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https://doctorow.medium.com/zucks-gravity-defying-metaverse-money-pit-364530ddec0b>
"Think of everything that makes you miserable as being caught between two
opposing, irresistible, irrefutable truths:
* “Anything that can’t go on forever eventually stops” (Stein’s Law)
* “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” (Keynes)
Both of these are true, even though they seemingly contradict one another, and
no one embodies that contradiction more perfectly than Mark Zuckerberg.
Take the metaverse.
Zuck’s “pivot” to a virtual world he ripped off from a quarter-century old
cyberpunk novel (reminder: cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion) was born
of desperation.
Zuck fancies himself an avatar of the Emperor Augustus (that’s why he has that
haircut) (no, really). The emperors of antiquity are infamous for getting all
weepy when they run out of lands to conquer.
But the lachrymosity of emperors has little causal relationship to the
anxieties of tech monopolists! Alexander weeps because he just
loves a good
conquest and when he finishes conquering the world, he’s terminally bored.
That’s not Zuck’s problem
at all. When Zuck attains monopoly status, his
company develops an autoimmune disorder, as his vicious princelings run out of
enemies to destroy and begin to knife one another."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
