A thought on the Privacy aspects of The Metaverse
Thought I’d send a few minds thinking about the future as I cannot fathom how much this can really impact our lives.
So, what do you think of The Metaverse? The fact that everything could be virtual? Meeting all those Discord friends as if you’re meeting them in reality? Or simply holding an office meeting to discuss the last quarter’s profits and who all will get bonuses? Sounds pretty attractive, right? But sadly, I don’t think it’s as simple and beautiful as it sounds.
This is just my speculation of what I believe the world could be stepping into (say, 10-20 years from now because yes, technology develops faster than we can imagine):
I believe that this could be a very dangerous move, as Jaron Zepel Lanier (aka father of VR) also said, that if The Metaverse runs on a business model that’s similar to the one the Facebook (App) runs on, it will destroy humanity, not in an annihiliation kind of way [though that’s actually possible, as VR could very well prove to be a step towards the destruction of human life, or basically the fact that humans would become more and more inclined towards AI and robots (just a speculation) that it would basically make the real world too artificial, or the real world would not exist at all, rather people would be so busy in artificial reality that exists in VR (basically, in the Metaverse) that they would just skip reality to enjoy artificiality (maybe their real life isn’t much enjoyable, maybe they hate their life and have depression, maybe they are just tired of the real world, or it’s possible that they are too addicted)], but, in a way that destroys the basic identity, uniqueness and definition of a person. The information let out in the world could be just too much to not make some significance. Mixed realities (co-existing between the artificial reality (VR, Metaverse) and the actual reality, all at once, not like in a Schrödinger’s cat way, but in a way that wouldn’t allow us to be able to differentiate on what’s real and what’s artificial. You’re either too inclined in the artificial world, that the real life doesn’t make much significance to you, or you believe the artificial world (the Metaverse) is what you want your real life to be, and as you probably believe you cannot change the reality, you just want to live in the artificial world, to enjoy the enjoyability and attractiveness of the world, and it’s correspondence with the real world. And it’s not your fault. It really isn’t. It can happen with anyone, for nobody has a perfect life.
And the fact that you have such a vast, easily-accessible, graphically beautiful world and one such that just doesn’t make reality seem attractive anymore. It’s not about just games anymore, because really, 'games' isn’t just the factor that could actually keep a large part of the community addicted. It’s social media. It’s the fact that you can meet with anyone, anywhere and you can save time, in an era where time can be directly proportional to the money you make (just came up with this lol). Doesn’t it seem attractive? However, if not handled well it is something that might just destroy humanity in both ways, on an identificational, personal perspective and the reality kind of way (iykwim).
The Metaverse could just be a beginning to endless possibilities, or the unfaithful end to humanity. Or it could be nothing at all. Nobody knows, and only time can tell.
What do you think?
What do you think can happen to us after such advancements? Do you think we could call ourselves 'normal' anymore, after about 40 years from now? When technology might have developed so much, that we essentially become robots, instead of making them?
Thank you for reading, and have a great day!