You Are Not A Gadget - Part 2/3

After reading parts 2 and 3 of “You Are Not A Gadget” I found some correlations between them and part 1. I found that there can be another kind of danger that can arise from believing in bits too much. Back in chapter 1, Lanier made a distinction between ideal and real computers. Ideal computers can be experienced when you write a small program. These “ideal” computers seem to offer infinite possibilities and an extraordinary sense of freedom. We experience these “real” computers when we deal with large programs. They actually reify our philosophies through the process of lock-in before we are ready.

These concepts are built off of good ideas; however, this cultural software is built like a brand new tiny program each time, which is free to be anything at all. That seems like a great idea, but then everything is aligned on the same starting line. Which in turn makes everything the same.  This concept is called a “flat” global structure and it suggests this big happy world.

That is not how the world works. Lanier makes a good point when he says “software people know that it’s useless to continue to write tiny programs forever. To do anything useful, you have to take the painful plunge into large code.” These flat tiny programs are meant to be applied to human affairs, which then leads to a blandness and meaningless way of life. What if everyone was exactly the same? Would that be a fun world to live in? That is basically a very rough comparison of what these tiny programs are trying to do to the human affairs online.

I don’t believe that the mass computer users should be grouped into this “flat” category simply because of the lack of scientific thought. This flatness can cause confusion between methodology and expression.