Snow Crashing Into The Metaverse

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the last 30 years, the real world has been catching up to Neal Stephenson’s vision of the future in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, which influenced the creators of Google Earth, Second Life, Oculus Rift and more. Now the centerpiece of the novel, a virtual world called The Metaverse, may become a daily part of our lives thanks to Facebook (renamed Meta) and other big tech companies. I talk with Meta’s director of A.I. policy Kevin Bankston, Silicon Valley engineer Stephen Pimentel, Australian National University School of Cybernetics director Genevieve Bell, Yale professor Lisa Messeri, and Grace Ng of the DAO Crash Punks about whether it’s a good idea to use a satirical cyberpunk novel as a blueprint for the future. Plus, actor Varick Boyd reads from Snow Crash. The section on Grace Ng has been updated to reflect the crypto market crash that happened after the episode originally aired in May 2022. This episode is sponsored by Backblaze, VAST Horizon, and Squarespace. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tab for a cause is a browser extension that lets you raise money for charity while doing
0:04.9	your thing online.
0:06.6	Whenever you open a new tab, you'll see a beautiful background photo and a small ad.
0:11.6	And part of that ad money goes towards a charity of your choice.
0:15.6	It's free and incredibly easy.
0:18.1	Transform your tabs into a force for good in just 30 seconds.
0:22.4	Sign up at tabforacaws.org slash imaginary worlds.
0:29.6	We're listening to imaginary worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend
0:33.4	our disbelief.
0:34.8	I'm Eric Mollinsky.
0:37.1	And pretty soon we might all be interacting with each other in imaginary worlds.
0:42.0	CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced what he calls the Metaverse, a platform where users will
0:48.5	interact in virtual and augmented realities.
0:52.4	People and companies are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the vision of the
0:56.4	Metaverse.
0:57.4	You think of the internet as something that we look at?
1:02.2	The Metaverse is a version of the internet that we're inside.
1:07.5	This comes close to how the Metaverse was first described in a 1992 science fiction novel
1:12.6	Snow Crash that coined the term.
1:15.8	Yes, the Metaverse, as it's being imagined and proposed, is heavily influenced by a sci-fi
1:23.4	novel called Snow Crash, and I love any story about life imitating art, especially science
1:30.9	fiction.
	...

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