Metaverse - is this really a new and a breakthrough thing?

This article will contain words also known as vulgarisms. Because this is a real world and I write using my experiences.

  

A week ago we have seen Mark Zuckerberg announce, that Facebook Inc. changes the name to Meta Platforms Inc. 

Some of the people went crazy optimistic about this idea. And myself, as per usual, hit the realistic/sceptic note in my head. I saw so many posts, interestingly, mostly by young white males, how this is amazing and a future to look forward to. I think we saw similar with the Tesla robot design by white males. You know, the size of a male robot in the shape and size of an average male, which is way above the size of average female. 


I wanted to make a quick post on instagram about Metaverse and my thoughts on it, but decided that I have so many thoughts, this actually requires entry into the blog. 



First of all, maybe I am old enough to remember, that this is an old idea! Ok, majority of the instagram posts I saw on it were by people who are under 30. Maybe this explains something. 


Let's start here, I was 19 once too. 

There is such a thing called "Second Life". This platform was created in 2003, when I was finishing my high school. And we thought back then that this would be revolutionary and everybody will start living in there and using the avatars etc. Guess what, when was the last time you heard about this platform?

They had 1 mln users tops and the number dropped to 800 000. I am willing to say, that even though it is a cool thing, there is a limited market for such "Sims" like application to this idea. 

As far as I remember, the last time I heard about this platform was when it turned out people mostly used it for selling sexual experiences. It has some tokens inside exchangeable to real currencies, so in a way a crypto currency. 



Which brings me to another subject. 

Let's face it, internet was started to be a source of free information, give access to services and to connect people. It does that too, but for most of the time it is used to watch porn and cat videos, also for some reason video games walkthroughs. Btw, there is a reason why netflix was asked to change the video quality when we all went into the lockdown. Those of us who had to be on the calls and use VPN services were unable to do that, because other people were watching netflix. 

Anyway, let's talk porn. The alternative universe already does exists for that. For those of you who do not know, you can experience porn through VR glasses, you can create your own avatar. Oh, that is not even all. You can in fact enjoy sex like experiences using certain devices. So yes, you can experience a hand job via internet provided the people on both sides have a matching equipment - she a certain glove and he a certain tube. It is a breakthrough for long distance relationships, I give you that. Funnily enough, I heard about hand job for men, not so much for females. I have a feeling, that circles back to the young white male market thing I spoke of in the beginning. 

So if you have never been a woman on facebook, perhaps you cannot extrapolate how metaverse type facebook will be for us. Let's say that every time I leave a comment on some public forum (i.e. make public appearance) or god forbid I show my face, my messenger floods with guys offering me marriage, wanting to date me, trying to scam me for money or visa. I once liked something on manga related site. The incels in there flooded me with really bad memes about porn and their own dickpics. 

Internet and social media is not the same thing for guys as it is for females. 

I can imagine this is why Second Life never took off. 



Have you ever played a multiplayer online game?

I did. This environment is brutal for females. I would love for someone to make an actual social study about this phenomenon. I have been reading some articles about in the past. In principle the vibe is the same as being the only female walking into a room of 1000 men. you can have few reactions:

1. Starts with flirting

2. Belittling

3. Calling her a whore

4. Calling her a cunt

5. Making an alliance to destroy her if it turns out she is better than 80% of the guys on the server. So eventually there is a violence towards the female. 

I played as a woman and in the games of my choice ended up in the top of the server. Holy cow what was happening in DMs! Bitch, whore, cunt.  The clans that had nothing in common would battle against me. At some point I was a single person in a clan and still was facing attacks from 4 large groups of men, whose ego was hurt that they were unable to win with me. 

I also played as a man, sometimes even on the same servers on alternative accounts. Everybody was nice to me and using polite language. Respecting me for great attacks and clever moves. Often, the same men that threw a tantrum towards me as a woman. It was a fantastic experience that taught me a lot. 

I have heard that females at work which experience negative backlash from their coworkers generate a fake email account for their fake male assistant. Apparently, people are much nicer to their male assistants than to them. And I do not blame them. If I ever am in a position in which it would be believable that I have a PA, his name will be Steve Janicki and he will make the appointment in my calendar for you and ask you to do things for me like you promised or is your responsibility. 

And you know what? This is what I have observed during pandemic and lockdown. I am an engineer, to be exact a civil engineer. It is not exactly the occupation in which you can find the most females. In fact at the moment I work in a group in which there is 12 guys and me. Out of doctoral researchers hired with me in a cohort, there was 4 females out of 21 people, of which one resigned almost after 3 months. There was some scientific study described even in "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg, where they pointed out that 1 female to 3 men is the ratio in which a female can feel she is still holding her ground. I agree. Any ratio above that and one feels like the men are ganging up against you. This is why equality is important and the ratio should be more than 1 in 12. But that is a different subject. 

Anyway. How do you imagine a female scientist? Is she hot or not?

From most of the movies she is either autistic non-smiling super hot blonde, or goofy, oddly dressed plump with glasses. Right? Nothing bad in either of them, but it is as if regular females, beautiful and empathetic females, motherly figures etc., cannot be scientists. Granted, academia is not the best path of career for someone who plans to have children. I speak from experience. 

But I am getting off the subject here. Basically, it is ok for a male scientist to appear at work in shorts and a t-shirt. When a female scientist comes to work in a summer dress with a décolletage in an engineering department, I bet you a 100 dollars that there will be some man staring at her boobs unapologetically and in surprise for at least 15 minutes per day. You can trust me, that trying to keep a sensible conversation, presentation or trying to convince anyone about your point when at least 3 of 12 guys are staring at your boobs is relatively challenging. 

I have been once on a conference in which a woman presented Finite Element Modelling of distresses caused by traffic in layers of asphalt. The first comment after the presentation was by an older gentleman "I am sorry madame, I am sure this was a great presentation, but your face is so beautiful that I couldn't focus on it". Here is where you laugh. Then try to imagine some women getting up after Nobel prize lecture and saying "I am sure this was interesting but I couldn't focus because of professors beautiful biceps". 

THIS is the difference. Females are judged by what we look like primarily, because males are stimulated visually primarily. Now how does that affect the Metaverse? The same way it affects facebook and instagram. The pressure on females to look their best and to create avatars that have bigger boobs, bigger butts, thinner waistlines. Have you played any games on-line? Have you seen a woman character that would not have 120-50-120 type of figure? The male characters can look like whatever, having a belly, messy hair, but the girls have to be perfect. I never saw a character with mum-bum in a worn out t-shirt and leginses. Agin, off-topic. 

Here is my kiddo, who apparently feels like she would rather pretend she is a plush toy than a female, because she does not want to look like a female society wants her to look like. Food for thought. 


It will distort our perception of what female body looks like, first of all. Second of all, if you wonder what kind of influencers in finance and science are in instagram - they are males. Female influencers deal more with fashion, make-up and all the "female things". Some of the most inspiring female accounts I follow have simply white background and text written on it. No faces. No female figures. We communicate through words, not our bodies. 

The moment breasts enter into the post, even if covered, the attention shifts from what SHE says to how SHE looks. Many financial instagram accounts by females are in fact faceless. This is how females are heard. So what I fear is that either females will have to pretend in metaverse that we are males, or create fantastic put together avatars, which will skew our body perception. As much as men who create themselves an avatar with higher muscle mass could go to gym and get that mass... let me break it down to you - if a woman wants bigger boobs she needs to actually go through surgical procedure that risks her life. Again, as a woman who is plus size (and with relatively large breasts) I am not personally thrilled about the whole metaverse and avatar idea. 

My observation from the times of corona is that during the conference calls without the camera on I am getting much deeper and merit based conversation, than I would ever get in person. In fact when I have camera on I tend to be dismissed as a contributor to the discussion. So the idea in which we need to have this video chat and the avatar culture to improve the interaction between business people - this is some notion I have observed among men. So far the working females (especially mums) that I spoke with who had been in the work at home situation - had no intention to have the video on and found it as a burden. It can be a Finnish thing though, we are introverts here afterall. Drop a comment what was your experience. 

Now let me talk you through how working from home is for a male, as far as I have heard from the family men in my industry I heard from. They have their office, they go to some separate room and they work in there while their female partners handle the housework and children. 

Now, how the same looked like for me as a 36 year old single mum with kindergardener and a primary school kid during COVID? I have no office. I don't even have my own room in my apartment. I live in a living room. So I either have conference call from between plush toys in my kids bed while she is watching My Little Pony in "my room", or I am cooking a dinner, snack, lunch, and whatever food thing they need now, or I am literally closed in the toilet as this is the closest to the office I have. At the same time I was helping my older kid with homeschooling and entertaining, feeding the small kid and cleaning/cooking etc. If you want me to do that in VR glasses, plugged into some sort of system that makes me not catch the eye contact with my small child, I think you ask for hatred yourself. I literally went out one day to throw away the trashes and came home and found a trail of blood as apparently one of my kids had a mishap with scissors during the 2 and a half minute I was away. 

Maybe men can do that. I am apprehensive as a woman that it would be ok to switch myself off completely with VR glasses. 

I would like to remind in here the increasing cases of kid accidents on playgrounds after the introduction of smart phones. Think about it - you still had a peripheral vision with the phone. 



One of the fun thoughts I had actually as I saw some promotional video in which an avatar was formed into some magical blue skin creature. Has anyone thought about the reaction of major religions to this? I would like to remind you that even catholic church is against believing in magic. In fact, just few years ago the members of catholic church were burning Harry Potter books and Hello Kitty figurines in Poland. Google it!

Now think about situation in which religion would have no effect anymore on its believers, because the subordinates would receive instant gratification constantly via this alternative universe? You could get anything you want, travel to anywhere in the world, have sex with whomever you want virtually without any repercussions such as pregnancy or viruses spreading. Has anybody thought it may anger some religions? Sure, I can imagine you can buy your set with the catholic or muslim package preinstalled that makes sure you do not get access to certain features. But have you ever heard of such thing as cheat codes?

I will leave you with the thoughts unfolding. 



I also loved one comment I saw about how "maybe in the future we can develop such glasses that are going to give us additional information about our surroundings". Have you guys heard of Google Glasses? Am I really that old? There exists such equipment. And as far as I understand the reason why this stuff didn't catch traction is that sitting on the outing with a person who is currently watching something on the internet is really not sociably acceptable. We sort of make it faux pas to have phone on the table when speaking to a person recently. 

But, granted, I assume that we have now the hardware and the software and the internet connection that could make it all finally click together. Maybe Google Glasses just like Second Life were about 20 years too early? We would be put into some state we saw in matrix in which we would be seeing each other only in some virtual spaces. I understand how it is important during such situations like pandemic, when we are tied to our four walls. But if we have the option to see with other humans, I still want to choose to believe we will choose the human beings. 

I am somewhat on the fence with dating as an application. You could look your best instantly and so the date could happen immediately. That is a bonus. You wouldn't need to fear for your life on the first date. You could just have a nice conversation with the person. I would be in for it for the increased speed. But again, the fact that I am flirting with you on whatsapp and sending you flirty messages does not negate the fact I may have a mum-bun and legginses with holes on me at the moment, I am cooking and taking care of kids. It is like asking a mum to pick up a phone call.... if you are a mum you understand why we want to be contacted by texts. Don't call me please. 

Potential minuses? Dick pic in 3d. Becoming too familiar on first date and forgetting this was not a real situation, and going to private setting with someone who potentially shouldn't be trusted? Any thoughts on that?



I saw one comment about concerts moving to the Metaverse. As a person who attends many concerts I can see pros and cons. Pro - you don't have that buffed up dude totally drunk or coked up in front of you, smoking cigarette in the crowd; nobody stepping on your toes, nobody pushing you against the fence when you are in front row (but then how would I know this if I didn't experience it?). Minus - the whole concert experience would not be complete. The queuing, the waiting, the experience of the opening band you have to endure, the actual concert, the struggle of going back home.  The smell of sweat and the sweat falling down your face, the rain on you, the smoke from the stage...The best memories are made during each of those times and attached to the other things that are not visual. If it all is just skippable by taking off the glasses... goodbye delayed gratification for ever. I just hope live music would never move into the Meta space completely. I think I would be sad the most if that was the future. 


But don't get me wrong, I do see the use for those systems. I think education of specialists is the best and most justified application for it. In my own research group my collegues have designed a course using the VR glasses to teach students about work in the mines. This is one of the dangerous conditions in which people work. Pretraining people with VR systems resulted in better outcomes when in actual tunnels. 

I hope you understand that aeroplane simulation, aerospace flight simulation and actually driving on icy and dark road in Finland with Moose jumping at you, is something you can imagine as an application. News flash. Those products already exist. 

I can imagine that training the medics, firefighters, makes sense with VR. Both financially, but mostly in terms of increasing survival rates. But will that make enough money?


Augmented reality... hmm... have you played Pokemons with AR on? yeah me too, like for 5 seconds. And then we all switch it off. I am sceptic about it. I think it may lead to more accidents on the roads and for pedestrians. But who knows. Maybe they install us little tesla minds into the glasses that will direct us where to go. Like in the Wall-E, I guess. Glued to the screen, following where it wants us to go. I can see many PhD thesis to be written on this subject. So thank you Mark for creating new branch of science :)


I think I saw that on Dr Darth Gavis account, the explanation on how the 1984, the vision by Orwell in which someone would be taking away our freedom, is not the way the end would happen for the civilization. Because of our rebel nature, we would fight back. But if we give away the power to make own decisions and choose what we want to explore in return for dopamine shot, as in Huxley's Brand New World, is the most likely way the future would unfold. It hit me so hard. Because yes, I completely agree. 

I lived under communistic reign in Poland in 1980s, I think I agree that we will fight back if somebody takes away our right to freedom and our right to dopamine :) But observing how my children grow up in the age of constant gratification by media is really scary. They have access to everything - every information piece in the world - and they can achieve anything really. They choose not to, because they receive instant satisfaction from the constant entertainment provided to them from around. Just like the rat in the cage, they never click the thing that causes them pain. They always go for the easy and pleasant thing. In the words of Yuval Noah Harari - "it will be the apocalypse by clicking". 

Back to metaverse, if we all just gave away our right to make decisions and immersed ourselves in the constant stream of dopamine, the risk probably would not be that big. But what if those of us who will end up to be plugged in will be killed by those who are not? 

I fear that if it was to in fact catch traction among white rich people, it is going to divide the world into two groups. People with access to all the knowledge in the world, education, money etc, who could do so much good, but will end up as plugged in consumers force fed entertainment, who will start making decisions to those of us in less priviledged situations. Does that sound familiar?

 And then the other group of people who cannot afford to exist in this newer system. Eventually our social IQ is going to drop and after the englightment times we live in we will fall into the dark Middle Ages of religious wars, lack of education, execution of rich and powerful. The evolution will shave off a certain group. 



I have to give Zuckerberg, that I haven't had so many philosophical thoughts in a long time. 

But if he thinks that this is going to be better than what facebook did to divide the world between right and left wing supporters in the world.... think again. 

Advice: Invite some minorities into the table when discussing it, because holy cow there is about million ways this can go wrong that I can think of. 

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