must become, in individual and collective interests, if and only when that happens.

Till such time – I’m not likely to read this book.

Note to Note

It’s been a while since I have watched a film that held me in thrall as much as my first viewing of Gela Babluani’s 13 Tzameti ( 13 13 ). Subsequent viewings have helped extend that state, contrary to the fatigue that usually sets in.

I’ve often wondered whether it is the theme(s) that impel me to chase up a director or the treatment(s), as far as my chain of viewings goes. In some cases, it is, I realise, the latter – Rodriguez, Burton, Ritchie and Tarantino spring to mind immediately. The themes usually follow from variations of the standard Noir, to which I confess an insatiable appetite for. And it is here that I would part ways from the American circus and look towards the east and south. Haneke was a radical eye-opener to what you can do with a minimalist palette. And then it was natural to follow it up with Belinsky, Shane Meadows and a host of relatively unknown independent releases.

I had been watching what has been happening in the Desi Scene fairly carefully over the past six-seven years and I have been finding myself fairly excited at the prospect of more cinema to the order of Anurag Kashyap, Anurag Basu, Sriram Raghavan, Raj Kumar Gupta, Navdeep Singh and Vishal Bharadwaj. This is not the ordinary – ‘different’ junta, but acquire difference from the evidence borne by their work – that here are directors who have each a distinct perspective, at best agnostic and at worst blase, expressed with that kind of confidence which can only stem from deliberate study of the genre(s) and acquisition of craft.

However, there was not yet an experience equivalent to what I mentioned at the preamble. I’d delayed watching Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye for a long while. And then late last year, I saw it. I had no hesitation in asserting to myself that it was the finest Hindi film I had seen so far. I did not gravitate towards his first, it being a gentle farce. I’ve caught about one third of the film about four or five times on cable, always the last third and amused myself, but never impelled to watch it in full.

I was in two minds whether to watch LSD or not, eager though I was to see what could Dibakar Bannerjee do further with themes more than a little hyperstylised by Kashyap in Dev D. And then I was waiting for Raja Sen’s Rediff Review.

Read it. I went and watched the film today. We have a keenly-observant genius amongst us now. Keep Note.

A Turn for the Worse

A : Things are so much worse now.

T : Like what?

A : People and the things they do …

T : What makes you say that?

A : The violence, the loss of public and private morals, the …

T : Easy does it. Nothing new I’d say. What’s your point?

A : Technology seems to have made everything so much worse.

T : Has it? I’d have thought it was the other way around.

A : You are perpetually perverse. What do you mean?

T : I mean that earlier, you never really knew what all people were capable of, while they were upto whatever …

A : So?

T : Now, you know.

A ( irritated ) : What’s your point?

T : I don’t somehow get the notion of technology causing you to do something new and abominable. The abominable is nothing new by itself – look at History. It is just that you now have historically advantaged perspective, of getting near real-time takes on the abominable and its aftermath.

A : That makes it better?

T : It certainly does not make it any worse. What do you believe – just because technology has advanced, people are supposed to have progressed ethically too? Where is the causative connection?

A : You’re daft.

T : I must be, if I’m talking to you about this.

A : There is so much of BAD!

T : There is so much of diverse forms of media. BAD sells. Who’s doing the buying?

A Little Game

A : I believe in the equality of women and men.
T : Why? Don’t you see it? And if you do, then why do you need to believe in it?
…
A : I believe in God.
T : This is a little confusing. Do you mean to say that God talks to you and you believe whatever he utters to be the Gospel Truth? Or do you mean to say that you believe that God exists as Conceivable Entity?
… I’ll not belabour this point here, though. This is worthy of independent development on the following lines …
A ( Furious! ) : Both!
T : They contradict each other.
A : What?!!!
T : They do. Look at them …
A : I just uttered the words and I don’t see any contradictions.
T : I note that you are asserting that God exists by virtue of his talking to you. He/She does not do so for me. Hence here is one part of your experience ( or being ) which is completely disjunct from mine. Hence, in any meaningful communication between us, we know that God must not be invoked or else I would have no clue to what you are talking about nor would it be a matter of our common human experience.
T : I also note that you assert that God exists as a conceivable entity which is open to misinterpretation – like, He/She exists only as a concept with no other Reality. The other interpretation would be God exists and is conceivable – which as you notice,  is regressive.
A : This is serious! Don’t make fun of God …
T : Ouch! Sorry. I wasn’t making fun ‘of’ God as such, at most having a little fun with YOUR conception of Him/Her.
A : You’d be better off doing better than that …
T : So I intend to.
…
A : I believe in Justice.
T : Why?
A : What do you mean – Why?!
T : If someone were to say to me that he believed in Injustice, I would ask him the same question. Why?
…
Okay, this was just a bit of fun and games. But the idea was to get a glimpse of the kind of difficulties that Wittgenstein seems to have spoken of …

Small Change

Lets envision a little conversation … on the subject of rude Counter Staff. At the Railways.
…
Achilles : This must change. It really should.
Tortoise : Everything changes. Everything must. So I do do not know what you mean. What must change?
( The tortoise is always a little too slow, and consequently faster since he wins the race. Please excuse this digression since it bears on what is to ensue )
A : The rude behaviour of the staff at the Booking Counter.
T : You mean someone was rude to you.
A : Yes, and they always are.
T : Always have been, you mean.
A ( irritated ) : Always will be, I mean!
T : Should I go stand in line and find out?
A  ( grins ) : Shut Up. I mean they always tend to talk as if you are a bother to them.
T : If I were in their place, I’d feel the same. Did you notice the office?
A : So what, they chose to work there. That’s their problem. They’re supposed to be polite to me.
T : Yes, they are. Indeed. Did you notice the indecision of a lot of customers about their contingency plans? You took some time yourself – didn’t you? To ask if we should go on the 21st or the 28th since 14th was out.
A : So? These things need a little deliberation at the end.
T : Or lack of imagination at the beginning?
A : What has this got to do with their rudeness?! It was only a couple of minutes that phonecall to C took.
T : Maybe the man earlier in the queue did the same too?
A : So? That’s part of their job.
T : Maybe someone must have really riled the clerk up, early on. Or maybe he’s having a bad day.
A : I have bad days too. I don’t deal with people rudely.
T : Ah. But you do fly off the handle now and then.
A : There is a limit to tolerance at times.
T : Maybe it was the clerk’s day today.
A : But it always happens this way.
T : Maybe because in the numbers that are handled in a day, there is a high probability that someone or the other will rub off wrongly, for the clerk.
A : But then they ought to have learnt how to deal with this.
T : For some time they do, and again there is something like this in the next hour or so.
A : What are you driving at?
T : Let’s set up some very simple numbers here.
A : This is pointless. They are SUPPOSED to be polite and I will not accept anything to the contrary.
T : Indulge me.
A : What numbers?
T : How many people ahead of you in the line when you got in? Roughly.
A : Twenty.
T : And how long did it take for you to get to the clerk?
A : About an hour.
T : So we estimate a service of anything between 150 to 200 people for an eight hour shift?
A : Okay …
T : How many of them, from those who come to getting their reservations done at the counter, instead of online and saving potential bother, do you feel would be illiterate and / or clueless otherwise?
T : Going by the sample that we saw.
A : Say about a quarter.
T : Lets reduce it to a fifth and then estimate the number of vacillations like yours gauging by the state of reservation for your train which was a month away.
A : I was getting WL 20 for AC III
T : Since the number of seats for SL II are at least tenfold more, there are likely to be at least ten fold more people queuing up than for AC III. Which is twice that for AC II. So starting with AC II viz 50 seats 10 WL to AC III 100 seats 20 WL to SL II 1000 seats WL 200.
A : Numbers don’t tell you anything.
T : Okay fine. Simplify. Let’s assume that those who come in for reservations in advance of 30 days of the journey are likely to get a confirmation whereas those that come in later get WL.
A : You mean a 50-50 across the open two month period, depending on when they turn up?
T : Yes. So would it be fair to assume that half of those left after deduction of a fifth are likely to be the potential waitlisted?
A ( dubiously ) : Seems so … Why deduct the fifth?
T : The illiterates and clueless. I’m assuming that your average clerk, with average tenure at the counter, dealing with the numbers he/she does, has realised through experience that getting irate with such customers only extends their time at the counter. So he is patient and does some of their work for them so as to get rid of them ASAP.
A : That sounds logical.
T : If not, then they get added to the estimate of potential irritants, which as we found, is about two-fifths of the total number.
A : 60-80, you mean.
T : Lets resize that number since I assume that the average clerk does not hit the counter with a decision to scowl through the rest of the shift.
T : Lets peg the number at 30 giving the clerk an irritation for 1.5 hours of the eight hours of his shift. And since it is just a ball-park figure, you can expect sizeable variations in this number whereas you are not so likely to get an equivalent variation in the demeanour of the average clerk.
A : That’s not my problem.
T : But you’re the one demanding change. The others seem to get by, rudeness or not.
A : But surely it must be possible to do something. Why can’t people book online then?
T : Did you? It is surely not any different for the clerk whether you did not or someone else did not.
A : Then online booking should be encouraged, if this is inevitable.
T : It is. But then try and guess the numbers on the largest railways network on the planet which have to log on. If, assuming they all do, you’ll need a commensurately-sized system to handle the queuing loads. With redundancies. With confidence in online transactions at that scale. You believe it is not being put in place, while we speak?
A : Why couldn’t they estimate the growth in numbers in advance? So that we don’t have a problem now.
T : Maybe they did and got it wrong. Maybe they did not when they could have got it right. It is always a NOW for someone or the other. In all probability they did but in all likelihood they found that they could not. Can you predict such numbers? Or maybe if you can, could you set it up? And if you could set it up, what stopped you from setting it up?
T: You’ll find that you are now demanding a hell of a lot more than the seemingly simple change that you started off with. Maybe now you’ll find that you need a reduction in bureaucracy, red-tape and corruption and an increase in transparency. Do you see how it scales up or transforms as you consider your demand for simple politeness from clerks.
T : Sometimes or for some clearly identifiable occasions they do manage to bear up, when they set up special trains and ad hoc Tatkal schemes. But that is besides the point, do you see what your original demand seems to require now?
A : I don’t believe this numbo-jumbo.
T : Lets look at it differently then. You’ve got a bad memory of this instance, and maybe all such which is what prompts you to say that they always behave like that. Do you remember when your business got dealt with without irritation? By railway booking clerks?
A : I don’t.
T : Do you mean that it never occurred or do mean that such instances never registered in your mind?
A : Now you’re just trying to get me into a corner.
T : I’m just asking a simple question. It should not be so difficult to answer.
T : Let’s look at it still differently. You had a bad experience and you talked to me. I don’t see myself as letting the clerk have it the next time I am at the counter. But it is possible, and sometimes very likely, that someone or the other, with feedback from irate friends such as you, approaches the clerk as ‘someone who must be put in his place’. What do you think is the likely outcome of such an interaction? And its effect on your average clerk?
T : We still haven’t considered another factor – personal problems that people carry to work. Would it be unreasonable to infer that at least one or two of the clerks across ten counters would be under such stress?
A : Okay. Okay. I get your point.
T : Maybe it is not so easy to demand change. Or maybe it is, as you seem to have shown. But is not always possible to get it. Or maybe it is all a matter of being able to make out what can be changed and what must be accepted. I’ve never really had a problem because I do not recall the last time I was unclear/clueless or rude to a clerk. That is something I can do something about. The clerk I can do very little about, because as our little exercise seems to have demonstrated, you’ll end up wanting a total online system with users capable of doing everything on their own i.e. the entire country to be literate, logged on and administratively cleaned-up just because clerks were not polite to you at the booking counter. You seriously believe it is possible to achieve something like that and that you are being denied such achievement solely due to some vested interest or the other? Did he refuse to conduct your business? No. Or maybe you’d argue for better stress training and customer requirement sensitisations.
A : Yes, they could do that.
T : Tell me something. You work in a private company with customer sales and grievance redressal / support.
A : So?
T : You must be having similar executive / representative training programs.
A : Yes. With half-yearly refreshers.
T : Then tell me, you must have reduced the load on your complaints / grievance redressal department. Or did you end up increasing its size, scale and level of operations including automation.
A : The load never reduces.
…
With apologies to Hofstadter for abuse of his beloved characters and anyone else for offending their beliefs, sentiments and sensibilities. I hope I made some sense …
…
Note : I’d forgotten that Hofstadter had referred the characters originally to Lewis Carroll’s little exposition of Zeno’s Paradoxes. So the apologies incrementing that addressed to Hofstadter now tendered to the memory of Carroll too.

Suspense of Belief

Yes, suspense and not suspension. And also belief, not disbelief.

…

I felt this note was necessary so as to substantiate the assertion that I must flatter myself, I made a little earlier, elsewhere. To the end of having recognised all by myself, one of these days, somewhere along the way, that most nonsense that occupied my mind, most of the time, could quite simply be eliminated by employing a singular principle :-

‘What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence‘ – Ludwig Wittgenstein

It just does not exist. And if you insist that it does, it does in a space that is inconceivable. And therefore Absurd for me to let it occupy any space in my head, which is conceptual. Reductio et Absurdum? You bet. Camus would have been proud.

It stems from understanding, to a large extent, as Wittgenstein puts it, ”the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.”

And that, for me, is the only sensible and tenable philosophical credo – Suspend your Belief. You do not need to believe that you are seeing clearly for you to see clearly. In fact, when your perspective is no longer coloured by any belief or the necessity of belief, it is only then possible to state that you see clearly. Think about the difference between when you say – ‘I see a dog’ & ‘I believe I see a dog’ or “I see something. I think it is dog”. No?

And that is all there is.

…

Do we see the same thing? Verify. If yes, then what and/or where is the difference between what you see and I see. And that is all that is required to get by. Fortunately or unfortunately, that is all that you can assert to ‘know’. Ever.

…

Personally, I feel that belief, of any form or kind, is superfluous and unnecessary. And I’d be worried about the kind of suspense it places your sensory/perceptual apparatus in. Because you cannot claim that you know and because you will not assert that you do not because you believe. It is almost as if you conspire against your own clarity of sight. Again, Wittgenstein comes to the rescue – “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language“.

Out With The Old …

… Sorry, there’s nothing new. Hopefully, as yet. Trashed all of the old posts …