Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Really good essay from Tom Boellstorff, a professor at UC Irvine and a longtime researcher of virtual worlds. While the definition of the Metaverse might seem, well, academic, Tom points out how corporate and moneyed interests are already trying to define it to conveniently suit their own interests:

For instance, many pundits define the metaverse as based on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. But many existing virtual worlds use means other than blockchain for confirming ownership of digital assets. Many use national currencies like the U.S. dollar, or metaverse currencies pegged to a national currency.

Another such rhetorical move appears when [Meta communications head Nick] Clegg uses an image of a building with a foundation and two floors to argue not only that interoperability will be part of “the foundations of the building” but that it’s “the common theme across these floors.”

But Clegg’s warning that “without a significant degree of interoperability baked into each floor, the metaverse will become fragmented” ignores how interoperability isn’t prototypical for the metaverse. In many cases, fragmentation is desirable. I might not want the same identity in two different virtual worlds, or on Facebook and an online game.

Much more here. I am in fierce agreement with this point. (See my own take on Clegg's Metaverse vision statement.) In my view, Tom's take is yet another reason for adhering to a definition that's as close as feasibly possible to the one from Snow Crash:

Not only was the novel a direct influence on Linden Lab and other metaverse companies — Lindens even cited the book when thinking through issues like user teleportation and the like — the novel has little to say on anything even vaguely resembling cryptocurrency or interoperability as Clegg describes it.

More key, the Metaverse as Neal Stephenson defines it works: Platforms which roughly fit the novel's conception of the Metaverse already have at least half a billion active users. So what is even the point of glomming on new features to the idea, when the original one is very much working already? Especially when the term itself is from the novel. Maybe Clegg and crypto bros should just call whatever it is they want some other term that's not The Metaverse?

More Tom wisdom below:

"This Is Who I Am": Why A Woman With Parkinson’s Sees Both Her SL Avatar & Her Physical Body As Real (Excerpt, Coming Of Age In Second Life)