I find it interesting how the ‘key takeaways’ in this article had been written:
“Social media manipulates our reality by filtering what we are allowed (or not allowed) to see.”
Louis Rosenberg, “Metaverse: Augmented reality inventor warns it could be far worse than social media.” BigThink. Link.
Not because I agree or disagree with it, but rather because it reminds me of the concept of épistémè as described by Michel Foucault in Les mots et les choses (“The Order of Things”, 1966). In the book Foucault shows how different periods in history have varying ways of thinking with each way largely following the dominant ideas and values that a particular culture has at a given time. It is the culture that influences (juxtapose to ‘manipulates’) what is deemed acceptable to be known and what is not.
Opinions are beliefs (and humans have working minds)
The article describes a hypothetical scenario wherein one would pass down a street and see people with huge labels on the top of their heads; some have been freely shared by each subject, and others that are veiled in third-party layers that alter how others would see them. Rosenberg asks, “Will this really make the world a better place?” I wonder whether their hometown streets do not already look like that. Words are not the only symbols with affect. Even now, one person may look at another and think that because a certain part of their body or the way they walk looks means they are something that the other may actually not be.
That specific danger of augmented reality already exists. Hence, the solution is not to be found in manipulating AR.
Imagine if people can see bold flashing words like “Alcoholic” or “Immigrant” or “Atheist” or “Racist” and know better than to pick an unnecessary fight—if they would just try to converse respectfully if necessary, or simply walk past because there are better things to do than to nitpick a stranger simply trying to get to work.
I would like to argue that we ought to be capable of not responding to the “polarized and confrontational culture” that the author talks about even if the situation is right in our faces. Ever seen someone wearing a shirt with the worst grammatical error unironically? I would take a deep breath and carry on my merry way.
Can’t is not the same thing as would not want to
I would have agreed if the author instead said “You won’t ever want to leave the metaverse” because that is likely to be true. It’s like fast food: you know it’s not good for you, but sometimes it feels more than okay to have a double burger, large fries, and sundae all in one go. I wouldn’t want to not live in a place without any branch of that ‘M’ store.
But fact is: I can freely go there, as free as that place can situate itself in my locality and I can most definitely survive in such a place. The nearest branches’ delivery services do not cater to my village (because I am too far by over five metres than acceptable, apparently)—it is annoying sometimes, but even with the lockdown, we have all survived.
So many people who live in places lacking more than just an ‘M’ branch seem to survive too.
Disenfranchisement: it isn’t just about nor would be because of AR. Those who would experience that “tragic reality” of being in “a world where critical content is completely invisible to them” are likely already experiencing that said reality. There are people—real people and at the time of this writing—without an Internet connection. Some of them are okay, some are not but it isn’t exactly because of the lack of an Internet connection. That is only a symptom of the real issue.
The new overlords?
Besides making it seem like critical issues of today are only possible problems for the AR-controlled future, thereby missing the fact that said issues (and more I did not mention here) already exist but not as much in the collective consciousness it seems, what I vehemently disagree on is the whole narrative of dependence that the article mentions. That technology manipulates our reality and controls us, its creator—is a dangerous way of looking at things.
Does the latest technology make much of our lives more convenient? Do we use it the most often than any other period in history? Are we getting ‘sick’ from it?
All yes, but not because “AR has the power”. Not exactly.
Illusions and beliefs
Saying that “AR has the power…” makes sense in a way but only from a limited perspective. Like most “knowledge” or pieces of information going around, it takes a certain way of believing to think that one thing is right and one is another. As far as I’m concerned I’m only writing this because of a certain belief I have about the way reality is.
And that is this: technology is simply a tool—a very useful one at the time, which also means it comes with a lot of risks. People who created this current state of technology have as much power as they had in creation as in manipulation and destruction. People would be able to leave the “metaverse” and come and go as they want (although likely depending on their financial capabilities). It is both a disservice and a dangerous lie to the same people the author attempts to use as an argument to say that they—we all—are fully dependent on technology. or whatever other thing, that they cannot leave it, that they are at the mercy of it, that the only solution is for those things to be better for them.
People are more powerful than they imagine themselves to be, and than they like to talk about.
Think about this: some people can afford to ‘disconnect’ as often as they want even with the whole pandemic making most socioeconomic things based on the Internet, and some cannot even if they want to because their livelihood is based on them being constantly active, on-call for eight-turned-twenty-four-hour shifts.
That is not because technology is addicting (it is/can be addicting, like medicinal drugs) or because those people have no “self-control” hence the technology controls them. It is a need, at the moment they are dependent on it, because of larger, more deep-rooted factors. AR would only temporarily magnify problems like poverty, systemic abuse, discrimination, etc., but we do not need AR for it to be reality. They already are.
Lastly: note to self to re-read The Question Concerning Technology (Heidegger, 1954).
Got too many thoughts in mind for this to be more organised and substantial. Or maybe I’m just sleepy at the moment. Maybe I will re-write this. Someday. Whatever. Anyway! I am suddenly craving sweet berry-filled oats. Damn, YouTube, you control me!
Hahaha.
(Tangential: I am glad that even though in this state I struggled to think of the word ‘substantial’ [what I had in mind instead was ‘meaty’], I can spell ‘Heidegger’ with ease.)