What is the Metaverse?
Someone somewhere defined the metaverse as a shared, realistic, and immersive computer simulation of the real world or other possible worlds, in which people participate as digital avatars.
Here’s a quick story to illustrate what I think metaverse is — On September 9th, 2030, a child named Dino Hart was born. Dino was a healthy baby. Charming, cute, and innocent. He was destined to be an ordinary and happy baby but society had other plans. The parents did what they could to keep their child relevant to the social norms.
Dino spent ten to fifteen hours per day in the Metaverse, only pausing to use the restroom or eat. Dino was a virtual native by the age of four. His pre-school was a ‘fully online, immersive, and interactive experience,’ in keeping with contemporary trends. For ‘educational purposes,’ parents all across the world strapped headsets to their children.
As Dino reached adolescence, he spent 8 hours learning at a metaverse school, then took a short break before putting on his virtual reality headset and viciously tearing apart zombies, shouting at the top of his lungs, and venting his rage in public chat forums, where he was further tormented by online bullies. Dino became dangerously violent at the age of ten and was once suspended from school after stabbing a girl in the eyes with a pencil.
He began to dabble in identity theft. Rumors began to circulate. He altered photos of his classmates in order to get them into trouble. The child had turned into a monster by the end of the year. He became a master of impersonation and was getting started in black hat hacking
At 15, the child craved fame. He developed his own social networking site. It exploded in popularity and became a harbor for violent memes, radical activism, and seething hatred for human society. Two years after its founding, the site was directly linked to a terrorist attack.
Now, at 18, Dino sits quietly behind his computer, watching a senator drive along the highway in a self-driving car. He uses hand gestures to reposition the view from an aerial drone. He presses the record key and watches as the self-driving car veers out of control and slams into a barrier at 150 miles per hour, killing everyone inside. Dino stops the recording, uploads it, and sits back in his chair, smiling.
I cannot imagine a realistic future more horrifying
“We’re a company that focuses on connecting people. While most tech companies focus on how people interact with technology, we’ve always focused on building technology so people can interact with each other.”
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta Founder’s Letter, 2021.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
My exact thought the first time I watched Jurassic Park.
My exact thought the first time I watched Zuck rename Facebook as Meta.
Tech is moving at a breakneck speed, In 2000 we had telephones with long wires and shitty connections. By 2010 we had a small wireless box that allowed you to talk to anyone anywhere in the world. By 2020, we perfected a slightly bigger rectangle-shaped thing that allowed you to see and interact with anyone anywhere in the world. Show all of this to Adolf in 1930 and he would have planned the third Reich very very differently.
I see the potential of Metaverse for entertainment purposes, I can see myself hanging out with my best friend who’s halfway across the country, and we decide to watch a movie so we pull it up on VR.
I could definitely see myself dressing up my avatar in a suit and attending a meeting while my real self is in pajamas burping on a spiked milkshake.
But knowing humans, we are all crackheads waiting for our next high. Take an emotionally starved teenager and give them the key to doing whatever they want to, in a virtual world, of course, they are going to end up shooting drugs, murdering strangers, or searching for Pokémon. As was the case of 2 LAPD officers in 2017, who ignored requests for backup and were caught searching for Pokémon characters for an AR game.
Indulging in God complex has proven to be disastrous time and time again.
Imagine 20 years from now, you celebrate your birthday in the metaverse with a virtual cake, your family and friends spread across the planet attend the gala and you have the time of your life, and then you take off your VR headset and realize you’re actually all alone.
I cannot imagine a realistic future more horrifying.
