JOIN USMetaverse, the digital personification of ‘maya’
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has become Meta, short for Metaverse, the bizarre immersive technology platform where you can merge your physical world with a totally illusory world populated by unique avatars, the likes of which only you can create since you have a fertile imagination.
Metaverse, the digital personification of ‘maya’, a core tenet of Hinduism which holds that everything in this world is illusory.
Who knew Zuckerberg was steeped in Hindu philosophy? Hindutva followers, please take note. Then again, why not? After all, yoga has permeated every corner of the globe, never mind that yoga, if properly understood, is a lifestyle and not a bunch of exercises, as is commonly perceived. Why not maya? A lot of money has been made on yoga since yoga studios have become as common place as Starbucks, but very little of that has actually benefited India. If only yoga could have been patented.
Depending on which Facebook groups you belong to, in the metaverse world, you can ski down the Himalayas, accompany Gandhi or Martin Luther King on their protest marches, rescue a damsel in distress from some lecherous villain in a Netflix movie, drive your Lamborghini through the teeming slums of Kolkata doling out sweets, or do yoga without lifting a finger -- all without leaving your room. Just like zooming into work from home during the pandemic, only better, but you don’t get paid.
I am sure Zuckerberg will be extracting a lot more money from each of his three billion Facebook subscribers since he or she will have to buy an assortment of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) gadgets such as smart sunglasses and headsets (maybe from Jio-Google or Amazon) to immerse themselves in the metaverse. Of course, the advertising revenues from selling their personal data, which will now include their innermost thoughts such as hopes, fears, etc., -- in short, their psychological makeup based on their choice of avatars -- will keep rolling in. To quote the late Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, “I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.”
In addition to answering phone calls and playing music, smart sunglasses can take photos and make video recordings – which can be downloaded into the user’s Meta account. Since the glasses also serve as fashion accessories, you too can pretend you are your own favourite Bollywood star. Narcissism doesn’t have a limit, so it would seem. Just ask Zuckerberg.
Facebook plans to spend upwards of $10 billion this year creating AR and VR hardware, software, and content. “We are committed to bringing this long-term vision to life and we expect to increase our investments for the next several years,” the company wrote in its latest earnings report. Facebook sees AR and VR as being core to “the next generation of online social experiences.”
Soon, you will be flooded with a bunch of alternate universes offered by other social media outlets such as Twitter and Tik-Tok. Democracy in action, even if Tik-Tok is from China. You must be thrilled.
While you may have many choices in which alternate universe you wish to participate and what form your avatar takes, the one choice you will not be given is how to escape the virtual world exemplified by the internet -- all of it, not just social media. There is no ‘nirvana’, especially in the metaverse world.
If you are not familiar with Shakespeare, here is a famous passage from Act II, Scene 7 of As you like it:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.
I hope the foregoing passage resonates. If not, maybe this one from Dylan Thomas will:
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
No one cares for poetry these days. IT is more mesmerising.
(The author is a computer scientist, a newly minted Luddite and a cynic)