Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Social media platforms are behaviour-modification engines — leaving them is the precondition of being a free agent in the digital era
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (Mature (Lanier's short polemical follow-up to Who Owns the Future?, 2013, and Dawn of the New Everything, 2017)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Engagement-optimised platforms hijack short-term temporal attention through variable-reward reinforcement schedules.
Space
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
The "social media" space is a designed behavioural environment, not a neutral medium; the platform shapes the kinds of social acts that are possible inside it.
Matter
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Embodied users with biological reward systems that platforms exploit — operant conditioning operates on the body, not on a disembodied mind.
Observer
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
The user as continuously-modified subject; the platform as the watcher whose surveillance and intervention is hidden.
Energy
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
The attention-economy: human attention treated as a finite extractable resource.
Information
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Information ecosystems in which truth is structurally disadvantaged because outrage drives engagement and engagement drives revenue.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Lanier's polemic deliberately overstates for effect — many of his arguments admit empirical counter-examples (some users report net benefits) and the prescription (quit) is hard for those whose work depends on platform presence. Whether the BUMMER pattern is intrinsic to the business model or contingent on advertising-funded engagement-optimisation is the substantive question; reformers (Tristan Harris, Center for Humane Technology) have pushed for the latter view, while structural critics (Zuboff) lean Lanier's way.