The Paradox: Technology is progressing, but we still stagnate, not keep up with it.

 

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, my friends. Now, you’re in James’s log 5. It’s finally that we get rid of bugbears of midterm (actually, I’m don’t). This time my sharing will explore another novel, which is far more interesting than the former one to me. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of a term called “Metaverse” recently in social media. It really leads to a worldwide sensation. So, I tried to understand what is Metaverse and thus I found out this book “Snow Crash”, which is the origin of the term “Metaverse”. Without further ado, let me bring you to see this whole new world.

At the beginning, the author pointed out the background of this world. I’m not quite sure which years it is but it’s in the 21st century, when we’re living now. However, in story it was a bleak, empty, and over-developed world. People there seldom go on the street; they stay home and used a goggle-like device (aka AR headset) to enter the virtual world. Because most of tasks could be done in the virtual world, people were gradually no longer interacting with others in reality. As a result, an occupation was rising dramatically, deliveryman. Deliveryman was seen as a supreme job at that time; people relied on them to eat food without going out. The main character, Hiro, was one of the deliverymen, he delivered things to everyone’s house. But one day, he met a girl who saved him from hunting by Mafia in the countryside. Affected by that girl, he starting his venture on virtual world, returning his original profession, talented hacker. His adventure starts now, which was regarding the process of stopping the unscrupulous company from spreading extremely dangerous virus.   

(So, the above was the introduction of this novel’s background. In fact, I’ve read more than that, but I’m not going to tell you the following in this log because I want you to remain your curiosity. 😊)

As far as I read, I roughly have a scene of the future with VR technology. To my surprise, what VR tech brings is not the increasing human interaction but a whole gloomy and indifferent world. This kind of novel can be categorized into “Cyberpunk”, which stands for the topic that technology is well-developed but people’s living quality is worse than before. A sparkle city with neon light and gleaming signboard while the sky is always dim and cloudy. It occurs to me why our future would look like this, why our future seems to be out of our control. What if our future also become the world as the one in novel, then what do we need to do? Technology is a double-edge sword; its motivation is to make life more convenience, make people be together. However, I somehow believe that kind of world in novel would really take place in our future; we seldom pay attention to the use of technology, not to mention those rising ethical problems. Although it seems to create a perfect alternative world to bring people together; but it’s exactly because it is perfect, can we snap back to reality again? Since virtual world can be determined by users themselves, no one would like to face the reality which is sometimes mean and imperfect. The world in this novel was the most suitable demonstration. People tended to stay in virtual world; while the reality was full of gun violence, sexual exploitation, and poverty. What’s more, it was lack of human interaction (in real world), it lost its human warmth and original vitality. I firmly don't want it to happen, I don't want to see our world can only be enlightened by neon light instead of sunlight.

Last, in addition to the world in novel, our world is also faced with the growing period of this tech. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that Facebook would become the subsidiary company of Meta, a company aiming to create a completely virtual world to let people do everything in this world: work, education, sports and so on. Most of us have Facebook accounts; if the prospect of Meta is really realized, this factor would make us more likely to get into the virtual world. On that occasion, can we withstand the consequence of technology brings? Or would you be willing to join the world consisting of 0 and 1? I’m not saying that I oppose to the concept of Metaverse, but I do consider that we should pay more attention to what our world are changing now and we really need to find out a path where won’t be affected by new developed technology. Otherwise, chances are that we would be eliminated by the development of tech. We major in language; however, the virtual world is also composed of computer language. If one day our language is replaced by computer language, what are you going to do?

Leave some comments below and share with me about your thought if you want. Thank you for reading this log. 😊