Hive Thinking

Jaron Lanier in the NYT. We were introduced to him and his Virtual Reality work years ago at the Institute for the Future. Some good points in the article, though it is ironic that this point is made in the NYT, a place where they try to mold our opinion and are now threatened by creative thinking on the Internet. The book is on my short list and may see a review here later

The Madness of Crowds and an Internet Delusion
' ... Mr. Lanier, a musician and avant-garde computer scientist — he popularized the term “virtual reality” — wonders if the Web’s structure and ideology are fostering nasty group dynamics and mediocre collaborations. His new book, “You Are Not a Gadget,” is a manifesto against “hive thinking” and “digital Maoism,” by which he means the glorification of open-source software, free information and collective work at the expense of individual creativity ... '