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2022 — When the Virtual Reality Goggles Finally Come Off Our Faces
Mark Z is so far behind the curve — 30 years behind the curve to be exact. He thinks we’re only just about to embark into a virtual world where each individual’s life and thoughts are mediated by a profit seeking algorithm. Apparently, according to him, we aren’t an ad-filled, thought-controlled, removed from nature, train wreck of a society already. Clearly, he hasn’t been paying attention for the last 30 years.
In fact, we’re not about to enter the Metaverse — rather, we’re about to be punched in the face by reality so hard that the virtual VR headsets we’ve been walking around with will fly off our faces. In 2022, we’re entering peak virtual where physics, ecology and good old analog reality will pull the plug on on the illusion that is life in the 21st century.
It began 30 years ago. The nineties began with the fall of the Soviet Union, the opening of China to manufacturing and India to the services industry. While Chinese manufacturers fed lead and arsenic to its population to help Americans live out their dreams, India fed its youth to the consulting meat grinders in large multi-national corporations. Product managers in America figured out how to get a generation addicted to speeds and feeds and an unending cycle of planned obsolescence. All the while, the US political apparatus and big oil manufactured wars in the Persian Gulf to secure cheap oil. Moore’s law made sure porn and cat videos were accessible to every teenager and grandmother on the planet. The dollar enjoyed mythic dominance. All the cheap manufacturing, energy, and entertainment allowed ~5% of humanity to inhabit a virtual world at the expense of the other 95% and nature.
The 2000s began with some minor glitches in the virtual world of the nineties — a dotcom crash, September 11th and Enron bankruptcy. These glitches were smoothed over with Chairman Greenspan’s bubbles, President Bush’s lies and a global military complex itching to try out all their new toys. In fact, these weren’t really glitches in this VR experience. Rather, they represent the next level of game play. With pronouncements like “you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists”, and domestic political polarization, the stage was set for greater gamification. By the mid and late 2000s, movies like Slumdog Millionaire (2008)…
