{"id":4478,"date":"2010-02-24T16:54:25","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T22:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/?p=4478"},"modified":"2020-01-28T12:49:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T18:49:20","slug":"underwhelmed-with-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/24\/underwhelmed-with-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Underwhelmed with progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier writes in his book You Are Not a Gadget<\/a> about the lack of creativity in our use of computing power.<\/p>\n

Let’s suppose that back in the 1980s I had said, “In a quarter century, when the digital revolution has made great progress and computer chips are millions<\/em> of times faster than they are now, humanity will finally win the prize of being able to write a new encyclopedia and a new version of UNIX!” It would have sounded utterly pathetic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The quote specifically alludes to Wikipedia and Linux, but Lanier is critical of web culture in general. I’m not sure what I think about his position, but at a minimum he provides a counterbalance to the people who speak about the web in messianic tones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier writes in his book You Are Not a Gadget about the lack of creativity in our use of computing power. Let’s suppose that back in the 1980s I had said, “In a quarter century, when the digital revolution has made great progress and computer chips are millions of times faster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\n","aioseo_head_json":{"title":"Underwhelmed with progress","description":"Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier writes in his book You Are Not a Gadget about the lack of creativity in our use of computing power. Let's suppose that back in the 1980s I had said, \"In a quarter century, when the digital revolution has made great progress and computer chips are millions of times faster","canonical_url":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/24\/underwhelmed-with-progress\/","robots":"max-image-preview:large","keywords":"","webmasterTools":{"miscellaneous":""},"schema":null,"og:locale":"en_US","og:site_name":"John D. Cook | Applied Mathematics Consulting","og:type":"article","og:title":"Underwhelmed with progress","og:description":"Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier writes in his book You Are Not a Gadget about the lack of creativity in our use of computing power. Let's suppose that back in the 1980s I had said, "In a quarter century, when the digital revolution has made great progress and computer chips are millions of times faster","og:url":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/24\/underwhelmed-with-progress\/","article:published_time":"2010-02-24T22:54:25+00:00","article:modified_time":"2020-01-28T18:49:20+00:00","twitter:card":"summary","twitter:title":"Underwhelmed with progress","twitter:description":"Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier writes in his book You Are Not a Gadget about the lack of creativity in our use of computing power. Let's suppose that back in the 1980s I had said, "In a quarter century, when the digital revolution has made great progress and computer chips are millions of times faster","twitter:image":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/twittercard.png"},"aioseo_meta_data":{"post_id":"4478","title":null,"description":null,"keywords":null,"keyphrases":null,"primary_term":null,"canonical_url":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"og_object_type":"default","og_image_type":"default","og_image_url":null,"og_image_width":null,"og_image_height":null,"og_image_custom_url":null,"og_image_custom_fields":null,"og_video":null,"og_custom_url":null,"og_article_section":null,"og_article_tags":null,"twitter_use_og":false,"twitter_card":"default","twitter_image_type":"default","twitter_image_url":null,"twitter_image_custom_url":null,"twitter_image_custom_fields":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"schema":{"blockGraphs":[],"customGraphs":[],"default":{"data":{"Article":[],"Course":[],"Dataset":[],"FAQPage":[],"Movie":[],"Person":[],"Product":[],"ProductReview":[],"Car":[],"Recipe":[],"Service":[],"SoftwareApplication":[],"WebPage":[]},"graphName":"","isEnabled":true},"graphs":[],"defaultGraph":"","defaultPostTypeGraph":""},"schema_type":null,"schema_type_options":null,"pillar_content":false,"robots_default":true,"robots_noindex":false,"robots_noarchive":false,"robots_nosnippet":false,"robots_nofollow":false,"robots_noimageindex":false,"robots_noodp":false,"robots_notranslate":false,"robots_max_snippet":null,"robots_max_videopreview":null,"robots_max_imagepreview":"large","priority":null,"frequency":null,"location":null,"local_seo":null,"breadcrumb_settings":null,"limit_modified_date":false,"created":"2020-12-21 02:38:06","updated":"2025-06-03 21:15:26","ai":null,"seo_analyzer_scan_date":null,"focus_keyword":null,"additional_keywords":null,"truseo_locale":null},"aioseo_breadcrumb":"

\n\t\t\tHome<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span>\u00bb<\/span>\n\t\t\tComputing<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span>\u00bb<\/span>\n\t\t\tUnderwhelmed with progress\n\t\t<\/span><\/div>","aioseo_breadcrumb_json":[{"label":"Home","link":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/"},{"label":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/category\/computing\/"},{"label":"Underwhelmed with progress","link":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/24\/underwhelmed-with-progress\/"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}