Edit – A week after I posted this, Elon Musk has purchased Twitter. Updating with some new thoughts (4/26) Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter shows to how many lengths he’s prepared to go in pursuit of being Obadiah Stane. He’s likely to manipulate Twitter just like he manipulates crypto. Shame on him. In the meantime, let’s use this moment to address a serious question: “Will oligarchs control the future?” Clearly, they’re trying to, but my prediction as a scifi guy is that, no – they will not be able to. Yes, we’ll have a Metaverse – just not Zuckerberg’s. Let’s spend the rest of this blog post talking about why.
How Did We Get Here?
Step one, what is an oligarchy? Beyond the definition ‘Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people,’ oligarchies exist as a power structure, a source of power. With rare exception, oligarchies are tyrannical, and rely on public obedience or oppression to exist. Think of the Empire in Star Wars, but with less laser swords.
Step two, what happens to oligarchies and empires? Historically, empires and oligarchies that support them do not last forever – the Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian, Dutch, Incan, and Aztec Empires come to mind. As the society becomes more controlled and rigid, focused on maintaining control versus maintaining domestic tranquility, income distribution things tend toward torches, pitchforks and guillotines. Even modern ultra-rich folks can see it coming, they plead with their own kind to reverse the trend lest they go the route of Marie Antoinette.
The Historical Light at the End of the Tunnel
These data points are why I, not a professional scholar or sociologist, can see the light at the end of the tunnel. These .01%’ers, these ultra-rich, these oligarchs? They don’t last forever. Historically, they can’t resist clutching more power to themselves only to lose it all. As Princess Leia told Tarkin in A New Hope: “the more you tighten your grip … the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
Now, where does that leave us, the regular folk? Think about what happened as Europe exited the Dark Ages. What took place? As wealth increased, they experienced greater cultural exchange, and a renewed interest in classical works and philosophies. New centers of trade led to increased interest and investment in art, science, philosophy, and mathematics. This period of cultural and artistic renewal challenged established ways of thinking and eventually spread throughout Europe. They called it the Renaissance.
Why Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is a Bad Idea
Now that we’ve explained all that, let’s focus on Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. As the CEO/Leader of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg built his success on helping the powerful manipulate the public. Growing beyond his existing platform, Zuckerberg introduced the Metaverse as “a digital reality that combines aspects of social media, online gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR)…and cryptocurrencies to allow users to interact virtually.” Fans of William Gibson immediately recognize this as Zuckerberg’s attempt to create the Matrix, the original Matrix as visualized in Neuromancer. The Matrix was to be a “symbolic representation of data and data pathways in the virtual reality … taking hypermedia one step further into the future in this manner.”
In Gibson’s Sprawl series, the Matrix was how data moved, how people lived, interacted, did business. One person wasn’t capable of controlling all of it. Mark Zuckerberg feels differently. It’s clear based on his infrastructure and branding that he means to control how data moved, how people lived, interacted, did business. For the entire world.
Why Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Won’t Succeed
Is that a good idea? Not in my mind, and not in the minds of many others. “If we had a metaverse that dictated our relationships,” so says NYMag, ‘then whoever controls that metaverse is the closest thing we have to a scientific god. The reason this is getting so much attention is because everyone is freaked out by the idea of a scientific god named Mark Zuckerberg.”
For his billions, Zuckerberg seems blissfully unaware of how poorly people think of him. Even inside his own company, employees refer to him as ‘the Eye of Sauron.’ Even if he doesn’t get it, the rest of us do. Nobody trusts this guy with the keys to mankind’s technology future. This isn’t just ‘Facebook sucks’ talk. Meta tipped its hand about their intentions by taking nearly half of what you make off a sale as ‘fees and cuts.’
Taking a step back from the day-to-day problems, what’s Mark Zuckerberg’s end goal? I’m not sure exactly, but if I had to speculate, I think he knows his Metaverse will go the way of Google Glass. He doesn’t care, he can afford to lose $10 Billion. What he would gain is profiting by controlling major chunks of Metaverse intellectual property. Think about it, if his investment results in a number of Metaverse-enabled technologies, and he patents them, then he’ll get rich no matter what. In the California gold rush, the miners didn’t get rich, it was the guys who sold shovels and picks. I would not be surprised to learn his end-game is succeed as 21st Century Robber Baron.
We’ll Have a Metaverse Anyway
Okay, so now what? Does this mean we won’t have a Metaverse, a VR-enabled way to communicate and interact with the world? Absolutely not – we’ll still have a Metaverse or Matrixed universe to explore at some point in the future. We – humanity – haven’t worked out yet what VR is best at. Yes, we can create virtual environments and experiences, but why would we want to do that?
Scifi has been speculating on that topic for close to a hundred years – we still don’t have a solid lock yet. People didn’t know how the Renaissance would change life on Earth when it happened, either. It went forward anyway, and that’s the beauty of our human/happy-centric universe. All things considered, the universe trends toward happy. Even if a bad actor should temporarily circumvent those social and human constraints, it’s never permanent.
Renaissance on!
