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The Have Nots
Shortly after the turn of the century, a company I founded became a technology supplier to the U.K.’s Channel 4 network. At the time, the network was running a reality TV show called “Big Brother” in which a number of people were packed into a house to live together and periodically someone was kicked out of the house. The last person standing at the end of the season won a cash prize or some such.
My company provided internet-related technology in the early days of video streaming. I didn’t think much of our business deal with Channel 4 because I didn’t think anyone would watch a show based on such an absurd premise. When our European sales team told me about an upcoming episode, I just rolled my eyes. The much anticipated moment in the show, which everyone was hoped would drive ratings, was when one of the contestants (I kid you not) decided to paint his bare butt orange and sit on a wooden chair to leave a stamp of his butt as a sort of furniture decoration.
I tell this story partly to illustrate the truism that there is no accounting for taste. But I also mean to highlight the fact that I have long been disabused of any illusions regarding whether my own interests are reflective, at all, of the interests of anyone else.
I remembered these events when I read this article at The American Conservative. The technology world is all aflutter over Facebook’s plans for the “metaverse”. The article contains portions of an interview with Marc Andreessen in which he offers a moral argument that drawing people into a virtual world is the very picture of beneficence:
“A small percent of people live in a real-world environment that is rich, even overflowing, with glorious substance. Beautiful settings, plentiful stimulation, and many fascinating people to talk to, and to work with, and to date…Everyone else, the vast majority of humanity, lacks Reality Privilege—their online world is, or will be, immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment around them in the quote-unquote real world.”
One of the curious phenomena of our current moment is the neediness of business leaders to perceive of their work, not merely as something useful or profitable, but as virtuous. The technology moguls of our current moment have little understanding of the lives of regular people, but they think they do. And they know what we need. 
The metaverse is, first and foremost, an effort to siphon off mind-space and dollars from those people who can be convinced to spend more time gazing into the virtual world than living in the real one. The metaverse, if successful, will farm the minds and livelihoods of human beings for profits in a way not unlike the way livestock are farmed for profits.
But who wants to tell people so baldly that you plan to profit by manipulating the most weak-minded people in the world? The denizens of the metaverse will be nudged by advertisers into parting with their very limited dollars in order to satisfy the desires those very same advertisers. But it sounds so shabby when you put it right out there that way. It is far more congenial to say, as Andreessen does in this interview, that it is done out of compassion. The metaverse is a way out for everyone leading lives less colorful than the life of a tech mogul. The hairy unwashed, in Andreessen’s view, lead less satisfying lives than the Andreessen’s and Zuckerberg’s of the world. And so Zuckerberg et al will rescue them from the mundane and usher them into the sparkling majesty of a brave new virtual world.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who is a technology leader at a company that is building some of the software plumbing needed to enable the kind of digital experience anticipated by the metaverse. This venture-backed company is raising shocking amounts of money in pursuit of its goals. Very – very – large bets are being placed by technology investors. They are betting that the digital experience can be made so compelling – and so manipulative – that the ability of digital advertising to affect human behavior will be ramped up even more.
The picture at the top of this post is from the launch of Facebook’s Oculus Rift headset. It was their first foray into virtual reality. To me, this photo has always seemed to capture more than just a moment at the product launch. It acts as a near-perfect metaphor for where things are headed with social media: every person in the room, except one, is confined to his seat with blinders on.
I had a friend once who did industrial pig farming, and a picture of him walking through his barn with hundreds of pigs restrained and facing forward to the feeding trough is eerily similar to this photo. Just sayin’.
What Andreessen is doing in his riff on “reality privilege” amounts to an effort to frame the metaverse as an actual moral good. If your life isn’t as colorful and carefree as Mark Andreessen’s, then you can live in a virtual world instead of the real one. The entire thing is comically self-serving. It’s hard to tell whether he is doing this to make himself feel better, or whether he is just offering street theater for the rubes he intends to profit from.
My recommendation: don’t live your life, like those guys in the photo, with a TV on your nose. Have a real life, not a virtual one.
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Yes, indeed. Eerily similar, and perhaps much more insidious.
I had an early version of an oculus. It was offered for $10.00 when I upgraded my phone a few years back, so why not. It was, even in the early development, pretty immersive. My wife videotaped me wandering, twisting, moving about, in a space portal, as I explored some virtual environment. After a few banged shins, and then seeing how pitiful and foolish an aging overweight man with an oculus strapped to his face bumbling about looked like, I threw it out.
I would have thought people’s experiences in virtual reality neighborhoods during the last two years would have demonstrated that a virtual life is inferior to a real life, even to introverts like me. But apparently some people do seem eager to embrace a more virtual life.
I do also note that in a virtual world the information we are able to receive is much more limited than we can in a real world (and this is particularly a problem with interpersonal interactions). Sure we can receive some information from a broader geography, but we can receive only the information that a sender chooses to put up, and we receive only limited visual information and words. No smells, no touch, no taste, limited sounds.
Excellent post. How tragic that people can’t appreciate the amazing and glorious world we live in, just as it is. It offers every kind of experience: challenges, sadness, great joy, learning, connection, and the beauty is that we are empowered to embrace all of it as best we can. There is nothing as diverse or deep as living your life. When you do your best (and sometimes we make awful mistakes) to live your life in virtue and faith, there is nothing that can compare.
When I was in Israel, I visited an exhibit that offered a virtual experience of being in the Temple courtyard. It was interesting (and unsettling), but it in no way could ever represent any kind of genuine experience. The exhibit won’t be on my list on my next visit.
I read a science fiction story a long time ago that described this technology. I probably have all the details wrong, but it went something like this:
People would go into rooms like we do movie theaters, and they strapped in with the gear to “watch” the latest release.
You gripped contacts in your hands, put your feet in the slots, put goggles on your eyes, a headset over your ears, and a helmet to cancel the outside world. Then off you would go to temporarily be someone else, however much you could afford. You were either the cowboy just heading up the trail, or the sailor just stepping on the boat, or whatever.
All the contacts blended with the program fed into the helmet to give you a pretty convincing experience of actually being there.
I can’t remember the exact details of the story (@arahant probably can) but at the end our hero discovers something nefarious about the setup, and he is going to blow the lid off it, but he is caught by the Zuckerberg people before he can get the word out. And this is the part of the story that stuck with me:
They have to get rid of him, and he fears he is going to be killed. Instead he is taken into a room where the skin is flayed from his hands and feet, and they are wrapped around contacts and permanently sealed in place. His eyelids are removed, and the goggles are permanently sealed in place. They put the helmet over his head, and all of his screaming and struggling suddenly stops when they push “play”, and quietly close the door.
I still remember the last line, which was also the first line of the story: “It promised to be a hot day as Tex loped up the trail, hoping to catch up with the outlaws before too long . . . .”
I have been creeped out by that story for 40 years. Now, here we are.
OMG. And now I will try to get rid of those images!
I watched one episode of Big Brother, or maybe an American version, when it was a big deal. It was a total bore – self absorbed people and drama queens.
This may be true, especially for those who are struggling for existence, or live in repressive societies. And to “siphon off mind-space and dollars from those people” is evil.
Those in the first world whose basic real world needs are met, and immerse themselves in the metaverse, sound like they are bored. Someone said that boring people are the ones who get bored.
Amen!
I should add that a little virtual reality can be fun, like any other recreation. I have a long interest in stereo photography and 3D movies. But it enhances my life and lets me be creative. I create what I like, and don’t rely on Mark Zuckerberg to feed my mind.
It reminds me of the “feelies.”
They should make a movie out of this.
As a tech guy myself, I have to confess that I have a VR headset and I agree that it can be a lot of fun. In particular I get to “hang out” with my brother who lives several hours away and play golf, watch a movie, or play other games with in a way that’s definitely better than talking on the phone. Still, I can’t imagine it replacing every day life experiences for everything.
The OP, however, is touching on something important. There’s a gaping hole in a lot of people’s lives these days that was once filled with family and faith, and the metaverse is just another attempt to fill that bottomless pit with yet one more thing that won’t do the trick.
See my related post To Disappear in Dreams, where there were some good comments.
The real ‘tell’ is when the exact opposite happens… the Metaverse of ‘Grand Theft Auto’… it will explode and people will get to ‘rage’ all they want. ‘Better universe’? Nah, this will be more successful when it goes to basic human instincts. Then every suburban kid can be ‘Ghetto’ and everyone can take out their real world aggressions in a deplorable Metahellscape.
FYI- after looking it up online it appears that in 2020 GTA made approximately 2.5 million per day… so as Willie Sutton said- “because that’s where the money is.” And tech companies will always follow the money.
What’s the over/under on how long it takes for the gamers etc to figure out that they don’t “respawn” in the real world?
I believe The Scarecrow above already knows where the script is to be found.
This also applies to reading, but people often read rather than ‘live’ as such. This is because the mind fills in the missing things, making the experience compelling. Virtual reality (or video games at any rate) are addictive as well. I wouldn’t be too quick to assume this won’t exceed Andreesen’s wildest expectations. Well, except for any positive moral component.
The same can be said about reading books.
So many years ago a Friend went on a European tour. When He came back He had a few of His Friends over to recount His adventures. Everyone except Me had been. We discussed the Colosseum, Vatican City, Venice, Louvre, Versailles, Pantheon… After a couple of hours of holding My own one asked Me, “When did You go to Europe.” I replied, “I’ve never been. I’ve read about it.”
Virtual reality is not a bad technology. Right now, you can virtually travel the stars or do other things impossible to do in reality. It’s escapism, which is no worse than reading a book or watching a show.
The issue, as it almost always is with technology, is freedom vs. control. My problem with Meta is not the idea, but who is running it.
The technology has enormous potential but what is it being used for? If a thousand welders, carpenters, programmers, financiers and the rest emerged from this I would say they are doing something grand with this technology.
But that is not the case.
Creating a class ready to accept the guaranteed basic income and gratefully vote for the progressive ruling elite.
You are missing the point – this is an entertainment technology, primarily. TV did not make people into professionals either. Right now, it is not accurate enough to be used to train skills for the real world.
They are setting up a new system of stratification, not digital post scarcity. People will still want more stuff and less ads. If they were going for UBI serfdom, there would not be the same level of digital monetization. I’ve actually thought a lot on that kind of world – be happy with your pod, because in VR you can have a flying castle could work, but if you make both the real and virtual worlds stratified people will not bite.
I’m not so sure, I can think of many people I know who would be happy to drive a virtual Cadillac Escalade, etc.
BBC 4 has always been crap. It was the BBC attempted at being Euro avant-garde. All they manage to do was continue the corruption of the culture.
Avant-garde is edgy, edgy is decadent, decadent is decay, and decay is corruption.
I recall a plot about a future population having “dream pods” but unlike Scarecrow’s, the lonely woman kept going back for her “idyllic family picnic” hit, but there was some static in what you saw (along with her) and a sort of repeating a moment, much like a scratch in a CD. Then you see her again but unconscious, and a couple of maintenance workers pass by and remove her from that “plot” machine and one says to the other, “well at least she died happy.” I don’t think it was programmed for elimination of some hapless user, just an accident, but in a longer more sinister plot, it could have been.
As others have already noted, there is some merit to Andreessen’s point that VR will enable people to have experiences that would not otherwise be available to them. An obvious example is individuals with limited mobility. In an aging population, this may be of increasing relevance and value. Granted, the experiences will be inferior to reality but still better than nothing.
Andreessen may also be correct in speculating the the mass of humanity lead dull lives of quiet desperation from which VR may provide relief. Based on my limited knowledge of Andreessen, he is among the least repulsive of the SV plutocrats — admittedly a low bar. It’s not unreasonable to think he’s sincere in his hopes for VR. The denizens of SV routinely overestimate the importance of their craft and vision: software is all and it will remake the world. In and of itself that is not evil, though it is hubristic.
In short, I’ll give Andreessen the benefit of the doubt regarding his intentions. Not so to Zuckerberg and his pals because they’ve already been revealed as amoral exploiters. I have no idea if VR will catch on but it wouldn’t surprise me if it did. After all, people watch(ed) reality television. H. L. Mencken had something to say about this about making money and the mass of people.
My brother-in-law in the Netherlands alerted me to the early impact of Big Brother. I was in TV development so “reality” imports were a hot tip. Survivor had a bigger impact here, and between Who Wants to Be A Millionaire earlier then American Idol later we saw a major shift in U.S. viewing patterns, away from scripted shows like sitcoms, and toward “reality” TV. One of the first to catch this wave as an American original was, of course, The Apprentice.
Like their choices or not, it’s important to listen to what audiences say. They don’t always want what’s best for themselves, but they know when they’re bored with what’s on offer, and need a new entertainment.
As for making moral judgements about audience choices or media creators’ intent, eh. Criticism is cheap, it pays poorly. Whenever there’s a new medium there’s new money to be made, new influence to be had, new power bases arising, and a culture poised for update by those who engage rather than criticize.
When new media languages loom, mastering that language comes first.
“Virtual Reality” a/k/a “the Metaverse” is a major opportunity for future generations. Clumsy headsets are already morphing into fashionable eyewear. Audio transmission is invisible. Bulky gloves will give way to sensitized finger tips, 3-D images will yield to interactive virtual surfaces that feel as natural as a human body. Spaces will be brought to multisensory life like the holodeck in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Practical applications will grow from today’s needs, like the Instacart shopper who sends you a picture of the grocery shelves as you converse by text. Therapists and doctors are already learning to read the nuances of new media diagnostics. Board meetings, theater performers, and even physical therapy etc. are here or near.
Just as skilled communicators like Reagan and Trump reached mass audiences with the technologies of film, radio, and television, future leaders will be those who first grasp the languages of emerging media.
I can’t shake the insights of Postman in his 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
Synthesizing the various comments made on this post, I feel like it might be useful for me to add a clarifying comment or two regarding what I intended.
Nothing I said should be taken to mean I don’t think the metaverse will be “successful”, if by “successful” you mean “attract a lot of users”. Whether it will contribute to human flourishing is an altogether separate question.
I do think virtual reality, as a technology, has several useful possibilities. Medicine and engineering spring immediately to mind. But these involve leveraging the virtual world to improve the actual world, and that is not what Facebook/Meta have in mind. Their economic well-being is tied to their ability to monopolize their users’ attention, as much as possible, away from the actual world.
Some commenters have tried to draw a distinction between Andreessen and Zuckerberg in terms of, well, loathsomeness. I have always respected Andreessen as a technology seer of sorts. But I reluctantly remind myself of two things. First, Andreessen has a financial interest in Meta/Facebook and economic incentives rooted in their surveillance business model. He is on the board of directors there. Any number of other people might have made the moral case for providing the have-nots with a virtual world of light and interest, and I would not have taken exception. But tooting the horn of your own beneficence with your right hand, while your left hand is engaged in the most egregious privacy violations and manipulation – well, it’s just too much to swallow.
Maybe it was my disappointment in the virtue signaling by Andreessen, coupled with some of what I know to be true about what they engage in, that nudged me to write this post. In the past, I have done my own original research on some of the rapacious privacy violations taking place, and have posted some of my findings on other another site. So I’m perhaps more sensitive than some to the chutzpah involved in their boasting about their concern for the downtrodden. Especially when, all the while, they’re rifling through the private data of those very downtrodden and monetizing it. As I said, it’s all just a bit much. They should spare us their affectations of benevolence.
It is the essential nature of the advertising business model, when combined with the immersive power of virtual reality, that I object to.
I’m very confident that approximately a zillion other people have pointed this out, but Meta is a direct rip from countless other science fiction ideas, including specific novels, and that exact language – the Metaverse. From 1992.
Painting it or pitching it as a some rural or underserved populace’s access to the good life only those with privilege enjoy in the meatspace is also taken directly from this novel.
It’s for money. The rest is bullsh*t.
https://www.inputmag.com/features/snow-crash-reminder-metaverse-chaotic-good
I just read it again a few months ago. It travels very well from 1985.
Highly recommended.
Metaverse sounds so much like “Second Life” that I had heard of but not thought about in years. So had to look up what had happened to it. Actually, it’s still around…..and Mark Zuckerberg was involved in it:
https://productmint.com/what-happened-to-second-life/