For Better or Worse: Metaverse
Inner desires unleashed, or delusions gone unchecked? Artwork by IncOperate
“The larger the number of people involved, the easier it was for them to delude themselves that what they were doing must be smart.” — Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker
The word metaverse is a portmanteau or chimera of two words, where the first word “meta” semantically transcends the second word “universe”, which represents the sum total of matter, energy, space, time and all the forces expressed by and between them. As the first part of the amalgamated label discounts the validity of the second part, we witness the inflection point in humanity’s priorities, from belonging to the finite, tangible, fragile and real universe to consciously funding the infinite, intangible, artifice that is the metaverse at the cost of it. Consequently, the term metaverse exemplifies humanity’s egoic arrogance, and our mind’s inherent affinity for the god-complex.
It should be self evident that we are made of, are part of, and can only thrive in the physical world as a hybrid of matter and energy, but we go to great lengths to defy, deny and disassociate ourselves from this truth. The metaverse is the result of our desire to overthrow the laws and limitations of the known universe that effortlessly protect us from our own unbridled, myopic, self-destructive hubris. I haven’t even gotten into the technology, merely the terminology, and just the word makes me skeptical of and resistant toward the ideological context it represents and aspires to realize. To offer context, the origin of the ‘Metaverse’ traces back to the 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, by American author, Neal Stephenson, where he describes ‘a computer-generated virtual world made possible by software and a worldwide fiber-optic network.’
What is the metaverse?
Have you seen the Matrix? The Spielberg film Ready Player One? Or more recently Free Guy? Or the TV series Upload on Amazon? Those are quick popular culture examples that offer insight into both its construct, functionality and scope of application.
The metaverse is a universal virtual network of sensorially immersive environments or sims,* focused on delivering services, such as networking, social engagement, business opportunities, educational encounters, equity in access to unique experiences, gaming, travel via digital teleportation between simulated realities, and so much more.
*Sim: A sim is a shorthand for simulation, often expressed as a digital application, such as a computer game or training module, that simulates a character or activity context.
Is the metaverse a brand new concept?
Short answer, no. Long answer, it is the next rung on the ladder of digital worlds that has thus far found expression around multiplayer games like The Sims, (2000), Second Life (2003), World of Warcraft ( 2004). Roblox, (2006), Minecraft (2011), Mario Kart Live, (2020) etc.
*year cited in parenthesis signifies initial release date.
I want to highlight the first two contenders in that list, Sims and Second Life, as I believe they each offer considerable insight into what the Metaverse is currently building upon and shaping up like:
Second Life: “A virtual world on the internet launched by Linden Research, Inc., in which “residents” create an identity, meet people, buy land and build their own environment or purchase an existing one.” Players can create avatars who can journey to worlds and lands (called Sims), participate in role-playing games, create and sell merchandise, while socializing with other Second Life residents.
The Sims: “The Sims is a strategic life simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts in 2000. It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual people in a suburban household near a fictional city. Players control customizable Sims as they pursue career and relationship goals. A former roommate once made me into a Sims character in her simulated home, and told me she could control my character and make me eat or sleep or go out to places within the game. I have to say that felt like such an unsettling violation of my agency and a frightening new age parallel to the thriller plotline of Single White Female.
“What the internet is for information, the metaverse is going to do for social connections. I’m no longer bound by physical distance or all these constraints in terms of who I interact with or how I represent who I am. All these things are suddenly unleashed. It’s insanely disruptive.”
Craig Donato — CEO, Roblox
Use-cases for the metaverse
When virtual actions have real world consequences. Artwork by IncOperate
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. — — T. S. Eliot.
Virtually simulated environments can reduce the carbon and energy footprint of travel, and drastically diminish geographical distances between people. This would create a world without limitation and alleviate location based restrictions. This can be beneficial to those separated by circumstances beyond their control, like: wars, health quarantines, financial constraints, civil unrest, etc.
Give rise to engaging online forums that exceed the capabilities of Zoom and Google Meet. Conference apps grew their market share during Covid. The metaverse can generate more spatially intuitive, life imitating contexts for intentional conversation and connection. Since virtual interactions require a digital form with physical attributes, it can mimic real world tactile possibilities between individuals. Active engagement would solve remote work challenges and make employees feel a sense of belonging despite being in completely different locations. Such first person, open world communication interfaces can also be used to enable proximity in the portrayal of a handshake that translates through a sensorial glove or reproduces other socially normative protocols at an online business meeting. The metaverse would result in the translation of the digital to the tangible, and vice versa.
This technology has been and will continue to be appropriated by the porn and sex industry, and both sectors cater to on-demand sexual needs as they arise, resulting in a depraved understanding of intimacy. While I understand that AI powered AR and VR sex bots and smart toys can provide pleasure as a source of wellbeing in many, I question the values it will instill in human beings to meet such cravings on-demand and without the need for mutual consent from the fictional projections designed to cater whims instead of evidence agency. This form of violence against certain genders may increase in both the virtual and real world. Incidence rates for sexual harassment, assaults and rapes will be as common in the metaverse and go as unaddressed as in the real world. Despite the activation of “safe zones” to protect avatars when they feel threatened, it will not feel equally safe for all participants. During its beta testing, a woman reported being groped on Meta’s Horizon Worlds.
In the medical context, VR and AR have been found to be incredibly effective tools. The metaverse would serve as a conduit for many patients or individuals with special needs, such as a. those in medical quarantine will finally be able to hold their loved ones, b. those who are partially or completely paralyzed would be able to reclaim their physical expression, autonomy, agency or desired experiences c. those who wish to embrace prosthetics and confront phantom limb syndrome to supplement existing physiotherapy and rehabilitation protocols with immersive technologies d. those recovering from burns, who experience immense pain when their dressing gets changed, will be able to manage and alleviate their pain through simulated cold environments (i.e. through a game called SnowWorld). Studies have shown that patients who used VR felt a considerable reduction in their pain and even experienced some fun in the virtual context. Study findings: Worst pain during No VR = 8.52 (SD = 1.75) versus during VR = 5.10 (SD = 3.27), t(47) = 7.11, p < 0.001, SD = 3.33, CI = 2.45–4.38, Cohen’s d = 1.03 (indicating large effect size).
As digital self images become customizable, identities/forms iterate into adaptable skins, make overs, and changing one’s sense of self based purely on superficial traits such as aesthetics becomes the go-to. Instead of just opting for real world plastic surgery, endless alterations of our external form will be normalized on the metaverse, and from an earlier age. On a positive note, such liberation from the binds of solely occupying one’s own physical body can empower people to explore their sexual orientation, transgender embodiment, gender identity, and gender fluidity on his/her/their own terms. However, establishing comfort and self acceptance online, through an avatar instead of in one’s own body, can cause breaks in one’s psychological self-integrity and connection to their real world physical form i.e. depersonalizatiton disorder, or feelings of inadequacy and depression. Many may feel less attractive than their digital representations of self and suffer an erosion of confidence and wellbeing. Using the metaverse as a constant place of escapism will endanger those predisposed to mental illnesses or imbalances. As a species, we aren’t known for our ability to modulate our intake. In an environment without constraints, disincentives and punishments, it becomes alarmingly impossible to dissuade bad behavior or toxic, self destructive choices. It becomes difficult to reduce screen time or game time, as every corporation, incentive and peer within the system will want to keep you in the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) ecosystem endlessly. How else would a child or individual deliver on his/her/their LTV (lifetime value) to the shareholders? Psychological studies demonstrate that continuous engulfment in the digital world can cause permanent alienation from reality, which is symptomatic of psychosis. Lastly, my babysitter was either human, nature, existential boredom or a tire swing set in the backyard, and I am the better for it. Being bored is critical for a healthy mind. Boredom encouraged me to confront my incessant hankering for more, i.e. my ego, and find deeper anchoring within self through meditation and the conscious cultivation of a quiet, unoccupied mind. This has allowed me to find greater expansion of being. Some parents today let Roblox, and various screens, babysit their children. While these games and films offer incredible stimulation through robust all-encompassing storytelling and entertainment, they are built to offer quick hits of pleasure and pain, in proportions that keep users coming back for more. This is why The Social Dilemma begins with the Edward Tufte quote: “There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.”
A massive red flag stems from identity theft and forgeries, which can be taken to a whole different level on the metaverse. If someone kills an individual in the real world and takes over his/her/their identity online, particularly on the metaverse, from the technology in the slain victim’s home, how long before we notice inconsistencies? There’s a thriller in the making there. Additionally, an individual of any age can assume any other form of identity, imagined and based on the physical world. That level of flexibility in self expression can be used for nefarious gains by bad eggs like pedophiles and sex offenders. Trust is also more easily given in anonymous contexts, as you choose to believe someone is your peer in a shared narrative, where they can manipulate you to see them as such, when they can be significantly older in age and have a hidden agenda. Freedom of self expression without checks and balances can lead to some awful outcomes. Where individuals can establish presence and participation without identity verifications, and the fantasy world fails to prioritize individual safety, protections, and security, or does not proactively offer legal recourses and penal consequences to violators. In a free for all, abuse, attacks, misdemeanors, violence, crimes and bullying will inevitably become rampant. Anonymity can be a dangerous two-sided sword, as it can result in an erosion of accountability and transparency.
A metaverse can collect so much more data on an individual if and when their identity is verified. Each customization, purchase, avatar change will be documented and monitored to enable dynamic targeting ads. People often are unaware of when, where and how their data will be collected, used and sold to advertisers and corporations. It becomes exponentially easier to overlook scenarios of misuse on web3 than on web2. Consider how long it took us to wake up to everything deliberated in The Social Dilemma and by the Slow Factory. Many people made a lot of money at the cost of public wellbeing and individual happiness. The documentary social dilemma delved into this at depth, so much so Zuckerberg re-branded Facebook as Meta. A mercenary by any other name is still capable of being extractive and exploitative. Will people trust the metaverse, with Meta leading the charge towards its build out?
Imagined digital contexts can become melting pots for social mores, norms, and constructs. Existing cultures will crosspollinate and homogenize, while new subcultures and counter cultures emerge in this environment where form and identities become subjective and adaptive. Traditions and rituals will transcend and co-evolve, and we will witness both unifying outcomes and the disassociation of peoples from their regional contexts. People may grow distant from one another on a local level in relation to their immediate society, because they are busy inventing new ideological paradigms on the metaverse. This will likely lead to polarized factions, those in support of agnostic, technological utopia, versus those who strongly oppose its delusional, unconsecrated architecture.
Can faith and ‘the divine’ find expression on the metaverse? Should it? Or is that sacrilegious? Sure, people are making NFTs out of Bible verses and can build facades for various faith-based activities on digital real estate, but can pixels be sacred, and will pixels ever be allowed to be ordained? Will rendered beings ever possess enough authority to bless, wed, baptize, perform funerary rites for other rendered beings? Will they chant, recite scripture, pray, perform rituals and divine ceremonies for pixelated versions of the symbols, deities and spaces found in the real world? Will it give rise to new forms of religious expression? Will this become a playground for cults? Would you subscribe? Would it feel soulful and be as uplifting? What happens to the notion of souls on a sterile pixel based expression of humanity? Will we as a race still have spirit and know how to tune into the flow state of presence?
The metaverse would expand interactive, global classrooms for application driven educational modules. Promote dynamic e-learning that gamifies lessons to seamlessly overlap play with curricula. Produce hands-on lesson plans through 3D visualizations, and create three dimensional renderings of illustrations that students can assemble and deconstruct. Strengthen a child’s sensitivity to diversity (both human and wild), while peaking curiosity through engrossing play. It would empower students to learn from multiple perspectives, inclusively, instead of exclusively from a western, male-centric, anthropocentric world view. Even parent and teacher interactions would benefit from holistic observation and active participation enabled by VR and AR. Additionally, the gap between exchange students and their parents, boarding school kids and their families would be diminished, giving each scenario compelling mutual access that ensures the healthy all-round development of each child.
It can depict real world scenarios that people are uninformed of, and instantaneously transport them to where the narrative is unfolding. This would help individuals unable to step foot into a crisis area gain direct experience through VR and AR, which would cultivate first person insight into the landscape. Seven years ago, at the UN in NYC, I stood in the Za’atari camp in Jordan thanks to an 8 minute VR film entitled Clouds of Sidra. A young 12 year old girl named Sidra led me through her daily life via an Oculus headset. I got to see her eat, sleep, learn and play in the vast desert city of tents. Those 8 minutes left a lasting imprint of the Syrian Refugee Crisis on my heart and mind. I managed to internalize the situation as if I had first-hand experience of the context.
It can increase access by enabling affordability to a wide range of experiences and products, from highly coveted cultural events to immersive, interactive art engagements. The rising popularity of Atelier des Lumières in Paris, and similar immersive art exhibits like the Van Gogh or Kahlo or Banksy shows, it is evident that there is considerable consumer appetite to fully step into a sensorial moment. Each show is composed of rooms with the respective artist’s motifs and life moments projected onto the walls to give a viewer 360 insight into each creative’s masterpieces, i.e. the ability to walk into a painting and a creative process and mind all at once, like “What Dreams May Come,” and the Waking Life.
There are plenty of money-making business opportunities for brands on the Metaverse. I maintain this is preposterous use of this technology, but will cover the benefits seen by myopic capitalistic brands anyway. For companies adopting the avaricious mindset of “Where there’s sun, let’s make hay…” instead of considering for even a second that the same sun could be channeled toward growing native grasses, rehabilitating denuded forests or growing non GMO crops, the metaverse is deeply enticing. A land free of rules and regulations, where digital projections of real world people have the same insecurities and tragic need for external validation, and insatiable thirst for material excess, gluttony and conscious consumerism, makes the metaverse any vapid brand’s wet dream. Brands can launch countless virtual products that are either exclusive digital representations of the original product or items created solely for the virtual environment, like Bitmoji, except taken to the next level of active engagement. Sure brands can set up virtual stores and merchandise them with current collections, negate real-world stores, and allow avatars that are generated by measurement values input by a customer to try on items via AR (augmented reality) on their smart phone. This intimate shopping experience would allow a consumer to do a fitting virtually before having an item shipped, which should reduce size based returns. However, stores will want to remain omnichannel, and clock in sales through both virtual and real world footprints. This will offer ecommerce brands a simple pain point reduction, but it won’t reduce the physical footprint of any brand, which means they drain even more resources and result in additional impacts, not fewer. While these products are simulated and thus not real, i.e. not physically manufactured from natural or synthetic fibers, and do not have a supply chain footprint on the planet, they are still wanted enough by real people for the projected versions of themselves. Brands therefore perceive the metaverse as shooting fish in a barrel, as they get to make things for a lower overhead, for consumer dollar spend. When real people spend real money on fictitious goods for their fake online selves, corporations see dollar signs lighting up.
Brings me to the final frontier of digital real estate. It’s not enough that avatars can kit up in the finest illustrated threads and relate to others of their same station to assert the stifling notions of class, race and elitism even online, but they also need electronically fabricated palatial homes for their characters. Buying large mansions, filling them with sports cars, and other forms of mindless conspicuous consumerism, clearly did not help these buyers hit their quota for ignorance in the real-world. They now have to repeat the same patterns of destructive commodification online. Most celebrities and crypto whales have tragically committed to recreating the exact paradigm we have in the real world in this new found virtual habitat. You’d think they’d have had an awakening that delivered them past the materially avaricious culture of their everyday lives. Instead, they are grotesquely fascinated by it and advocate it for mass adoption.
Not only are these individuals uploading the obvious shortcomings of society to the metaverse, but they are scaling collective failings faster than would have been possible in the finite, tangible world. It is greed on performance enhancers. The mindset fueling the need to assert power and status even as an avatar is as real online as it is in the physical world. We use the same constructs of privilege, access and egocentrism to gate-keep capital, resources, success, land, wealth and opportunities online and offline. The 1% ensured that the velvet rope denying access in real-life also needed to be expressed in code. It is only a matter of time before these mediocre minds dress up their avatars in matching monogramed Velour tracksuits.
So for many oblivious individuals and companies, virtual products might seem like an obvious avenue. They have two classes of ignorant buyers to help them make lots of money on the metaverse, a. The self aggrandizing sort who want to sport only designer labels even as a cluster of pixels, and are willing to pay astronomical prices to distinguish themselves by their purchasing power and b. those who pay to bypass levels, get in game gear or weapons, and want to constantly update their avatar at seemingly innocuous, incremental transactions that can quickly add up. The 9 year old son of someone I know spent over 60,000 dollars on in-game purchases in one month. I was gobsmacked when I heard that. Kids are easily manipulated, and they do not realize they are spending real world dollars on digital swag. Brands and sellers who extort from impressionable minds in this way or enable such consumptive delusions just so they can continue doing business as usual are particularly unethical. They pander to perpetuate the same models of scarcity, disparity, seasonal obsolescence, environmental depredation and exclusivity both offline and online.
What did Gucci’s Garden on Roblox promote beside blatant consumerism in a space that defied physics with faceless clones? Does Balenciaga need to sell digital reproductions of its real world merchandise on a virtual boutique and have ad placements for its goods on Fortnite’s open-world video game? Is consumerism all we want to be remembered for? Most established brands will do anything to not evolve their engagement across the board. They prefer to plod along in their comfort zones, profiting from familiar business models that take from the gullible, or young twice over. While upgrades and updates seem second nature for virtual gaming, constantly spending real world money on non essential digital paraphernalia does not inculcate the right values in anyone. It’s such an abominable expression of privilege, as so many in the world do not have their basic needs met. When will it ever be enough? When will we ever give back?
It’s easy to see why someone would buy a better car online to gain a competitive edge at a simulated race, or to validate or co-market labels to appear on-brand no matter where, but is a celebrity avatar paying for their looks or are the brands sponsoring them? If so, who is fooled into actually paying for the high ticket digital wares? What prevents the metaverse from a corporate takeover, where product placements and guerilla marketing inundate the framework, and link all forms of activity with consumption? All this does is perpetuate the same stupidity we get up to in the real world, even in a make-believe one.
Give human beings infinite potential, and we get up to the same frivolous drivel. So where is the innovation? The real tragedy here is that investors will fund the shortest routes to the quickest return on investment. Why back new opportunities that leverage this tech to disrupt the status quo and do what we haven’t done before, when you can get 6x or 10x in a three to five year exit?
“We’re all mad, the whole damned race. We’re wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we’re all mad and in solitary confinement.”
― William Golding, Darkness Visible
The world is on fire, but VR is lit! Artwork by IncOperate
Given the choice, would I opt in or opt out?
Did you experience the Spheres VR Exhibit while it was on exhibit at the Rockafellar Center? To date, it is the best VR experience I have enjoyed. It wasn’t pixelated to my eye, and it was the closest I was going to get to space travel. Pretty mind-blowing. The film transported my front-facing, upright frame to the edge of the cosmos, where I truly felt its expansiveness in 360, without ever leaving the city. The film occurs in three parts and was a 45 minute journey, that was well worth it. However, what I valued more and derived greater bliss from is being able to return to my life in the bustling big apple where I didn’t feel motion sickness or directional disorientation. I heard the experience was worse for those who wore glasses, as the Oculus headsets did not clarify their viewing field despite adjustments to the visual field’s zoom and focus. The more we blur the line, the more we make AR and VR part of our daily existence, the more we disengage from presence. I don’t know if we can afford to scale our negligence and apathy further, as it will be our own detriment as a species.
I get there isn’t a need for a comparison. In this scenario, I can enjoy both the exhibit and existence, like any other artistic or cultural engagement. However, given the choice between the best experience that artifice can muster, and the chance to be present in my backyard with a bee or a bird, I would always choose the latter without hesitation.
When I am fully available to the moment, it is a 360 immersion of wholes within wholes. Everything alive is connected yet whole unto itself, while also being part of the greater whole that defines its context for being. The natural world is rich in attributes and expression that rouse awe, wonder, tranquility, discovery and contentment. VR and AR and other media formats spend a lot of money to recreate those attributes and expressions. Nature is on a freemium model, and it is all around you at all times. Go sign up for a lifetime subscription, it’s not too late to be an active member of its reality. Nature is also abundant in valuable truths that instill a deeper sense of belonging, such as:
Life does not always yield to one’s will, and thus one’s will must embrace elasticity of spirit and humility,
One cannot have dominion over life, or control every aspect of its expression, as it is impossible to account for every overlapping variable and permutation.
Life unfolds in cycles, phases, and seasons, where both death and waste are repurposed into new life and the nutrients it needs.
The artificial can never be as spontaneous, wholesome, and all encompassing as the real, the organic, the ever evolving, filled with sunshine, fresh air, and enlivening precipitation. In a nutshell, the flow state emulated by the natural living world does not need to be facilitated by hardware (like smartphones, headsets, haptic technologies, sensors, ambiance enhancers, etc.) and software, nor is its intelligence driven by thought, data, reason and logic. We have diminished the definition of the word by restricting intelligence to the quantifiable, qualifiable, cerebral, and have missed the irreplaceable joys of the intangible, intuitive and intimate.
I am disinclined to experience the state of being self as a digital scan or avatar in a spiritually sterile, physically isolating, mentally overstimulating make-believe projected world, because it does not awaken, invigorate, or inspire to the depth that uncurated encounters in the wild can. I am also not looking to escape my presence, my awareness in each moment, not even for a moment. This is why I don’t see the point of ingesting mind altering opiates, recreational drugs or VR. And why are we ever keen to escape the carrying capacities and constraints of this planet and our personal lives? Because it is easier to remain in denial of our ecological and or personal deficits. We consume more to make us feel better about the void we have dug ourselves into both within and in the world around. Our consumption patterns have led to an ecological overshoot that exceeds Earth’s capabilities to renew its reserves of natural resources.
At current demand, the ratio of an individual’s (or a country’s per capita) footprint to the per capita biological capacity available on Earth costs 1.75 Earths. We need 3/4ths of a second earth to meet our rapacious, insatiable appetite for more. We briefly toyed with the notion of changing our extractive ways, because the data showed that we could not continue business as usual, but realized it was inconvenient and uncomfortable to embrace such systemic change. Consequently, we turned to technological hacks. We got lost in utopian jargon like “decentralized” and “democratic” without holding enterprises and investors accountable for how these technological innovations were going to be used. Were they going to empower something different, or result in more of the same. Sadly, most investors lack vision, courage, awareness and conviction, and do not fund genuine disruption. Consequently, the metaverse is mostly resulting in more of the same. It’s a costly distraction from urgent real world concerns, like climate change, the sixth mass extinction, and the increased marginalization of indigenous and rural communities. As it refocuses attention on watching Justin Bieber’s avatar get powered up by “likes” before his sim performs a virtual concert, or on Paris Hilton looking like a Lego block while DJing on The Sandbox. Is this the best use of our resources and emergent technologies? Is this where our priorities need to be at this juncture? Isn’t it simply insulting to the countless lives displaced by climate change, the countless organisms poached and trafficked to consciously fund the diversion of eyes and dollar traffic toward more materialistic consumption and frivolity? All it does is further degrade and dwindle the planet’s resources. Do those who indulge the build out of this old paradigm on a new medium really think they can slip into business as usual unnoticed? That they can exploit greater profit margins with fewer checks and balances without some of us thinking critically about the obvious red flags of such blatant disregard and ignorance?
Who can use the metaverse?
Short answer, those who can afford to access it.
VR in it’s current state is not ubiquitously available. VR headsets, sensors, and haptic technology still need to overcome limitations that hinder adoption at scale. Plus, all those accessories are expensive. The metaverse cannot be widely implemented until more of its expression is open source, interoperable, and built from standardized technical specifications. Interoperability is a challenge, as it means reconciling two opposing concepts, greater transparency and privacy through anonymity. Presently, considerable resources and capital have been invested in creating standardizations between different environments. A recent brand NFT launch that promises such interoperability is the Adidas “Into The Metaverse” avatars, who’s demeanor can be customized to the buyer’s specific personality. These avatars claim they can travel between metaverses and still retain their functional integrity. Given the cost of acquisition for the gear needed to enjoy Adidas’ avatars, and gain access to the metaverses they can find articulation in, is cost prohibitive to the vast majority.
The metaverse’s benefits and utopia are only available to those with money, which is laughable because Utopia by Thomas More, depicts an fictional egalitarian society without privatized proprietorship, sexual prejudice, religious intolerance and barbaric violence. It’s incredible how often the privileged few find ways to conveniently co-opt and reframe ideas meant to empower the masses, to subdue or exclude them. Maybe someday access to the metaverse will be as affordable as cellphones. By then, I assume we would have been so far gone as a society, that the earth would have been pillaged and littered to the point of no return. One of the three space obsessed billionaires would have seized the day and launched us into space, to avoid taking responsibility for the dystopian future we resulted in by choice. Pixar, now Disney, predicted a similar plotline when they created Walle, where the human race was depicted as obese immobile blobs aboard a spaceship sipping food Slurpees, still consuming unrelentingly.
Once more for the expensive seats in the front!
“Our attention used to be 99% in our physical environment. TVs dropped that to 85%, computers down to 70%, phones 50%. Soon, some company will make smart glasses that sit in front of our eyes all day. We’ll go from 50% attention on the screens to about 90% or more. That is the moment in time when the Metaverse starts, because at that moment, our virtual life will become more important than our real life.” — — Shaan Puri, entrepreneur.
Keeping the masses distracted and deluded is not how we pave the way forward to a meritocratic paradise. It is merely a way to place plausible deniability between cause and consequence, so bottom-lines don’t have to evidence stakeholdership or stewardship. The metaverse in its current expression is just history repeating itself. It favors the wealthy, who now further concentrate and scale their wealth by misusing and abusing Web3 technologies.
The metaverse affords just the degree of separation needed to beg forgiveness instead of ask for permission. The footprint of these imaginary stores located on these fictitious worlds costs real world resources to run. To keep people from focusing on this truth, the metaverse separates people from one another and ensures we all disregard the planet we all depend on.
As a society, we could elect to reframe the metaverse to empower, enrich and enable those who lack access to: healthcare, resources, opportunities, education and vocational training. Instead, we have made it a playground for the affluent. A space without retribution and rules, where the tragedy of the commons does not compute, where capitalist greed does not have any boundaries, and Adam Smith’s free hand can continue to loot the real world while keeping the true costs hidden in plain sight.
To surmise this piece, I’d leave it on a headline by Financial Times that states: “The metaverse is just the latest incarnation of Las Vegas.” — —article by Izabella Kaminska
