You Are Not a Gadget, By Jaron Lanier

How to defeat a cyberspace mob of empowered trolls

Jaron Lanier's contention is that "cybernetic totalism" and belief in "the wisdom of the crowd" has deadened individual creativity.

Digital protocols such as MIDI or the internet guide us into easy, unthinking grooves. The danger in encouraging people to think collectively is that they develop a mob-like mentality and become "empowered trolls". He offers some practical suggestions to buck this trend – for instance: write a blog post that took weeks of reflection. This book reads as if that's exactly what he's done. I don't disagree with his argument, but this is too abstract and too techy to make a good book-length read. Probably better as a blog.