Meta thinks the Metaverse is the next advancement of the internet. Recently, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a screenshot from Horizon Worlds on Facebook announcing the virtual reality platform launching in France and Spain. Acting as judge and jury, the internet quickly started dunking and meme-ifying the dead-eyed Avatar. Look, if Zuck’s megalomaniac dream of creating a Tron-like fully immersive digital world that he can escape into looks like this? Well then, I hope some heroic employee pulls the plug.
I feel the idea of a ‘next-gen’ internet is inevitable. The likelihood that normal, everyday people, ranging from children to geriatrics will someday be putting on VR/AR headsets and engaging with each other in a VR Chat-esque environment is very, VERY high and it’s probably going to happen whether we like it or not. The metaverse is a system, theoretically born out of a widespread need to escape a dystopian reality of despair, that allows your avatar and digital possessions to move seamlessly between hundreds or thousands of wildly different experiences created by an equal number of different developers. Of course, I’m not convinced bringing your wildest dreams to life was ever the target of Meta.
Unsurprisingly, Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and most recently the Saudis are pouring billions into research that will extend their lives, ideally letting them live forever. Peter Thiel was interviewed by the Washington Post about his efforts to live forever.
God, how depressing.It seems that amassing billions doesn’t help them become OK with getting old and dying. Hubris and greed seem to go hand-in-hand. Nothing really new about a rich man’s folly when you look at the history of wealth, and at least there is the obvious benefit of a trickle-down effect for the broader population. I’d far rather read about these guys funding research into reversing cell damage than dicking around in space. You simply cannot run an interconnected global society (or a cartoonish looking virtual one) peacefully or effectively when you allow 0.1% of people to cream off the vast majority of financial benefits from the exploitation of the world’s resources and people. We are already finding out the hard way. Imagine how much worse it would be if that gluttonous 1% got to live for 200 years each?
Making old age healthier is fine, but the vision of Tech Bros defeating death is obscene, the epitome of the tragic techno-modernist dream of conquering nature. The true measure of human success is graceful and grateful acceptance of being part of the beautiful cycle of life and death. Sure, Zuck will “find a cure for death” just like Musk will “make self-driving cars a regular thing” and “colonize Mars” and they’ll all die normally on Earth stuck in traffic. I think accepting death is part of a healthy state of mind. Refusing to face one of the most natural things of the world, or actively wanting to avoid it at all costs, is a red flag in my book. I know it’s corny and cliché to say “YOLO!”, but I think life is meaningful because it ends one day. If a sterile legless Mii knock off is the price to live forever, we are all doomed.