Web resources related to the book,

You Are Not a Gadget

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by Jaron Lanier

Please read these Frequently Asked Questions.  (I am updating them as I get feedback about the book, so please check in on them from time to time.) 

Yet more questions: the book's political and economic arguments.

Yet more questions:  Jaron and Microsoft (including archival materials)

Jaron's on the TIME 100 list for 2010

Some links related to the book:

Written by Jaron:

NY Times oped on fanaticism in digital politics

Remembering Steve Jobs in Communications of the ACM

Video and transcript introducing the Local/Global Flip, on edge.org

In the New Statesman (UK), memories of Silicon Valley

Recollections of 9/11 in an anthology (note this was done shortly after the attack, and my views have not remained fixed since then)

In The Atlantic On the Wikileaks saga, but really about the role of hacker culture in the world at large

In WSJ on future of somatic computing

NY Times magazine essay on technology and education

NY Times piece on new religious ideas arising from technology culture (also available in Best Science and Nature Writing of 2011)

Future of human "specialness" in the Chronicle of Higher Education - with loads of troll comments that you might think I planted in order to make my point, but are for real so far as I know

Jaron's OpEd in Wall Street Journal:  A summary of the economic futurism argument

Jaron's answer to the annual Edge question: File sharing is a form of death denial

These four things are connected via computer science:  God, memory, money, and lying -  Essay by Jaron in Playboy Forum (Not sure if this is "Safe For Work")

Read an excerpt from the book via the NY Times

Read a different excerpt in Harper's Magazine (if you're a subscriber)

Essay in Communications of the ACM - a journal for computer scientists (for members)

Reviews, interviews, profiles, etc.  (there have been way to many to keep track of- this is just a sampling):

Music Gig Review in SF Weekly (scroll down)

Conversation on Bloggingheads/Slate

Interview on NPR's All Things Considered

In the Forward 50

Profile in The New Yorker

Clip of appearance on MSNBC

One of the year's 10 best nonfiction books in Time Magazine

One of the year's 10 best books, in NY Times

Review of Gadget and The Social Network movie in the New York Review of Books by Zadie Smith

Jaron one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2010

Profile of Jaron in The Economist

First on a list of the top non-fiction books of the year at Popular Mechanics

One of the top 5 "staying human in a high tech world" books according to Psychology Today

Story on Jaron and his new symphony in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Report on Jaron at SXSW

Michiko Kakutani's NY Times review

Story in LA Times

Review in Guardian UK

Story in San Francisco Chronicle

Review in The Independent

Bloomberg top five business books

Review in Newsweek

LA Times review

Short List in Time mag

Tierney in NY Times

Amazon best books of the month

Business Week: Conan and Jaron

New Yorker review

Radio and TV (once again, only a small sampling of recent examples):

Radio interview by Moira Gunn on Tech Nation

Radio interview by Steve Scher on KUOW

Appearance on PBS NEWSHOUR

My friends and I at my antediluvian Silicon Valley startup called VPL created the first avatars in Virtual Reality... that was quite a time.

Here's an interesting early press report and interview about the first avatars and improvised worlds in Virtual Reality

Errata:

In the first printing (which only lasted three days) Ben Shneiderman's name was misspelled (as Schneiderman)  - This is a bummer because I'd like more people to be aware of his work and contributions, even though he and I don't agree on everything.

For lecture engagements, please contact:

Steven Barclay Agency
12 Western Avenue
Petaluma, CA 94952
Tel 707-773-0654
Steven@barclayagency.com
Web www.barclayagency.com

Close up of the UK edition cover, to make the abridged version of the book's opening legible:

Close up of UK You Are Not a Gadget  Blurbs on the back of the USA edition:

 Blurbs on the back of USA edition of You Are Not a Gadget

Blurbs:
"Thrilling and thought-provoking . . . 
A necessary corrective in the echo chamber of technology debates. 
You Are Not a Gadget challenges many dominant ideologies and poses theoretical questions, 
the answers to which might start with one bright bulb, but depend on the friction 
of engaged parties. In other words, Lanier is acting like a computer scientist. 
Let's hope he is not alone."
-John Freeman, San Francisco Chronicle
 
"Poetic and prophetic, this could be the most important book of the year. 
The knee-jerk notion that the net as it is being developed sets us free is 
turned on its head . . . Read this book and rise up against net regimentation!"
-Iain Finlayson, The Times (London)
 
"Inspired, infuriating and utterly necessary . . . Lanier tells of the 
loss of a hi-tech Eden, of the fall from play into labour, obedience and faith. 
Welcome to the century's first great plea for a 'new digital humanism' against 
the networked conformity of cyber-space. This eloquent, eccentric riposte comes 
from a sage of the virtual world who assures us that, in spite of its crimes and 
follies, 'I love the internet.' That provenance will only deepen its impact,
 and broaden its appeal."
-Boyd Tonkin, The Independent (London)
 
"Sparky, thought-provoking . . . This is good knockabout stuff, and Lanier 
clearly enjoys rethinking received tech wisdom: his book is a refreshing 
change from Silicon Valley's usual hype."
-Paul Marks, New Scientist
 
"Important . . . Highly relevant . . . An impassioned and original 
critique of what the digital world has become . . . A much-needed 
defence of the humanist values that are being trampled underfoot . . . 
If ever there was an answer to the question, 'Who needs thinkers when 
you have Wikipedia?', this book is surely it."
-John Stones, Design Week (UK)
 
"Provocative . . . [Lanier] confronts the big issues with bracing 
directness . . . The reader sits up. One of the insider's insiders 
of the computing world seems to have gone rogue."
-Sven Birkerts, The Boston Globe 
 
"Lanier's detractors have accused him of Ludditism, but his argument 
will make intuitive sense to anyone concerned with questions of 
propriety, responsibility, and authenticity."
-The New Yorker
 
"From crowd-sourcing to social networking and mash-ups, Lanier dismantles 
the tropes of the current online culture."
-Bloomberg.com, "Five Top Business Books" (so far this year)
 
"A call for a more humanistic-to say nothing of humane-alternative future 
in which the individual is celebrated more than the crowd and the unique 
more than the homogenized . . . You Are Not a Gadget  may be its own best 
argument for exalting the creativity of the individual over the collective 
efforts of the 'hive mind.' It's the work of a singular visionary, and offers 
a hopeful message: Resistance may not be futile after all."
-Rich Jaroslovsky, Bloomberg.com
 
"Lanier asks some important questions . . . He offers thoughtful 
solutions . . . Gadget is an essential first step at harnessing 
a post-Google world."
-Eli Sanders, The Stranger (Seattle)
 
"[You are Not a Gadget] delivers a powerful reminder of the 
limits of the Web's capacity to meet our needs-and its power to 
shape us to its will . . . Lanier speaks with urgency and inspiration . . . 
He imagines a radically different Internet-one free of protocol and 
control, in which liberation and originality are infinite and 
self-sustaining . . . For its brevity and ambition, his book is a 
marvelous antidote to our computerized complaisance. As You Are Not a Gadget 
bounces from anecdote to thought experiment, picking up and plugging in a 
dizzying array of ideas as if they were so many components in a big, beautiful 
computer, Lanier furnishes us with a model for engaged and 
thoughtful citizens of cyberspace."
-Matthew Battles, The Barnes & Noble Review
 
"A provocative and sure-to-be-controversial book . . . Lucid, 
powerful and persuasive. It is necessary reading for anyone 
interested in how the Web and the software we use every day are 
reshaping culture and the marketplace."
-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
 
"Important . . . At the bottom of Lanier's cyber-tinkering is 
a fundamentally humanist faith in technology, a belief that 
wisely designed machines can bring us closer together by expanding 
the possibilities of creative self-expression . . . His mind is 
a fascinating place to hang out."
-Ben Ehrenreich, Los Angeles Times
 
"Persuasive . . . [Lanier] is the first great apostate 
of the Internet era."
-David Wallace-Wells, Newsweek
 
"Lanier turns a philosopher's eye to our everyday 
online tools . . . The reader is compelled to engage 
with his work, to assent, contradict, and contemplate. 
In this, Lanier's manifesto is not just a success, but 
a meta-success . . . Lovers of the Internet and all its 
possibilities owe it to themselves to plunge into 
Lanier's [You Are Not a Gadget] and look hard in the mirror. 
He's not telling us what to think; he's challenging us 
to take a hard look at our cyberculture, and emerge 
with new creative inspiration."
-Carolyn Kellogg, Flavorwire
 
"A must read for 2010."
-Library Journal
 
"I am drawn to books written like Liza Minnelli sings: loud, 
emotional, sentimental and unpredictable. Jaron Lanier's You 
Are Not a Gadget falls into this category. Two people should 
not read this book: Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Anderson. For 
the rest of us, this monograph is the intellectual equivalent 
of a trip to Blackpool. It is raw, raucous and unexpected. It 
is also a hell of a lot of fun.  ...   For those who wish 
to read to think, and read to transform, You Are Not a Gadget is 
a book to begin the 2010s." 
- Tara Brabazon, Times Higher Education


Want to purchase "You Are Not a Gadget" through an independent bookseller near you? You can find one by following this link.

 

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