The Metaverse isn’t here yet, but it already has a long history

PRI ESPL INT .SANFRANCISCO FES11 METAVERSE The metaverse isn’t here yet, but it already has a long history Tom Boellstorff, University of California San Francisco, August 15 (The Conversation) Nattie’s metaverse romance began with anonymous texting. At first, C only admitted to living in a nearby town. Nattie eventually learned that Clem was a man with a lonely office job like her. For Nattie, she seemed to live in two worlds, the world of office boredom and the online world, where she did not lack social interaction. The text messages drew them closer: the awkwardness became lighter because she told him, and he sympathized. Nattie soon realized that she had woven a kind of romance about him, who was a friend so close and yet so distant. Their blossoming relationship nearly went bust when Clem’s co-worker visited Nattie’s office pretending to be Clem, but the deception was exposed in time for their dot-dash romance to succeed. With that last sentence, I gave away the end of Wired Love, the source of the above quotes. Ella Thayer’s novel of the telegraphic world, published in 1879, makes remarkable predictions. Yet Wired Love is firmly set in what journalist Thomas Standage has aptly called the Victorian Internet. Many aspects of the current metaversion were already known 143 years ago. What’s old is new History is more than fun facts: it profoundly shapes ways of thinking and acting. As an anthropologist who has studied virtual worlds for nearly two decades, I have found that the rich past of metaversion shapes what often appears to be unprecedented. This is not accidental. The current metaverse is overwhelmingly owned and developed by corporations whose profit models require a focus on the next big thing. This usually sidelines history with massive financial and social consequences. At its core, metaversion is defined by the concept of a virtual world. As Wired Love shows, the telegraph and later the telephone form early virtual worlds. Multi-user dungeons, or MUDs, originated in the second half of the 20th century. These virtual worlds appeared on local computer networks in the late 1970s and entered dial-up Internet services in the 1980s and 1990s. Richard Bartle, co-creator of the first MUD, noted that in 1993, more than 10% of all Internet traffic was on MUDs. Virtual worlds with graphics, including avatars, date back to Habitat, which launched in 1985. With the advent of broadband in the 2000s, many key aspects of the current meta-version became established. Long-time observers of the metaversion, such as Wagner James Au, have repeatedly emphasized how many new developments have revived long-standing debates. Properties and the Laws of Virtual Physics Consider what the history of the metaverse reveals about virtual properties. Scientists are excited about the virtual rush of the earth and emphasize the location. For example, the virtual world The Sandbox sells land for about $2,300, but in December 2021, someone paid $450,000 to buy a plot of land next to a virtual mansion owned by rap star Snoop Dogg. Why the price jump? Co-founder Sebastien Borget explained that The Sandbox has a finite number of plots and people can only access adjacent plots. Only a few people can own a virtual plot next to Snoop Dogg. I believe that The Sandbox is deeply indebted to the virtual world of Second Life, where spaces to practice construction have been called sandboxes since its introduction in 2002. Second Life originally had point-to-point (P2P) teleportation. You could arrive anywhere in an instant. But in 2003, Linden Lab, the company that owns Second Life, banned P2P. Residents trying to reach a goal will appear at the nearest telehub. This had an impact on real estate. Land near telehubs, valuable for business and entertainment, sold for top dollar until 2005, when Linden Lab suddenly announced the end of telehubs and the return of P2P. The land near the former telehubs was no longer of particular value; some people lost thousands of dollars. The most powerful landlord can’t change the laws of physics, but Linden Lab has managed to literally recode scarcity out of existence. Fast forward nearly 20 years. Land next to Snoop Dogg’s virtual mansion is scarce: a plot of land could cost $450,000 because The Sandbox doesn’t have P2P. However, if the company suddenly added P2P, the $450,000 investment could become almost worthless. That scholars tend to ignore this fact reveals the danger of forgetting the history of metaversion. Sensory or social immersion? Another example of the importance of the history of the metaverse concerns the idea of ​​virtual environments. Virtual worlds don’t just connect places; they are places in themselves. 150 years ago people played chess by telegraph; these virtual chessboards were not placed at either end of the wire. In 1992, Bruce Sterling noted that phone calls do not take place on your phone or on the other person’s phone. They take place in a virtual environment: A place between phones. An indefinite place out there where you two, two human beings, actually meet and communicate. In 1990, Habitat’s founders concluded that the metaverse is defined more by the interactions between the people within it than by the technology that creates it. They were particularly skeptical of virtual reality technologies, noting that the almost mystical euphoria currently surrounding all this hardware is, in our opinion, overblown and somewhat misplaced. It’s not the potential of VR, but the Matrix’s idea that sensory immersion is essential to the metaverse anyway. A key difference is between sensory immersion and social immersion. The idea that virtual environments require VR misunderstands immersion. It is also capable because not everyone can see or hear. The history of metaversion suggests that social immersion is the foundation of metaversion. Learning from the history of the Metaverse has a long way to go, but it already has a long history. Proximity and immersion are just two examples of crucial themes that this history can demystify. This is important because the current, rampant mystification is not accidental. The nascent version of the metaverse is overwhelmingly owned and developed by Big Tech. These companies are trying to create the impression that the meta version is new and futuristic. But metaverse histories are real; they can reveal past mistakes and contribute to a better virtual future. (Interview) AMS AMS 08151252 NNNN