Highlights & Annotations
Read all the issues here.
“I fear that we are beginning to design ourselves to suit digital models of us, and I worry about a leaching of empathy and humanity in that process.” – Jaron Lanier (17)
- // my worries re: therapy apps
“If the web is a representation of the fabric of humanity, it is a thin veil draped over all of us. The way the web is currently wired accidentally strips the nodes of their personhood because of distance and turns them into odd, person like entities.” (24)
“Wastefulness, therefore, was a necessary part of the display of wealth and power. Like the peacock's feathers, he notes,
Throughout the entire evolution of conspicuous expenditure, whether of goods or services, or human life, runs the obvious implication that in order to effectually mend the consumer’s good fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities. In order to be reputable it must be wasteful.
Therefore, in order to be profitable, we must present waste. In other words, the amassing of identities – in part practical – maybe in other parts a power move. And it is in display that there is power.” (72)
“Only in hindsight are the possible connections possible to comprehend; with just a slight change in the frame of reference, we can see things differently.” (91)