TS Eliot wrote way back in 1936 that we moderns are “distracted from distraction by distraction.” Now Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg claims “I am here to build something for the long term. Anything else is a distraction.” Politics has always involved deception and distraction.
“The greatest threat to the state,” Aristotle said, “is not faction but distraction.” If politics is a distraction, so is business. The Trumps of the world believe lies are now the new truth. Zuckerberg wants us to believe that fiction is now a new reality. He has laid out his grand vision for the Metaverse and wants to teleport us across the world in hologram form. As Bart Schouw, chief evangelist at Software AG, explains, Metaverse is “a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space ~ or the universe of data”.
If we are to believe the tech gurus, a virtual world will eclipse real world. We are being assured that we will be more present in the metaverse, and presumably less present in the everyday world. Experience tells us that with omnipresent technology, one is not present anywhere, neither at home, nor in the workplace.
Capitalism is a mass weapon of distraction. It is not only the reigning ideology of our times; it has hardened into a dogmatic and monolithic creed that brooks no criticism. English cultural theorist Mark Fisher is right when he says, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” After the collapse of the Berlin Wall,
The Economist wrote rather pompously that capitalism’s “health will now determine the future of civilisation.” It further wrote, “on planet earth at least, it matters.” For Elon Musk and other billionaires, it matters even more in the galactic world. We have ruined our Earth and are now planning for galactic civilisation.
Species on our planet are getting extinct. Musk and others are now pretending to spread life to the barren cosmos. The internet revolution promised to lift every boat. Americans are what Thomas Friedman claims “apostles of the fast world” and “high priests of high tech.” Friedman wanted us to follow America’s lead, with “website in every pot, a Pepsi in every lip…”
In reality, digital life has tipped the balance in favour of John Stuart Mill’s “lower pleasures.” Facebook often shares unreliable information. Instagram has become a fictionalised escape from reality via beautiful photography. Siva Vaidhyanathan in his book, Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Use and Undermines Democracy, writes: “Social media, and Facebook in particular, do not foster conversation. They favor declaration.”
Zuckerberg’s promise is no different. He told his employees last June that his “overarching goal is to help bring the metaverse to life.” He wants us to be inundated by our own illusions and to live a digital version of life and to see and think what he thinks and sees. An age of contrivance is upon us.
A new phase of capitalism is the rise of “attention economy” in which attention itself produces value. The 19th century sociologist Gabriel Tarde said how attention drives the consumer society, in which desire must be produced and reproduced. Many believe Zuckerberg has rebranded his company to distract from Facebook’s scandals. Facebook claimed to deliver what is good.
Metaverse promises what is new. It is not creative destruction; it is creative distraction. Metaverse is not a revolutionary force that will empower the people. It will distract and the growing tribe of autocrats will exploit it. Before we ensnare ourselves in this web of illusions and become digital ghosts, it is time to unplug from this future nightmare. Human beings are not mere data. Metaverse can’t be a brave new world; it is a technological nightmare.
The 1918 influenza pandemic led to the advent of a welfare state. European countries built modern health infrastructure and allocated higher percentage of budget on health. Covid-19 has hastened the dawn of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse. Sam Lessin, co-founder of Fin Analytics, sees the emergence of three simultaneous but fundamentally distinct trends ~ rise of Crypto which will enable us to put memory and assets on the web, experimental web via augmented and virtual reality and cultural revolution which will see us working and socialising in purely digital spaces.
Metaverse is a technology of domination. As South Korean-born philosopher Byung-Chul Han argues, “every device and every technique of domination generates totems that are used for subjugation.” What is worrying is that in the age of ‘psychopolitics’ citizens may become what Byung-Chul Han calls “homo ludens.” They will be focussed more on play and less on work and will surrender meekly to the seduction of the system.
Can this new capitalist dream open a new frontier for humanity? Or is Metaverse merely a new playground for the billionaires? What happened to capitalism’s El Dorado promise? Inequality has grown manifold in the world. UN chief António Guterres has said in the foreword to the World Social Report 2020 that the world is confronting “the harsh realities of a deeply unequal global landscape”, in which economic woes, inequalities and job insecurity have led to mass protests in both developed and developing countries.
In India 40 new billionaires joined the elite club during the pandemic while 230 million more workers and villagers have been rendered jobless. The world may be imperfect. We must work to make it better. We don’t need this new hedonism. The new leisure that Metaverse promises will be new enslavement. Programming tools claim to provide leisure and what some describe as a “second life.”
Virtual life promises a new captivating life of diversion, forgetting finitude. Metaverse wants us to live a meaningful, albeit an illusionary, life by manipulating our reality. These are empty promises. Real-life is where one faces up to one’s finitude and the vulnerability of all one cares about.
Living well in a Metaverse will remain an illusion. In the worldview of the indigenous people, happiness can happen in a community. There is a lot to learn from the cosmovision of the first nations ~ doing more with less and pursue a paradigm of social and ecological commons which is community-centric, ecologically balanced and culturally sensitive. They are building a pluriverse where many worlds co-exist.
One can’t ignore basic facts of life like pain, suffering and finitude and pretend to live well. Is Metaverse the next big idea in tech? Is it the playground of possibility and a dream of the future? Or are Metaverse and other internet tools black holes sucking up time in unproductive ways? Whether Metaverse becomes a big brother in disguise and whether we become digital prisoners or live in a digital comfort zone, time alone will tell.
(The writer is director, Institute of Social Sciences, Delhi)