Zeus Projects

A US civilian’s daughter called Faith was quoted saying: “It would be nice once we have Mark Zuckerberg in the Metaverse and lock him up in there. But no he’s not gonna be in the Metaverse, he’s gonna be outside locking us in.

He’ll be acquiring more money and information about us as personal consumers which he could sell to Third Party companies via Cambridge Analytica/Project Pegasus, making him more free and more rich while the rest of humanity becomes less and less “real.” And this is exactly what the powerful elite want, they want to form online relationships for us so we don’t bother them with real world issues that cause us to make demands, mobilize each other for a coup d’etat, strike or riot. They want us to be free in the Metaverse but not in the real world because we would get in their way of seizing more power (land/real estate, resources etc.) and therefore we would be in the way of their profits [and world domination].”

AR (Augmented Reality) and the Metaverse are media technologies that aim to present content in the most natural form possible by seamlessly integrating our simulated sight, sound and feelings into our perception about the physical world around us. This means that AR more than any media technology has the potential to alter our sense of reality distorting how we interpret physical reality as well as our direct daily experiences. Our whole physical world will be digitally surrounded by virtual persons, places, objects and digital activities that don’t actually exist in the real physical world but yet these digital objects will have a deep authentic meaning to us.

Walking around town and the streets for example will become a wild amalgamation of the physical and virtual merged so convincingly that the boundaries will disappear in our minds until humanity no longer knows what’s up or what’s down. One of the ominous dangers lie in not being able to tell the difference between the Metaverse and the Universe in which we live in. Already it is difficult to tell if one is awake or asleep, dead or alive philosophically and technically dreams, thoughts and imaginations are so real that it’s often difficult to tell the difference between waking life and dreaming life.

In Yu Gi Oh Dark side of dimensions movie the second protagonist Seto Kaiba sheds light on the new duel monsters system called the Duel Dimension system. Kaiba says: “It is a technological marvel that’s superior to any design that’s come before it. It’s slicker, more precise, it gives real-time data from Kaiba Corp’s crystal cloud network and when used in tandem with the new duel disk, it gives life to all the cards collected through the years giving life to one’s own very thoughts. This is because the system is directly connected through the human brain, anything one imagines can become a reality.” This truly is Elon Musk’s version of Neuralink in tandem with his Pi Phone capable of driving EVs (Electric Vehicles), recharging with solar power, connecting to the Star Link Satellite for uncapped high speed Wi-Fi, mining crypto coins (Mars Coins) after colonizing planet Mars and 4 camera lenses that can perform dual functions of photo capturing and video recording simultaneously. Elon Musk’s Pi Phone is said to rival and probably even surpass Apple’s iPhone 13.

A dystopian walk in the neighborhood of the Metaverse

Let’s face it. We live in a technological era where we are constantly bombarded with countless layers of technological devices and electrical appliances. These A.I. techs moderate our preferences, likes/dislikes, comments, spams and constantly feeds us what it algorithmically processes as recommendable and suggestive. These A.I. techs mediate our lives with family and friends as well as personal relationships and filters our data news feed bubbles and our impressions of products and services by influencing our acceptance of basic facts. The truth is we live mediated lives which are highly dependent on these corporations that provide and maintain these interactive media services. These intervening layers aren’t only meant for peddling products but are also useful in disseminating untruths and promoting social divisions. And when these layers are used to manipulate us, the industries do not view them as a human rights violation nor misuse but simply as “marketing”. Truly we live in dangerous times.

Imagine walking down your street casually looking at citizens everything is still “normal” except that now each civilian has glowing bubbles of information floating around them. Maybe this intention might seem innocent; allowing people to instantly share their hobbies and personal interests with people around us but such a desecration of physical reality will not go inconsequential. Now imagine that the Third party corporations can inject a paid feature which is like an upgrade premium paid filter bubble that allows the buyer to view other people differently. Corporations start to use and advertise this feature to tag individuals with bold flashy words such as “alcoholic”, “immigrant”, “atheist”, “rapist” or even “racist”, or even worse “anti-vaxxer” I.e. those who refused to take Covid-19/Omicron vaccines. Such word’s font styles and sizes can be even be altered according to customer preference. Corporations could also use less charged words such as “Democrat”, “Aristocrat” or “Republican” while they themselves act as “Technocrats” probably hiding/archiving such a word from the paid feature. Yet individuals tagged with such horrendous words won’t even be aware that people who paid for such features view them this way.

The virtual digital overlays could easily be used to ostracize certain groups, amplify political tensions/divisions and even drive social hatred and mistrust. Will AR and the Metaverse really make the world a better place? Or will it simply take the polarized and confrontational culture that has emerged online and spray across the global physical world. Now imagine you work behind a retail counter, AR will change how you size up your customers. How? Because personal information bubbles will be floating around them showing you their tastes, interests, spending habits, the type of car they drive, the size of their house and even their annual gross income.

It would indeed have been unthinkable decades ago for Third Party corporations to be having access to such personal information. Yet today this is the World Economic Forum calls “the new normal” and this seems to be the price that consumers will have to pay to stay alive digitally. Your personal information will follow you wherever you go reducing your privacy as your interests, habits and hobbies are instantly visible to everyone. Will this really make the world a better place? I don’t think so. And yet this is exactly where we’re headed. A Transparent Society where people can see right through you like glass where society can read you like an open book in an instant. This will be a fulfilment of the of George Orwell’s 1984 novel prophecy where you cannot hide anything from Google I.e. “Big Brother Drac“.

AR+ Metaverse = The Disappearance of Reality

Throughout the ages our dependency on technology has made us vulnerable to reality distortions and misinformation. From fake news to deep fakes, bot-nets, troll farms and viral HTML page porn/betting websites. But at least we can take our faces of Facebook and put them in actual books to read or we can turn off our cellphone screens, take a break from the depressing social media which is filtered through databases monitored by intelligent algorithms that feed corporations personal data and by living off the grid we get to have real-time authentic face to face interactions with our relatives and friends.

However with the rise of AR, this last bastion of reliable reality could completely disappear and when that happens it’ll only exacerbate the social divisions that threaten us. After all the so-called shared experience we have as civilizational society is quickly eroding. Why is this eroding happening? There are alot of reasons beside injustice, corruption and bystander effects. It’s usually because we live in our own data bubble tailored to our own personal beliefs, custom news and data that even feeds us lies. This data bubble reinforces our ego and biases and deeply entrenches our already narrow perceptions and opinions of reality. At least, today we can still run away from social digital problems and enter public spaces to go partying, drinking, fucking, hanging out and sharing common experiences with friends, lovers and family especially on holidays like the 16th, Christmas🎄 and New Year’s Eve🎇🎆 in a common reality but with AR that too will be lost.

Imagine once more walking down the street with your AR headgear on. You will see information everywhere filled with content but this info will entrench and reinforce your personal views via digital deception into thinking that everyone sees, believes and thinks the same way as you do. Third Party corporations will include and promote inverse views that will make you believe opposite things about the very same citizens of the very same town. Consider the tragedy of homelessness for example. There are those who will choose not to see this problem for political reasons. Their headsets will generate virtual blinders that will hide soup kitchens, shacks and homeless shelters behind virtual walls. Much like construction 🚧sites are hidden in today’s world. Again there will be those who will choose not to see fertility clinics, gun stores and whatever the prevailing political forces will reinforce them not to see via reality blocking methods.

Consider for the last time the homeless. Largely alot of their families will not be able to afford VR (virtual reality) headsets and this means that they will live in a world where critical content will be completely invisible to them and neither will they exist before the eyes of the VR consumers hence becoming less and less “real”. Already even before the full force launch of the Metaverse, the homeless are being ignored by most middle-class average people but with the rise of AR the ignorance shall be “bliss” for the interface users and more painstakingly suicidal for the poor.

You can’t ever leave the Metaverse. This is a one-way ticket.

And no! You will not simply just take off your VR/AR headgear or pop out your eye contact lenses. Why not? Because faster than any of us can imagine. We will become thoroughly dependent on A.I. and the VR layers of digital info that will be projected around us. Taking off your AR/VR headset will eliminate critical content impacting your life around you and this will put you at a disadvantage socially, economically and intellectually. You will not be able to monitor your credit score neither will you be granted access to digital public spaces. AR Metaverse will no longer feel optional as internet access feels optional today. The truth is most technologies we adopt in the name of convenience rarely remain optional.

Don’t get me wrong, AR and the Metaverse have a chance to enrich our lives in wonderful ways and will revolutionize the world in amazing ways we’ve never seen before (4th Industrial Revolution). It will allow surgeons to perform faster, architects to draw better, improve engineer’s precision, the blind will be able to see, prosthetics will improve for the disabled, entertainment, education and tourism and science will be revolutionized. Everybody young and old will all benefit tremendously in ways that are not just informative and interactive but also thrilling and inspiring.

However, if we are not careful, AR Metaverse could easily fracture society by further entrenching our views and reinforcing our false biases about the nature of reality. Being an optimist I still think this technology could be used as a force and quick tool for good but we must seriously proceed with caution and find ways to troubleshoot, tackle and deal with the repercussions. We must also bare in mind and anticipate that our subconscious/collective mind will be even more susceptible to subliminal preemptive programming by the inorganic power brokers who can afford to pull the strings and who wish to stay hidden in the fallen Le-Adora Ecka-Veca Matrix dark side of the Metaverse and Universe.

Finally let’s end this blog with a quote from a CEO corporate giant Mr Seto Kaiba: “This is the start of a new dueling era. An era where the only limits put in place will be only those put by our imagination. For too long we’ve been forced to live in just this reality. It’s tedious, poorly designed and pathetically constructed. If the one responsible was my employee, I’d have him/her fired. I knew that I could do better. I’m creating a future where the ordinary will become extraordinary and the impossible possible.”- Seto Kaiba.