[at_]

I don't think it's necessarily a concentrated effort on behalf of any one entity - anecdotally it just seems to be the new buzzword marketing departments have latched onto now that pitching blockchain/NFTs alone doesn't cut it anymore. Without checking, it wouldn't surprise me if Clubhouse is 50% "how to BUILD your BRAND in the METAVERSE" right now, even if nobody can quite pin down what it means, what it will be, or where it will come from

[scollet]

I mean, it's literally capitalist capture, but you do you.

[at_]

Quite interested what you could mean by this, could you elaborate?

[scollet]

Okay, let me preface with an apology. The parent comment received the brunt of my ire and I feel that's inappropriate as no one person deserves that as my angst is more directed to the fundamental system architecture and not the surrounding commentary.

at_19, sorry for the rebuke and the sarcasm.

That being said.

Metaverses are great.

I think there is an underpinning philosophical element to these discussion around aggregate universes that needs to be addressed.

My particular disdain is targeted at Fortnite.

Some of my disdain can be summarized via the Folding Ideas essay [1].

My disdain may or not be intrinsically linked to the ideals of capitalism, for which I think there is a larger discussion to be had. I believe, by all interpretation, Fortnite is a vehicle solely for capitalist ideals and doesn't allow room for alternative economic models (including capitalist synergies).

This, in concert with its branding (a childrens' game) is problematic for me.

Fortnite, in its essence, is an anarcho-capitalist model. The literal goal of any drop is zero sum by nature. Kill everyone else -> read kill as not literally kill, but subsume their resources and remove players so that one dominant entity can capture resources.

Part of the core gameplay is leveraging resources "enemies" have already obtained, mechanical efficiency, and coordination (if not solo-queued) against "the others".

The game, by its mechanics, is troublesome to me. This is not to mention the pure pay-to-win psychological manifest of their online store (which the video essay details). In short, the community forms their opinions based on the amount of capital a player had -> allowing the player to purchase skin-du-jour and enable a perception of higher status. The logic follows that a player with a newer and rarer skin *must* be more talented and mechanically efficient.

That is the summary of my angst whenever this subject is brought up. I'm not convinced that the thrust of any multi-m/b/illion dollar company when talking about the "multiverse" is anything other than a shallow ideological vector aligning with their checkbook.

I am convinced in the Minecraft and Roblox arguments as they have incredible creative power, systemically, although the same argument can be applied selectively. They are not adversarial by nature, however mini-games do exist within their ethos that push this ideology.

I think that it's frustrating to see any backing without challenging the long-term psychological effects of seeking mechanically derivative ideologies of one, possibly reductive (in implementation, not practice), line of economic philosophy.

I genuinely hope that covers the groundwork.

Once again, I'm sorry your comment caught my ire.

I suppose, personally, that I am jaded to the argument at its core, and very passionate about how those vectors are exposed.

To leave with you with some substance:

My ideal "Metaverse" is one unbounded by isolated cultural norms, and may actually be present in our lives today. I can see nothing good coming from an Epic Metaverse, but I see indie hackers using 3-d printing and free STL files making amazing robots. I see people designing in FOSS for those particular files that they can't find online. I see people developing completely OSS games in FOSS game engines so that someone might have entertainment free of charge. Maybe they will morph their own game? The metaverse is already here, and pushing shared brain farms is not something which I will back down from.

I am increasingly defensive as this argument arises because I see no implementation in which capitalist capture (the system which enables creators and both isolates them to that system) can have any real benefit as a shared experience. It's possible but not beneficial.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. There's only so much I can fit here, but I'm happy to expand if you need more context.

1: https://youtu.be/dPHPNgIihR0