28. Iteration

I have been often asked how I might imagine the future and how something like the Metaverse, a term which has been brought to life by Neal Stephenson, a Cyberpunk author of the Nineties, might look like... Also having been the chief editor of GAME FACE magazine I been in interviews with leading international game developers who emerged from regions from all over the world. Before I was working as a so called alternative game journalist, I did some work for a NGO which closely worked together with the German Foreign Ministry. That´s maybe what might have shaped my perception of technology evolution and its social relevance as a social technology as opposed to technology being a ruling tool which enforces and stabilizes existing power structures. Today technology evolution has questioned existing power structures in many ways and is continuing to do so. But let´s go back to the original discussion: what is the Metaverse going to be like?



The Metaverse from my point of view shall merge mass entertainment and e-learning with the future of power point like technologies. In times where the desktop metaphor will be one visual data hierarchy amongst other possible hierarchies. In other words there will be many partially equally important metaphors to serve the information needs people might have in the emerging times of the Metaverse. The times of the Metaverse which will be the times of alternative data structural metaphers there will be a shift in how people communicate with each other. The meaning of using an augmenting communication device will change. And we will widness a breaking-up of the monodirectional one-person-talking-in-front-of-others-approach by putting in place a new system that is going to be connected to the internet and which let´s everyone use different means of augmenting their argument in realtime, by information resources they might find online or on their specific memory devices. MMO type technologies will migrate like technologies always did in the past. The future of Power Point might involve strategies to generate multidirectional exchange of knowledge in a hypertextual intermedial way. MMO type technologies will lead to new social technologies which will be used in a context I like to call Multilog, the context of Social Media Augmentation.



From my point of view the concept of avatars in that regards will not be sustainable in the long term. The masking aspect of the avatar concept, the surreal fassades, are going to merge with the real information value a presenter will be perceived with in the future. If a discussion participant decided to involve and imply masking aspects and information camouflage in his or her whatsoever strategic information policies, than he or she might consider that people will become aware of the hidden aspects of thier audiovisual information streams. Maybe we have surpassed the god complex of the user. Especially in times of crisises we like to remind ourselves how fragile great advances of mankind can be. The humaness is going to be more important in the future. And I guess at the same time we might remind ourselves that sociologists like Niklas Luhmann said, there is going to be a "structrual drift" in future media operations, pointing to new metaphors and new ways how we operate with symbol complexities.



By any means, deception will cause people to overreact in the future. Information policies be become aware of symbolic contexts and what they mean in times of global climate change.

Using coals for energy generation processes will be directly related with any hype about electric and digital online business models unless they run with solar power or other forms green energy. In other word: green energy will be the base of all future metaverses. And maybe the Metaverse will bring about this change. New complexity management strategies might emerge with the forthcoming genesis of the Metaverse... Or let´s say the fuel which powers the Metaverse still is electric energy. Apart from how we use it one should also focus on how we generate it.



In this light Online Games, Video Games, MMOs, MMORPGs, Virtual Worlds, Operating Systems, and all the likes in general computer use, all will obtain an additional dimension of political reflection and political correctness if that term still exists.

Maybe one should set up a Think Garden (instead of a Think Tank) to discuss these issues. because we, the people, might be part of what has been labled to be the Age of Change...



If fun and entertainment have become ultimate needs which are being reflected from Nollywood to Bollywood from Hollwood to the Silicon Valley, than we, the people, shall start also think about how alternative energy generating technologies like DESERTEC and other newly emerging green energy concepts will become crucial to implement sustainable development procedure which have always been the main area of interest in development aid. Maybe today development aid strategies of the future will have to start in our own countries, even in the so called civilized world since sometimes it seems that one tends to consider oneself far more advanced than one might be. And in order to deal with questions which affect us all like the global climate change for instance one has to start asking oneself where does one see oneself in this discussion. If global questions effect us all than where does one take a seat in the discussion? Especially, seeing younger people or if one is going to have a kid with one´s partner than questions like these seem to become unavoidable. Because they directly are related to questions which are dealing with the future of our planet. And than having thought about this, sometimes media activism can start with a simple blog entry this one.