Elon Musk, Google and Mark Zuckerberg Have Plans For Our Future. Is That A Good Thing?
As time passes, real life appears to be less relevant than ever. The only space that needs to be taken seriously is the digital space. Things like the Metaverse, Elon Musk’s brainchip, and Google’s billion dollar mission to “solve death” are all concepts that sound like plots in science fiction films, but are all very real.
Things like the Metaverse, Elon Musk’s brain-chip, and Google’s billion dollar mission to “solve death” are all concepts that sound like plots in science fiction films, but are all very real.
Not to sound like Ted Kaczynski, but what will this do to the human experience?
The Bay Area, despite reports of tech companies leaving for places like Austin, is still the tech center of the world. Hollywood is Hollywood, Wall Street is Wall Street and Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley. These locations are synonymous with the industries that have called them home. As a result of living within Silicon Valley’s blast radius, we’ve been given a front row seat to what happens when tech dominates. We’ve seen the inequality, the faux progressive posturing and the toll it takes on our collective mental health. We were a microcosm of what is to come. And its disruptive state will change all our lives, like it or not.
But why do we need the Metaverse (we don’t) and why are multi-billion dollar conglomerates so universally behind this idea?
The most talked about of these potential changes is Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. The Metaverse is basically a Second Life ripoff, but with real world significance because billionaires make things happen and we just live in the realm of their collective decisions. To better understand the Metaverse, we have to look at the origin of the term. The word “metaverse” first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s novel Snowcrash and it describes a fully realized digital world that runs parallel to our own.
For capitalism to exist in its current state, it needs to grow. A term that is thrown around a lot is “exponential growth.” But financial institutions are coming to grips with the fact that the planet doesn’t have exponential resources, so the question they likely had to ask themselves was how to sustain the market without destroying the planet? That’s where the Metaverse comes in.
Now you’re probably saying to yourself, “but Abe, that’s fucking stupid,” but lots of shit in life is fucking stupid. We’ve just gotten used to stupid shit.
The potential success and legitimacy of the Metaverse could be easily compared to the success and legitimacy we place on fiat currency. The metaverse could offer a fiat experience. Fiat money carries value because governments uphold their value and those governments exist because we participate in them. Now I know people are going to say “but Abe, I don’t believe in my government!” Cool, but our collective participation in our government’s economic system legitimizes it and works as a system of belief, but in a legislative sense.
This Metaverse idea, if it succeeds, will work in a similar sense.
Digital real estate filled with rare NFTs will hold value because we will believe they hold value. Maybe not us, but the generations after us. Just like how a piece of land in San Francisco holds more value than a piece of land in Arkansas. Is it more valuable? Not really, it’s all the same earth, but because we believe – collectively, that it holds more value, it then becomes more valuable. This isn’t limited to real estate or money, but to literally everything. As more people spend the vast majority of their lives online, this idea of value connected with intangible digital assets will then replace, or at least live alongside the physical world.
While Zuck’s Metaverse will change things, Musk’s brain-chip via his Neurolink company, seems like it could be a plotline in a Ghost In The Shell prequel. We’re talking full blown singularity shit.
But more fascinating, and potentially terrifying than Musk’s microchip and Zuck’s Metaverse is what Google is working on: Immortality.
According to Musk, his Neurolink technology “will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs” and apparently will even make it so paralyzed people can walk. If this is true, the question is what will more advanced iterations of this achieve, and most importantly, who will have access to it?
But more fascinating, and potentially terrifying than Musk’s microchip and Zuck’s Metaverse is what Google is working on: Immortality.
Google has spent billions of dollars in a quest to literally live forever, or feasibly extend life beyond its natural duration. I’m not going to get into the details of Google’s life extension technology, but once again, one has to wonder, how will such advances play out for the rest of us? Are we marching toward a future where all of our belongings exist online, where illness and disabilities only exist for those too poor to pay for a microchip in their brain?
Is death itself going to become a class issue?
I know this sounds like a lot, but we’re living in a reality that would give Philip K a hard dick. And I have a feeling it will only get crazier from here.
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