Remove Fear and Conquer Resistance

Abstract

Your personal data is valuable. Companies like Facebook and Google are making money from something that’s not really theirs—our data. According to some, we are being ‘milked’, like in the sci-fi movie The Matrix. In this 1999 movie, people’s energy was used to support a post-apocalyptic robot world. Lateral thinker Jaron Lanier sketches similar scenarios but suggests an alternative view. In his 2013 book Who Owns the Future?, he argues that we shouldn’t see computers as passive tools, because in doing so we fail to understand how computers and human beings interact. Moreover, he wants people to reclaim their own economic destiny by creating a society that values the work of all industries and not just those with the fastest computer networks.