The Metaverse: the digital matrix is here

"CREATIVITY IS YOUR DEFENCE"

At the end of October Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had been rebranded and is now called Meta.

At first it was hard to tell if we were witnessing a trick or a treat. The timing of the announcement, just before Halloween, gave it an ominous twist. Yet Zuckerberg and his developer partners have rebranded Facebook, the first platform of social connectivity, with the aim of turning it into a virtual reality platform known as the Metaverse.

Their press release made the following statements: "The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today ’ s online social

experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world.

"It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can ’t be together — and do things together you couldn ’t do in the physical world.

"It’ s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’ s ushering in a new chapter for our company. "

"Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. "

"Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build thenext evolution in social technology. " The developers are assuming that the metaverse will be a fairly busy space. To take part you will be required to invest in wearable technology such as special glasses, and or large goggles over your eyes in order to step into their 'augmented' alternate reality.

Eventually, and maybe sooner rather than later, this wearable technology will be replaced with a chip in your brain, or eye, or some kind of nanoparticle injected into your blood to gain access.

Obviously, there are many red flags about this new technology that need to be discussed, but the most important concern is the concept of artistic individualism and ownership being replaced with a hybrid ownership of people's creativity and ideas.

More clarifying details need to be released on this but it stands to reason that Meta will be the sole owner of this reality and by taking part most likely any creatives or business owners will be giving up some part of their intellectual property rights to create and trade in the metaverse. So be forewarned.

The introduction of the digital matrix where everybody jacks into a hybrid mind, controlled

by a central corporate power has filled science fiction books and movies for decades.

Most notably, the Matrix films were a warning to the public of what can go wrong when transhuman agendas get out of control and humanity becomes the hunted.

The announcement of Facebook's metaverse can be taken in two ways: innocently or with suspicion.

The track record of Facebook over recent years has shown a great disregard for freedom of speech. Blacklisting and deplatforming those who express an alternative opinion has become normalised beyond belief. Surely, if you step on the toes of the corporate mind hive most likely banishment and exile will be enforced. So to participate, one can only assume, you will need to be communal, easy going and non-threatening.

Obviously there will be some elements of the metaverse that will be quite fun and exciting for those who prefer to socialise in a make believe environment, rather than in real life.

This might be very appealing for some, and no doubt younger generations will really enjoy being in the metaverse; but the ramifications of society's long-term development, and human development as a whole becomes a concern.

One's best defence is through good old home grown creativity. Creating goods and services that can be traded in the real world for cash, not social credits, will be the only way out from this.

The World Economic Forum's vision of the 4th Industrial revolution puts people, creativity and private enterprise under threat.

If human creativity dies out and we become a society that no longer has anything of value of our own to produce, then what kind of world will we have?

It's so important to use this time of change to create new ways of doing business and uniting with likeminded people to build creative commerce networks that can withstand corporate dominance.

So, the metaverse raises deep ethical questions that we will not be able to ignore in years to come.