Jaron Lanier is great. His outer shell appears to initially be that of a homeless hippy, but he’s actually a computer technology philosopher / writer and musician. Being an old school staple of Silicon Vally, he’s also considered a founder of the field of virtual reality and is credited with having coined the term.
He’s similar to Terrence McKenna in the since that he travels and does talks, usually starting by playing some sort of weird obscure Eastern instrument. His speaking is of course related to the subject matter of his books which focus on the pros and cons of the modern technological internet and how it effects society.
One of my favorite things about him is his constant flying of red flags regarding “social media”. Having personally been a former insider, he is now very critical of the big data monster and the grave errors it adapted during its initial construction. Being an advertising based business model which is secretly all about data collection of users to provide information to third parties. Accurately calling:
Advertisers = Manipulators
Big Tech Companies = The Behavior Modification Empires
Engagement = Addiction
He’s on all three of my lists:
1) Potential future podcast guest
2) Potential future essay content
3) Potential future documentary collaboration
His website is here:
https://www.jaronlanier.com/
Some of his talks are here:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/2u24mbk5am3nccu/JaronLanier.zip