So, what do we think? Are we stuck gazing at ourselves in the digital mirror forever? Or will we break through?
Our computers get faster, our networks smarter, and our media more realistic. What is this new phase we are entering? What happens after postmodernism? Are we becoming postmaterial? (ask @LarryRosenthal).
How does instant communication, instant commerce, effortless creation change us? On the regular, technology has vaporized distance (book stores, video stores, retail)… and with the Metaverse, we’re vaporizing space as well (cf Robert Tercek
), creating virtual places which our virtual bodies can inhabit.
I hate to bring in a tired old chestnut, but it’s Marshall McLuhan time. We’ve spent the last 30 years building what he foresaw. His prediction that “borderless electronic media would undermine the nation-state” is finally coming about: social media breaking mass media into enclaves and echo chambers; web3 providing technical infrastructure and economic rails that will circumvent fiat money and enable micro- communities worldwide.