Monday, November 14, 2011

'Information doesn't deserve to be free': Jaron Lanier from You Are Not a Gadget

"Information of the kind that purportedly wants to be free is nothing but a shadow of our own minds, and wants nothing on its own. It will not suffer if it doesn’t get what it wants.
But if you want to make the transition from the old religion, where you hope God will give you an afterlife, to the new religion, where you hope to become immortal by getting uploaded into a computer, then you have to believe information is real and alive. So for you, it will be important to redesign human institutions like art, the economy, and the law to reinforce the perception that information is alive. You demand that the rest of us live in your new conception of a state religion. You need us to deify information to reinforce your faith."

-Jaron Lanier - You Are Not A Gadget - Random House 2010

Monday Night Movies: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)



One of the most intelligently written films to feature the brilliant stop action animation of the legendary Ray Harryhausen, 1963's Jason and the Argonauts remains and entertaining and compelling work of imaginative history and visual mythology. See 4:04 for Jason's (Todd Armstrong) encounter with the god Hermes and his side trip to Mount Olympus with his protector, the goddess Hera (of UK tv's The Avengers,   Bond-girl Honor Blackman)