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What to Make of the Metaverse?

Why it’s likely that the metaverse won’t be good for humanity.

In October of 2021, social media giant Facebook announced that it had changed its name to Meta. The ancient Greeks gave us the word Meta, who used it to mean ‘after’, ‘beyond’ or even to transcend. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg clearly chose this name for that very reason since he is looking far ahead into the future of his company, far beyond today’s two-dimensional experience of posting photos and text on Facebook. He wants to evolve Facebook into an entirely new experience, where we interact and socialize in a virtual 3D world.

There is great promise and potentially great value in this next epoch of humanity but will the metaverse usher in a golden age, or is it all what the Roman’s called bread and circuses?

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Politics / The Future / World , 1 Comment

What will inspire you?

What Pillars of the Earth tells us about our species and our future

“Star” by Kiwi Tom is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Recently, I finished the book ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follet. It’s about the fictional village of Kingsbridge that undertakes the building of a cathedral in 1100’s England. Truthfully, such a subject isn’t one I normally would be curious about, but Pillars is really a tale about the ruthlessness of politics, the will to power, the technical challenges of the age and the perseverance to overcome these. And it made me think about the architecture of today. Our modern society has significantly more resources, technology and materials to create buildings of such magnificence. But we rarely do. So how is it that a village of half-starving peasants managed to create something so grand, and we, with all our abundance choose not to? It’s because we lack something they had, something humans need, and without it, our future on this planet will be very bleak.

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What the Unabomber Can Teach Us About the Perils of AI

In my novel, The 13th Vote, Albert, a developing AI plays a central role as it comes to grips with it’s place in a society of good but flawed humans. Us humans are familiar with the journey, emerging from childhood ignorance into increasing levels of maturity and awareness throughout adulthood. And with enough time, vigilance and experience, we’re blessed with the gift of wisdom. But what of AI? Can it ever gain wisdom? And if not, can we trust it to make big decisions that affect our lives? I’d say we cannot and the Unabomber’s manifesto proves it.

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The Case for NTF’s

Beeple’s collage, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, sold at Christie’s

Why (and why not) NFT’s are here to stay

NFT’s or Non-Fungible Tokens are the new ‘thing’, the cool kid on the blockchain, for reasons I can’t completely understand but am nonetheless convinced of. And if that’s nonsensical enough to convince you to stop reading, then don’t. Let’s try to find out together and enjoy the process, since the art is in the telling.

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Rise of the Drones

How Covid proves the future of warfare will be small-scale and robotic

Modern warfare is dehumanizing and it’s about to become small and dehumanized. In fact, Covid has accelerated the trend toward miniaturization, and cheaper, more distributed ways to kill. 2020 also shows us that Covid and its cousins will also continue to play and important role in the conflicts that follow. War will never be the same again.

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Source: https://www.starwars.com/databank/lobot
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2084 – An Orwellian Fantasy

Why the next huge technological leap will stifle our freedom

May we live in interesting times. On this day of the Presidential inauguration, it is fitting to reflect back on  2020. A global epidemic. A summer of riots. A booming stock market. Bitcoin blowing past $40,000. And, a twice impeached president who was removed from big-name social media platforms.

This normally won’t be newsworthy. Regular Joes are booted off these platforms all the time, but Trump was the president at the time, with 80M+ Twitter followers. Whether one agrees with President Trump’s rhetoric or not, the fact remains that he exploited a technological marvel (social media platforms) to bypass traditional media, and delivered his message directly to the people. No filter, no spin, just raw rhetoric with expansive reach. Imagine President Lincoln at a whistle-stop, preaching from a soapbox,  with a megaphone that could project his voice clear across the South, skirting the editorial privilege of The Richmond Examiner. Could he have stopped the war with his rhetoric or at least turned Missouri and Kentucky?

Media outlets like Forbes, New York Times, NBC, Fox and more have extensively written about the constitutionality of Trump’s ouster from these platforms. Even Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey has weighed in, curiously, casting doubt on his own decision. So, I won’t cover this ground, but explore another aspect of this decision that may have dire implications for our future.

What happens when a novel technology, that can dramatically augment a person’s intellectual capabilities, springs forth upon the masses? Will it liberate us or bind us in ways we can’t imagine? Until now.

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Hail to the Computerized Chief

How the US election shows us that AI will inevitably rule us all.

If you believe the pundits, the fate of the world depends on who wins the upcoming US election. Both sides of the media machine are working overtime, cranking out dire predictions as if chocolate from an assembly line – just in time for six o’clock when a hungry audience awaits. And like Lucy and Ethel, as eager as we might be to scoff them down, we can hardly keep up. And since you are what you eat, how can we ever truly be unbiased? And if this is true, how can we possibly break from our respective camps and meet in an open field of respect and understanding?

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Take an Inch

My wife is brilliant. She is able to get me to do just about anything she wants. Just the other day, she points to some trim above the fireplace and says, ‘Can you take that ugly stuff down?’ I look up, grave, trying like hell to form some justification to keep it there, but I can’t. She’s right. It’s ugly. I look down at the dog for a second opinion but her big eyes stare back as if to say – c’mon, who you kidding? And with great reluctance, I go up the ladder and pry the wood down. Afterward, we both admire the trimless alcove, no longer ugly, but now terribly incomplete. I say, ‘We need to do something about that.’ My wife nods as if it was truly my own idea. And so, it goes, I calculate, cut, screw, fit, drywall, plaster, sand and paint, and if the measure of my work was a foot – then it all started with an inch, artfully suggested, and unknowingly agreed too.

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An Eye for the Little Things

Corona virus

Two words that have launched a billion conversations, seemingly at the same time, and the cacophony makes it hard to distinguish what is being said and more so, what does it truly mean for humanity? The mainstream press has its own slants, the politicians their own skews and both look to the scientific community – not so much for wisdom – but to heighten the hype or justify their actions (or lack thereof). And we’re caught in the middle, not knowing what to make of it all. But I wonder if we’re ok with that on some level? Like there’s a slight contentedness with the state of confusion, because with it, we can out-task the responsibility to do something about it elsewhere.

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