Techno-people and the Metaverse. The end of society?

Mark Zuckerberg has just announced their latest desperate, high-stakes maneuver to save their company's reputation. It is called Metaverso ...and it is the total global space into which it seeks to lead us—after having turned us into a product, exploited our data, traded on our privacy, and polluted us with disinformation that, conveniently, always benefits the most ignoble causes, the most harmful ideas, and the most extreme behaviors. But regardless of the judgment it deserves... Zuckerberg, their company, and the impact of their products, we are deeply interested in the philosophical dilemma posed by moving our entire lives into a virtual space. 

The concept of “tecnopersonas” It is nothing new. People have been talking about it for a decade, but never before has it been so close to becoming a reality. Zuckerberg It proposes that, with just a pair of virtual reality glasses, we can do everything that defines our lives in society, but in a global and total virtual universe. Working, socializing, playing sports, a concert, a debate, a rally… All in one technospace whose economic value is already estimated at $800 billion. Technological fundamentalists say it is the overcoming of the Internet and its mundane limitations. But it seems to have little impact. The first effect of the techno-personification It is, precisely, the destruction of what makes us human—life in society—though social media had already achieved a bit of that: that false sense of being a global citizen via a screen, yet without any connection to the physical reality surrounding us and its many problems.  

Technology is capable of creating that world, drawing us into it, alienating us. But how do you regulate a total, global, private ecosystem: with the rules of MetaversoThat is, with the rules of ZuckerbergThis new Plato’s Cave cannot come into being without first accounting for what is left behind on earth before transforming into a kind of god—one that will allow us to live the life we ​​please, and even for as long as we please, because we will cease to be people and become avatars: immortal ones, why not? 

To technology companies, agencies, consultancies and tecnocharlatanesThis parallel universe will open up new business avenues for us, and the peddlers of hot air will have material for years of talks, tweets, and copied posts; yet for people—for society—it is a bad idea, a truly terrible one. What can this possibly contribute to a world rife with real problems? But since we are businesses operating within a much larger business, we will do what we do best: keep riding the big wave, convinced that we own the swimsuit and the surfboard.  

Please, for those politicians of Instagram y Twitter ...that govern us now. When will comprehensive regulation of these companies be enacted? When will their products be regulated? And what about the Internet and social media in general? Will we be in time?