Latest Jaron Lanier Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• In the Sixties, the hippies said "Make love, not war," and that was naive. But it might be less naive to say "Make music, not war," in the sense that the people who create musical instruments are the same people who make up new weapons.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Hippie, People

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• I would argue that among musicians who work in technology today, the level of technological sophistication probably exceeds that of military programs, to be blunt. They are just really smart people attracted to making strange new sounds.

  Jaron Lanier

  Military, Smart, Technology

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• One thing that I have been trying to do is bring together in places like Bosnia technologists who create ever-more destructive land mines [and convince them not to build more dangerous mines]. And that has actually worked.

  Jaron Lanier

  Land, Trying, Together

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• In history, in most cultures, and at most points in time, if you want to find the most advanced technologies, you can look principally in two places. One is weapons and the other is musical instruments. My hypothesis is that instruments are usually ahead of weapons. In fact, I think you can find many examples of instruments being predecessors of weapons and very few in the reverse.

  Jaron Lanier

  Technology, Thinking, Two

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• It's possible, without taking sides or playing the statesman game, to reduce destruction simply by reducing the development of technology of destruction.

  Jaron Lanier

  Technology, Games, Development

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Chemotherapy is a good thing even though it kills healthy cells. But we still hope for something better. We'd like to prevent cancer in the first place.

  Jaron Lanier

  Cancer, Cells, Healthy

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Eliminating wickedness is a different project from eliminating violence. Eliminating violence - the destruction associated with wickedness - is a practical program that I'm very willing to pursue.

  Jaron Lanier

  Different, Wickedness, Violence

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• To me, to say that war isn't evil is to say that nothing is evil.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Evil

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• I think that one can seek a way to eliminate war, and still agree that fighting the Nazis was a good thing.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Fighting, Thinking

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• If war stems from unmet needs related to male adolescent ritual, that's something that we need to examine. I'm interested in the possibility of simply getting rid of war. I'd be no more willing to let go of that than to let go of the possibility of eradicating cancer. That's not to say I'm certain we can, but I am willing to use any energy at all in the quest.

  Jaron Lanier

  Letting Go, War, Cancer

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• In fact, one reason I am interested in developing things in virtual reality is that they're so fascinating. I can come up with problems that are harder than warfare to take up people's time.

  Jaron Lanier

  Reality, People, Warfare

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• I have been around military technology people a lot because of my role in virtual reality I've seen weapons from conception to implementation. And there is an extraordinary gadget lust that drives the military. So it's possible that war is just the ultimate expression of creativity.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Military, Creativity

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• What is extraordinary is that in the United States the current culture desires feelings of machismo and power, but at the same time has absolutely no taste whatsoever for even the slightest loss or bloodshed or ickiness. That's a fascinating combination.

  Jaron Lanier

  Loss, Feelings, Desire

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• There were studies that asked people in different cultures to draw pictures of their enemies, and the pictures all looked remarkably the same. They always had exaggerated canine teeth and a certain sort of expression. That led to speculation about whether at an earlier stage in the human experience we were hunted by some sort of carnivore.

  Jaron Lanier

  Expression, People, Enemy

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Is war an inevitable outcome of competing interests in a complex society? In other words, would war be the same even if human nature were very different? There are mathematical models of large groups working together that lead to conflict on a reliable basis. So there's a whole other view of war that is not psychological at all.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Views, Together

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• All over the world today people have a very strong desire to find a sense of identity, and at the same time that's coupled with the rise of absolutely absurd wars that relate to ethnic identity. Perhaps there is something deeply ingrained in people that relates to a sense of belonging, and without that, identity doesn't seem as real as it should.

  Jaron Lanier

  Strong, Real, War

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• There's no question that males are more violent and more prone to the type of hierarchical organizations that lead to war. War is largely a male activity. In fact, there is some correlation [between making war and] having an excess of males in the population.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Organization, Population

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• We should talk about the ultimate cause of war. It's a question we should never stop asking, because if we do, there's a chance, however remote, that we might miss an opportunity to reduce the occurrence of war.

  Jaron Lanier

  War, Opportunity, Missing

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com