---
title: "20 Ifs Quotes By Jaron Lanier"
description: "20 Ifs quotes by Jaron Lanier. Plus more from Jaron Lanier and more Ifs sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4cb/jaron-lanier-2241_feet_it-s-as-if-you-kneel-to-plant-the-seed-o_1947712.jpg"
---

> [It's as if you kneel to plant the seed of a tree and it grows so fast that it swallows your whole…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/it-s-as-if-you-kneel-to-plant-the-seed-of-a-tree-and-it-grows-so-fast/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4cb/jaron-lanier-2241_feet_it-s-as-if-you-kneel-to-plant-the-seed-o_1947712.jpg)

> [At a minimum if we can just have enough distribution of clout in society so it isn't run by a tiny minority,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/at-a-minimum-if-we-can-just-have-enough-distribution-of-clout-in/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/30c/jaron-lanier-2241_breathe_at-a-minimum-if-we-can-just-have-enough_2055738.png)

> [We already knew that kids learned computer technology more easily than adults, It is as if children were waiting all these centuries…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/we-already-knew-that-kids-learned-computer-technology-more-easily/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/394/jaron-lanier-2241_adults_we-already-knew-that-kids-learned-comput_2124614.png)

> [If you get deep enough, you get trapped. Stop calling yourself a user. You are being used.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-you-get-deep-enough-you-get-trapped-stop-calling-yourself-a-user/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/jaron-lanier-2241_calling_if-you-get-deep-enough-you-get-trapped-s_593973.png)

> [If you love a medium made of software, there's a danger that you will become entrapped in someone else's recent careless thoughts.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-you-love-a-medium-made-of-software-there-s-a-danger-that-you-will/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a95/jaron-lanier-2241_careless_if-you-love-a-medium-made-of-software-th_1952305.png)

> [If anything, there's a reverse Moore's Law observable in software: As processors become faster and memory becomes cheaper, software becomes correspondingly slower…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-anything-there-s-a-reverse-moore-s-law-observable-in-software-as/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/650/jaron-lanier-2241_available_if-anything-there-s-a-reverse-moore-s-la_3011667.png)

> [If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-you-want-to-know-what-s-really-going-on-in-a-society-or-ideology-2/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/33d/jaron-lanier-2241_advertising_if-you-want-to-know-what-s-really-going_2834419.jpg)

> [If you listen first, and write later, then what you write will have had time to filter through your brain and you'll…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-you-listen-first-and-write-later-then-what-you-write-will-have-had/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5d5/jaron-lanier-2241_brain_if-you-listen-first-and-write-later-then_3014322.png)

> [When developers of digital technologies design a program that requires you to interact with a computer as if it were a person,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/when-developers-of-digital-technologies-design-a-program-that/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/30f/jaron-lanier-2241_accepting_when-developers-of-digital-technologies_662262.png)

> [The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/the-most-effective-young-facebook-users-however-the-ones-who-will-2/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6ce/jaron-lanier-2241_adults_the-most-effective-young-facebook-users_3137426.png)

> [We should talk about the ultimate cause of war. It's a question we should never stop asking, because if we do, there's…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/we-should-talk-about-the-ultimate-cause-of-war-it-s-a-question-we/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec9/jaron-lanier-2241_asking_we-should-talk-about-the-ultimate-cause_143128.png)

> [Is war an inevitable outcome of competing interests in a complex society? In other words, would war be the same even if…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/is-war-an-inevitable-outcome-of-competing-interests-in-a-complex/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0cd/jaron-lanier-2241_bases_is-war-an-inevitable-outcome-of-competin_3199932.jpg)

> [ At the turn of the \[21st\] century it was really Sergey Brin at Google who just had the thought of, well, if… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/at-the-turn-of-the-21st-century-it-was-really-sergey-brin-at-google/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/10d/jaron-lanier-2241_21st-century_at-the-turn-of-the-21st-century-it-was-r_345382.jpg)

> [The problem I have with socialist utopias is there's some kind of committees trying to soften outcomes for people. I think that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/the-problem-i-have-with-socialist-utopias-is-there-s-some-kind-of/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e8/jaron-lanier-2241_bits_the-problem-i-have-with-socialist-utopia_1356961.png)

> [Back in the 1980s, when the internet was only available to a small number of pioneers, I was often confronted by people…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/back-in-the-1980s-when-the-internet-was-only-available-to-a-small/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cd9/jaron-lanier-2241_available_back-in-the-1980s-when-the-internet-was_2420532.png)

> [Making information free is survivable so long as only limited numbers of people are disenfranchised. As much as it pains me to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/making-information-free-is-survivable-so-long-as-only-limited-numbers/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9fa/jaron-lanier-2241_care_making-information-free-is-survivable-so_2740516.jpg)

> [In history, in most cultures, and at most points in time, if you want to find the most advanced technologies, you can…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/in-history-in-most-cultures-and-at-most-points-in-time-if-you-want-to/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/128/jaron-lanier-2241_advanced-technology_in-history-in-most-cultures-and-at-most_2292850.png)

> [Once you can understand something in a way that you can shove it into a computer, you have cracked its code, transcended…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/once-you-can-understand-something-in-a-way-that-you-can-shove-it-into/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3c9/jaron-lanier-2241_bits_once-you-can-understand-something-in-a-w_1450471.jpg)

> [If war stems from unmet needs related to male adolescent ritual, that's something that we need to examine. I'm interested in the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-war-stems-from-unmet-needs-related-to-male-adolescent-ritual-that/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec5/jaron-lanier-2241_cancer_if-war-stems-from-unmet-needs-related-to_1855828.jpg)

> [“Information wants to be free.' So goes the saying. Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, seems to have said…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/information-wants-to-be-free-so-goes-the-saying-stewart-brand-the/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3be/jaron-lanier-2241_alive_information-wants-to-be-free-so-goes-the_885639.jpg)

## Other authors on Ifs

## More by Jaron Lanier

> [If we allow our self-congratulatory adoration of technology to distract us from our own contact with each other, then somehow the original agenda has…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/if-we-allow-our-self-congratulatory-adoration-of-technology-to/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [Individual web pages as they first appeared in the early 1990s had the flavour of person-hood. MySpace preserved some of that flavour, though a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/individual-web-pages-as-they-first-appeared-in-the-early-1990s-had/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [Style used to be an interaction between the human soul and tools that were limiting. In the digital era, it will have to come…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/style-used-to-be-an-interaction-between-the-human-soul-and-tools-that/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [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,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/we-should-talk-about-the-ultimate-cause-of-war-it-s-a-question-we/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [There is nothing more gray, stultifying, or dreary than life lived inside the confines of a theory.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/there-is-nothing-more-gray-stultifying-or-dreary-than-life-lived/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [“There are at least two ways to believe in the idea of quality. You can believe there's something ineffable going on within the human…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/there-are-at-least-two-ways-to-believe-in-the-idea-of-quality-you-can/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [An intelligent person feels guilty for downloading music without paying the musician, but they use this free-open-culture ideology to cover it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/an-intelligent-person-feels-guilty-for-downloading-music-without/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [“What these critics forget is that printing presses in themselves provide no guarantee of an enlightened outcome. People, not machines, made the Renaissance. The…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/what-these-critics-forget-is-that-printing-presses-in-themselves/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [There were studies that asked people in different cultures to draw pictures of their enemies, and the pictures all looked remarkably the same. They…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/there-were-studies-that-asked-people-in-different-cultures-to-draw/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [“Zombies are familiar characters in philosophical thought experiments. They are like people in every way except they have no internal experience… If there are…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/zombies-are-familiar-characters-in-philosophical-thought-experiments/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/we-re-losing-track-of-the-vastness-of-the-potential-for-computer/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [Of all the things you can spend a lot of money on, the only things you expect to fail frequently are software and medicine.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/of-all-the-things-you-can-spend-a-lot-of-money-on-the-only-things-you/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [ At the turn of the \[21st\] century it was really Sergey Brin at Google who just had the thought of, well, if we give… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/at-the-turn-of-the-21st-century-it-was-really-sergey-brin-at-google/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [The mass culture of childhood right now is astonishingly technical. Little kids know their Unix path punctuation so they can get around the Web,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/the-mass-culture-of-childhood-right-now-is-astonishingly-technical/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

> [Wal-Mart impoverished its own customer base. Google is facing exactly the same issue long-term, although not yet.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jaron-lanier/wal-mart-impoverished-its-own-customer-base-google-is-facing-exactly/)

[Jaron Lanier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jaron-lanier/)

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                        "text": "If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty.",
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                        "text": "If you listen first, and write later, then what you write will have had time to filter through your brain and you'll be in what you say. This is what makes you exist. If you are only a reflector of information, are you really there?",
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                        "text": "When developers of digital technologies design a program that requires you to interact with a computer as if it were a person, they ask you to accept in some corner of your brain that you might also be conceived of as a program.",
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                        "text": "The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults -- are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.",
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                        "text": "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.",
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                        "text": "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.",
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                        "text": "At the turn of the [21st] century it was really Sergey Brin at Google who just had the thought of, well, if we give away all the information services, but we make money from advertising, we can make information free and still have capitalism. But the problem with that is it reneges on the social contract where people still participate in the formal economy. And it's a kind of capitalism that's totally self-defeating because it's so narrow. It's a winner-take-all capitalism that's not sustaining.",
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                        "text": "The problem I have with socialist utopias is there's some kind of committees trying to soften outcomes for people. I think that imposes models of outcomes for other people's lives. So in a spiritual sense there's some bit of libertarian in me. But the critical thing for me is moderation. And if you let that go far you do end up with a winner-take-all society that ultimately crushes everybody even worse.",
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                        "text": "Back in the 1980s, when the internet was only available to a small number of pioneers, I was often confronted by people who feared that the strange technologies I was working on, like virtual reality, might unleash the demons of human nature. For instance, would people become addicted to virtual reality as if it were a drug? Would they become trapped in it, unable to escape back to the physical world where the rest of us live? Some of the questions were silly, and others were prescient.",
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                        "text": "Making information free is survivable so long as only limited numbers of people are disenfranchised. As much as it pains me to say so, we can survive if we only destroy the middle classes of musicians, journalists, and photographers. What is not survivable is the additional destruction of the middle classes in transportation, manufacturing, energy, office work, education, and health care. And all that destruction will come surely enough if the dominant idea of an information economy isn't improved.",
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                        "text": "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.",
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                        "text": "Once you can understand something in a way that you can shove it into a computer, you have cracked its code, transcended any particularity it might have at a given time. It was as if we had become the gods of vision and had effectively created all possible images, for they would merely be reshufflings of the bits in the computers we had before us, completely under our command.",
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                        "text": "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.",
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                        "text": "“Information wants to be free.' So goes the saying. Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, seems to have said it first. I say that information doesn't deserve to be free. Cybernetic totalists love to think of the stuff as if it were alive and had its own ideas and ambitions. But what if information is inanimate? What if it's even less than inanimate, a mere artifact of human thought? What if only humans are real, and information is not? ... Information is alienated experience.”",
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