Commentary
By the end of the century, according to a new
study out of Cornell University, metaverse technology has the potential to reduce the temperature of the Earth’s surface by up to 0.02 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
The study’s authors discuss the many ways in which this virtual space will revolutionize work, travel, and education. In short, by entering the metaverse, we'll never have to leave the house. We can work from home, “attend” school from home, and even “travel” from the comfort of our homes. Why bother hopping on a plane to the Bahamas when you can just visit it virtually? By never leaving our homes, we can lower greenhouse gas emissions and help save the planet. Of course, I’m being sarcastic. But the authors of the study aren’t.
When you hear the words “the metaverse,” what images spring to mind?
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, I imagine.
If so, think again. By definition, “meta” simply means to transcend. The metaverse refers to VR- and AR-infused spaces that allow users to interact with a variety of computer-generated environments. VR stands for virtual reality. AR stands for augmented reality. The former is designed to psychologically remove the user from the real world; the latter is designed to digitally enhance the environment in which the user is already situated.
“Yes, but who in their right mind would ever wear these clunky headsets?” some will ask. Many, I contend.
In 2020, the VR market was worth $5.8 billion; today,
it’s worth $80 billion. By the end of the decade, it'll be worth $435 billion. By 2030, the AR market is projected to be worth a staggering
$597 billion.
By 2050, as the Cornell researchers calculated, metaverse technology may reach 90 percent of the population. Digital natives are already hooked on tech. The VR and AR headsets of tomorrow will make smartphones look like flip phones. Moreover, going forward, headsets
will get much smaller, much lighter, and offer many more features. They'll also become much cheaper to purchase.
Tech is already mightily addictive, but the tech of tomorrow will consume people’s minds, bodies, and souls. The future of humanity looks distinctly unhuman. This, perhaps, explains why the globalists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) are so eager for us to enter the metaverse. Klaus Schwab and his WEF colleagues
want to build an inclusive space, one that offers every citizen of planet Earth a permanent home.
The metaverse is coming. In fact, it’s almost here.
Comedian and cultural commentator Russell Brand recently
sounded the alarm on the Apple Vision Pro, a VR and AR headset, due for release next year. The device, he warned, is designed to place the user in a “dystopic illusion.” A corporation that wields considerably more power than most nations, he warned, is creating “new realms where reality itself may be dominated.”
Although the AR/VR space is very much out of this world, the people making the headsets are very much based in the real world. As Mr. Brand noted, the AR/VR space is an inherently biased domain—“a curated reality owned by a very, very powerful entity” that’s about to be unleashed on humanity.
Remember, this is Apple we’re talking about, a company that
allegedly spies on users and
illegally harvests their data. Apple is about to open the AR/VR floodgates. Once it does, there will be no going back. It'll have access to millions—perhaps tens of millions—of people’s biometric data, including their fingerprints, facial, voice, and iris patterns.
Michael Rectenwald, author of a dozen books, including best-sellers “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom” and “Springtime for Snowflakes: ‘Social Justice’ and Its Postmodern Parentage,” agrees that Apple’s new, reality-distorting product should concern everyone in the United States and beyond. Mr. Rectenwald, a former professor of global studies at New York University, believes that AR will usher in a “hyper-mediated experience of the physical world that interposes information between users and their perceptual fields.”
Some of the biggest issues involving this new product (and other
similar products), he suggests, have to do with the source(s) of overlaid data and the possible agendas of the data suppliers. He’s particularly worried about the effects of AR on the masses.
“AR,” Mr. Rectenwald told
The Defender, “can and likely will be used to overlay interpretations of elements that accord with official state, corporate, or corporate-state narratives, thus serving as an extension of mass media into the perceptual fields of individuals.”
“Surreptitious or blatant propagandizing,” he insisted, can’t be dismissed as an impossibility, “especially given the preponderance of propaganda emanating from mainstream media.”
He’s right. AR will allow powerful corporations and organizations such as Apple and the WEF to curate reality.
In the United States, humanity is already suffering. Americans are
less connected to each other than ever before. Every year, the average American spends roughly
1,356 hours glued to his or her phone. That’s 56 days. Across the country, genuine intimacy is
almost nonexistent. Tens of millions of Americans are depressed and suffering from substance abuse issues. With the rise of the metaverse, these trends are likely to get many times worse.
From phones to food, the United States is already a nation of addicts. The metaverse, designed to sedate users for inordinate amounts of time, is likely to usher in a new type of addiction: metaverse addiction. The metaverse isn’t
dead. In truth, it’s very much alive, and it’s coming for all of us.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
