Metaverse is not new: it is a virtual derivative to the real world
The metaverse is the driving force bringing the elements of the digital age together in a unified, immersive experience… The opportunities are limitless
JP Morgan — opportunities in the metaverse February 2022
Welcome to the world of gamification.
Metaverse may have become the buzzword only recently, but it is well-known Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (www) in 1989. Then in 1992, sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson coined the term ‘metaverse’ to describe a 3D virtual space.
We should have known better. The change of name of Facebook into Meta was a typical Zuckerberg marketing trick to preempt the leadership of metaverse and hide its ethical lapses. At the same time, he abandoned the foray of his company into the world’s digital currency , Libra renamed Diem. Diem’s backers failed to move the needle even after they assembled a small army of lobbyists, rebranded the project, downplayed Facebook’s involvement and pared down their ambitions for a single digital currency. Facebook lost $ 400 billion of his company’s market capitalization.
Broadly speaking, the technologies that make up the metaverse can include virtual reality — characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you’re not playing — as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds as explained by Wired.
Major technology companies including Apple, Google, Meta Platforms (Facebook), Microsoft, Niantic, and Valve are developing the tech that will shape the future of the metaverse. Do you trust that they will do so n the interest of mankind? The evolution of the metaverse — if it happens at all — will be fought among tech giants for the next decade, or maybe even longer. Microsoft cited the metaverse as a reason for buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion explains the New York Times. A confirmation of gamification.
The hubris of technology: fake news is good news
Sounds familiar? Indeed. 90% of the so-called metaverse is nothing else than cyberspace. Nothing new under the sun, or is it the moon?
The technology world has been an accomplished marketer or false narrative to continue to maintain their dominance of their sovereignty on just about everything.
It is urgent to find voices who will go beyond the words and look at the reality covered by the “new” concepts. Don’t count on the media (traditional or social) to even try to go beyond the façade. Innovation sells better, whether it is innovative or not.
Fake news belong to the metaverse where anything works, and facts as we understand them in the real world do not matter, let alone science.
But more importantly, they pretend to have created a stand alone “metaverse” while they, in fact could not exist if they were not built on the reality. They are parasites and its time to call their bluff.
The digital assets and money: cryptos only live in metaverse
The definition of crypto assets as “alternative currencies” was first made by … the Federal Reserve itself. They should have known that they were not fulfilling the three functions of money: store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange.
While Bitcoin and Libra presented themselves as instruments of payment, they never succeeded. They ended up being a speculative reserve instrument whose fluctuations were making them unfit for payments.
They used the currency reference so that the public would be fooled to the point that cryptos were compared with gold, fiat currencies or blockchain technology. Without the exchangeability with dollars or euros, cryptos would not even exist. But their purpose was to replace currencies, acting as parasites and ignoring that it would become self-destructing.
It works to an amount of $ 2 trillion, mobilized central banks trying to create digital currencies (aka stablecoins) and a whole industry that managed to build itself on this illusion.
As to NFTs, they borrow the securitization to “tokenize it” without the slighted purpose. They belong to metaverse, not to the cultural world.
Robots cloning human beings: Roblox
Roblox is an online platform that lets users design and build computer games. But a horrific virtual concentration camp was discovered by one of our reporters. It included statues of soldiers with guns, prisoners and a crematorium oven. [1]At least, it lost 60% of its market value in the past few weeks.
Digital humans are 3D versions of chatbots that exist in the metaverse. They aren’t replicas of another person, really — instead, they are more like AI-enabled non-playing characters (NPCs) in a video game that can react and respond to your actions in a VR world.[2]
They belong to the family of robots, and yes, robots will replace humans for many jobs, just as innovative farming equipment replaced humans and horses during the industrial revolution. However, in the wake of these changes, humans will be needed to create and deliver value in brand new ways for brand new business models.[3]
Which means that the attempt by companies to destroy jobs and replace as many of them as possible by machines (learning or not) can only be thinkable through the support of human beings. They act as parasites who use human knowledge to transfer than to virtual reality. It was only a matter of time until AI was applied to augmented and virtual reality to build smarter immersive worlds.
I would feel better about the idea of the metaverse if it wasn’t currently dominated by companies and disaster capitalists trying to figure out a way to make more money as the real world’s resources are dwindling. The metaverse as envisioned by these people, by the tech giants, is not some promising new frontier for humanity. It is another place to spend money on things, except in this place the empty promise that buying stuff will make you happy is left even more exposed by the fact that the things in question do not physically exist.[4]
Wall Street as a metaverse
The gamification of the capital markets are nowhere more exemplary than on Wall Street. The SEC is stepping up its probe into so-called gamification and behavioral prompts used by online brokerages that encourage trading. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said new financial tech can mislead investors with rosy projections of profit without appropriate risk disclosures.
Wall Street is using all the elements of what happens in the real world to create its own world. It ignores however what happens to virus, interest rates and more recently inflation and war.
The metaverse of Wall Street is nothing else than a $ 40 trillion set of assets that fluctuate through supply and demand, and no longer reflects the real world. However, the assets of Wall Street are real: the market just needs to suck them and play with them in a virtual reality.
In turn, it makes wealthy shareholders richer to the detriment of the bulk of the population.
What is fascinating is that taxpayer money (from the real world) is spent by governments and central banks to create value (in the metaverse).
As to employment of real people, it is at best a nuisance and at worst needs to be reduced by all means. Enough however to make sure that real people continue to purchase real goods.
Cryptocurrency tycoons are entrusting their digital wealth in the metaverse to ‘gamefy’ services by technology firms. [5]
Metaverse and relationships
Contrary to the epic victory of the world of video conferencing, relationships on Zoom, WebEx or Teams are a pale substitute of human relationships. Now that we no longer are subject to the autocracy of the governments, we rediscover that meeting in person. Yet the metaverse is asking us to be as often and as long as possible hanged on our computers, tablets or phones.
While they can be helpful, their pretention that they might be a substitute for work, meetings or reunions is a parasite of what real human relationships are.
The Zoom world is a pale substitute, and should not replace our ability to travel, discover new worlds. A video of the Mont St. Michel will never replicate the emotion of being in front of the actual mount. Bu they are parasites in the sense that they give us the illusion to see it.
Metaverse is dehumanizing
In the world of mutual admiration of the technology innovators living in metaverse, there is no place for human beings, emotions, families, communities or health. Are children capable to recognize virtual and real?
We aspire to see other worlds, other people, and reunite with our beloved ones. A TikTok of a kiss will never be a kiss. Let’s be honest and not get fooled.
The virtual world can have toxic effects. Studies have shown that screen time and social media are associated with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and feelings of loneliness. Research also shows the link between increased media usage and suicide risk is stronger for adolescent girls than boys.[6]
It is nothing else than a gigantic bubble that is being built for the happy few to the detriment of relationships, ethics and transparency. We are just asked to “believe” in it, and not ask questions or any demonstration of the purpose of metaverse. At this stage, it is destructive, not disruptive.
Fighting metaverse is a question of survival, but Mr Zuckerberg is unable to understand what we are talking about. We need to resist this “new” virtual reality and enjoy the “real” one. He believes that “In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up.”
The metaverse is but a context — an immersive one — that can in principle bring the best of digital technologies to bear on education if and only if it is done right, with the science of learning and real children in mind.
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10531139/The-Nazi-gas-chambers-metaverse-game-played-children-young-seven-world.html
[2] https://www.xrtoday.com/virtual-reality/artificial-intelligence-in-the-metaverse-bridging-the-virtual-and-real/
[3]https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/machines/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20robots%20will%20replace%20humans,horses%20during%20the%20industrial%20revolution.&text=Factory%20floors%20deploy%20robots%20that,to%20people%20working%20alongside%20them.
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/25/ive-seen-the-metaverse-and-i-dont-want-it
[5] https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3164740/cryptocurrency-tycoons-are-entrusting-their-digital-wealth?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cm&utm_campaign=enlz-chinabriefing&utm_content=20220126&tpcc=enlz-chinabriefing&UUID=329d83e74034abe9facdaee25aaf0b4b&next_article_id=3164768&tc=5&CMCampaignID=9c2dc84e14d74e602093c818c1e06846
[6] https://dailybruin.com/2022/01/12/opinion-metaverse-threatens-human-connection-offers-more-problems-than-solutions
