Re: <nettime> meta(verse)

On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 6:44 AM Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com> wrote:

There is nothing in there that you couldn't do in Second Life and it
even looks pretty much the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gElfIo6uw4g

Indeed, we're stuck at the Star Trek bar and the kids are bored. The thrills of the 70s have gone stale. The simulacrum of a redwood-draped hillside is a lot less inviting when you know the real thing burnt to a crisp last summer.

The giveaway comes near the end of the video. What Zuck is planning to sell here are not the thrills. Instead it's glorified virtual office space for corporate managers. The point is to have *them* force everyone inside his program (presumably the contracts are already signed). Corporate people are high-value and they'll want to be with each other, especially the aspiring ones. If they're afraid to go out of their compound in whatever declining city where they live, then they'll go to the virtual bars and beaches in hopes of finding a corporate soulmate to climb the ladder with.

Only the stench of fear could force people into an eternal (and odorless) Menlo Park seen through goggles. Covid has been a godsend for Silicon Valley. Fear management is the emergent paradigm of social control. Be afraid. Put on the goggles. Clock in.

no thanks, Brian

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