A growing number of people expect to spend most of their time in completely virtual environments, rather than interact in “meat space.” Plenty of popular sci-fi stories describe such a world. In particular, the use of avatars and alternative characters is considered a popular feature. You can be someone “completely different” in virtual interactions. You can live via a comfortable lie.
This has profound implications for behavior. Just as anonymity facilitates the worst in social media and the explosion of porn, anonymity minimizes all the incentives for wise and just behavior. The earliest literature on this goes back to Plato’s Republic, in Book 2, written about 375BC. Socrates and Glaucon discuss whether humans are intrinsically just. They review the story of the shepherd Gyges who discovers a ring in an opening created by an earthquake. The shepherd realizes that he is invisible when he puts on the ring [oh, you thought Tolkien came up with the idea of a ring that makes someone invisible? : -) ]. The shepherd rapidly exploits his invisibility to seduce the queen, kill the king, and take over the kingdom. Humans are selfish and intrinsically unjust unless there are external forces which incentivize us to be just.
Can we construct virtual communities of anonymous avatars and retain incentives for acting justly? Could be difficult while retaining liberty. Liberty requires individual responsibility – which even for ‘righteous’ people is far easier when you can’t be anonymous and can’t evade accountability for doing wrong. The externalities matter.
We have a growing body of anecdotes about individuals who spend much of their time online and have infantile interpersonal skills in the real world. A cause-effect link appears likely.
It’s a mistake to think that this “metaverse” is all future. It’s here, albeit incompletely. All technological advances follow William Gibson’s 1984 insight in his novel Neuromancer: “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” Gibson coined the terms cyberspace, netsurfing, jacking in, and neural implants.
Avoid the technology options? Doubtful. The human race has occasionally lost some technical capabilities (e.g., Roman cement) but to my knowledge we’ve never consciously and completely abandoned a technology. Therefore, our path is likely learning how to live well with a technology, using it while minimizing how much we’re used by it in the process. This calls for deep wisdom, rooted in moral identity formed in love and justice, and supported by helpful institutions.
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Self-discipline is an absolute essential factor for success in the rapidly evolving work of work. Technological tools, org designs, and HR policies are no substitute for self-leadership.
Self-discipline in a domain only happens after we developed self-discipline in another domain. It took me many years to realize this truth.
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Review this insight as you ponder the metaverse:
“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Follow the money, follow the power. Who profits from the metaverse? How much power will some individuals have by owning/controlling the metaverse? How much of their ambitions depend on lies while fostering a world where lying is expected and normative?
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There will be positives in communication and education in a growing metaverse. The world is not black and white, but spectrums of color. When our kids were young they would plead to watch PG-13 movies, and then R movies as they got older. “It’s only a little bit bad,” they reasoned. We sometimes replied with this question: “Would you eat mom’s brownies if she mixed in just a little bit of dog poop?”
I don’t have easy answers. I want people to think carefully about the costs and consequences of even inevitable technological advances.
