Back in 2009 a movie came out called Surrogates. The movie depicts humans seated on their couches, beds or recliners, while their brains connect online to their surrogate robots in the real world. Their Surrogates roam the real world and are controlled by the minds of the humans who are still at home.
The Surrogates meet friends, go to work, shop, and don’t necessarily look like the human on the couch or recliner. Today this Sci-Fi movie has gone even beyond what was comprehensible back then.
In 2021, the world is moving towards the metaverse. Many, especially gamers, have already been playing and at times for many hours in their semi metaverse worlds. Employees have been meeting in their semi metaverse worlds via zoom, with background images that look nothing like their homes or offices. According to Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerman, the metaverse will encompass Avatars, homes, workplaces, social interactions, holographic art and much more.
While it may be hard to imagine or even comprehend, it is happening as we speak. Today we already have the building blocks needed for this Metaverse of the Future.
The Building Blocks
- We have Avatars, Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. This allows people across the world to create the avatar of their choice depending on where and what they are doing, and then engulf themselves into the universe of their choice.
- We have augmented realities of almost everything here in the world today whether it is Mount Everest, or your own living room. Google maps was the first to map out each and every street on the planet, all that is left is to create that reflection into the metaverse.
- We have the internet that can connect us to this world in the split of a second, and the bandwidth needed is growing exponentially.
- We have the blockchain, digital identities, Artificial Intelligence, IOT, and quantum computing.
- We have the currencies that could be used, crypto in all its forms, be they Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and even tokens belonging to communities developed on the Blockchain
- We have NFTS that can represent anything physical we believe to be of value which we can trade in the future.
- We are able to tokenize assets and exchange them digitally
- We have DeFi for the financial savvy and investors of the world.
- We have the mindset that has allowed us to accept remote working, remote socializing, remote education, and remote living.
So the building blocks are there but what is in store for the future is much bigger.
The Metaverse near Future
So instead of a surrogate robot, we will go out into digital worlds as avatars. We will work in these worlds, buy properties and have purchases reflected in the real world, we will meet friends over coffee, attend classes, ride cars, and shop and try on clothes in the fashion streets of the Metaverse.
It wouldn’t matter how we really look, what size we actually are, or how tall or short we are, because our avatars could be anything we choose them to be.
We could attend concerts, meet our favorite singer or actor and not once have to leave our homes.
We would get paid in crypto, or any other token being used in the Metaverse of our choice. All transactions and agreements, purchases would be developed on smart contracts.
We could play games and take our kids to school in the Metaverse.
We could travel to Venice, walk on China’s great wall, and climb Mount Everest all through the connection of our minds using virtual reality, augmented reality, sensors, and more. It doesn’t seem so farfetched especially after watching Mark Zuckerberg’s recent explanation of Meta.
While Zuckerberge reveals what the metaverse might look like, he holds on to the notion that people will jump back and forth from the real world they are in and the metaverse.
Yes people will still need to eat, drink, and take a shower.
But will they need to buy groceries maybe not. Maybe while they are in the Metaverse they walk into the supermarket choose their groceries, pay with crypto, and then a drone delivers them to their doorstep. This could be done with all material things, so humans actually might never have to leave their homes again. Why would they when everything is at their fingertips, literally.
The Metaverse of the near future is starting today and most probably will be fully realized in the next decade or so.
But this is just the beginning; Zuckerberg’s metaverse future is only the near future because what is in store is unfathomable to society today.
The Metaverse of the Future, the World of Tomorrow
So while those in the world today are trying to dabble between the physical world and the virtual one, and trying to create bridges between them, in the future the only real world that will exist is the metaverse.
While everyone talks of cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs, and the metaverse, we have ignored the basic compelling reason why suddenly people are willing to spend millions of dollars on a virtual piece of land, or millions on an NFT, or invest in crypto, or use tokens in games, and communities online.
The reason is people want to escape from the reality of their existence today, the mundane reality. Today the majority of people are aware of everything in the world, every beautiful place in existence, every art piece, every brand, and every famous person because they are all connected to the internet. With this awareness, comes a yearning, and with this yearning comes a new reality. Today the world’s population no matter where it is has a new means to live out a totally different existence. People are allowing their imaginations and dreams to guide them like never before.
Soon it will not be enough just to follow your favorite actor or singer on Instagram, or twitter, soon people will want more, they will want to speak to them, to interact with them, maybe even have them as guests in their homes. It will not be enough to watch a concert on YouTube, or to take a course online, soon people will want to attend the concert across the globe, the FIFA World Cup with their friends and others fans.
People regardless of their financial status, or their physical capabilities, or even their education will be able to leave their mundane existences and join a new world a new frontier and most probably many will want to stay there.
This will be spurred, as more and more humans have more time on their hands to do so. Already, technology, AI, robots are taking away many of the jobs that humans once did, and healthcare is improving to a point where people will be able to live much longer. Soon governments or a community of sorts will have to pay Universal basic incomes, enough to keep people alive. Yet, these same people will not survive on food and water alone, they will need a meaning for their existence and they will find it in the metaverse.
The Metaverse takes Over Reality
As I write this, I want to start with another sci-fi movie that most have seen, the Matrix which came out in 1999 depicting the metaverse as the real world people are living in. The future most probably will be like the Matrix.
Not long down the road, maybe in 100 years, the majority of populations in the world will decide their true reality is the metaverse and not the physical world. We might then see connected minds to the universe all the time, being fed through tubes.
Eventually humans, as they have done in the past, will evolve. For example the first humans 10,000 years ago, were taller, their heads bigger, had more hair on their bodies, and had more teeth and bigger jaws. As humans evolved the need for more teeth, bigger jaws, more hair decreased.
The humans of the future, those living years and years in the metaverse might lose many of the bodily attributes not being used and morph into a new being, where only their minds exist.
Maybe this is what will save earth from global warming, from over consumption of its resources. Maybe this is what will save humans from extinction. Humans will evolve into a new being, more astral in nature.
Yes it sounds scary, farfetched, unbelievable, but who believed in the 15th century if you told them you would be able to speak to someone across the world using a click of a button. Who would imagine in even the 19th century that an operation could be done by a doctor remotely using robotic hands?
What was unfathomable yesterday has become a reality today, and nothing is truly impossible.
Conclusion
So while governments in 2021 were grappling with how to regulate crypto, or how to define NFTs, and security tokens, and while people discussed which crypto to invest in, which NFT was worth more, and what NFT to buy next, the realities of the world changed.
While people feared Covid, and the onset of remote everything started, countries, governments, and societies failed to notice that something much bigger had commenced, something that has its roots, long time before but has picked up pace, something that cannot be undone with more control, regulations, or wishful thinking.
This new reality, the metaverse, virtual existence will require new rules of conduct, new principles, new laws, new mindsets, new passports and more.
So for 2022, while we might see people travel to watch the FIFA World Cup, we might also see many more attend it as avatars, in virtual stadiums watching football avatars, with memorabilia in the form of NFTs.
The only thing we can be sure of, is that the world will never be the same again, and neither will we.
