The concept of metaverse is becoming more and more popular, and there are even many metaversic courses that have begun to cut leeks. Some readers have asked me, why did the metaverse suddenly explode? What's going on behind this? Can the metaverse really make money?
What is the metacosm?
The English for metaverses is Metavalse, a combination of Meta and Universe.
In fact, the metacosm is not a new concept. About 30 years ago, American science fiction writer Neil Stephenson's novel Avalanche coined the concept of a "metacosm" that refers to computer-generated virtual worlds. The protagonist of the novel, Ah Hong, is a pizza delivery man who shares a small warehouse with people in reality, but when he connects himself to the "meta-universe", he lives in a virtual mansion.
In the "meta-universe", everyone has their own digital avatar, the more than 60,000 kilometers of Equatorial Avenue is always illuminated, giant neon lights hang high in the air, and the special neighborhood that ignores the laws of three-dimensional time and space is a spectacle that cannot be seen in reality.
This is undoubtedly a huge attraction for young people who can't afford to buy a house in reality.
The movie Ready Player One shows the metaverse realization form, through VR glasses and other wearable devices, you can not only immerse yourself in the virtual world, but also feel sensations such as pain in your body.
In March this year, the listing of the American game company Roblox triggered the explosion of the metaverse concept, becoming the first stock in the metacosm. The roblox CEO said the key elements of the metaverse are: identity, friends, immersion, low latency, diversity, anywhere, economic systems, and civilizations.
Having said all this, you may still not understand what a metacosm is. Let's put it a little simpler, we've all played the game of stealing vegetables from Happy Farm.
Once upon a time, you planted a vegetable patch in Happy Farm and your friend came over to steal it. You're just losing a little virtual money, feeling a little depressed, and feeling nothing else.
In the metaverse world, this vegetable field is more realistic, you sit in a chair with VR glasses, you can catch the person stealing the vegetable with your own hands, and your hand feels like holding his arm. You wrestle with him in the vegetable patch and you feel the pain.
Through a series of wearable devices, projecting the real you into the virtual world, this is the metacosm. Behind this is vr, AR, quantum computing, blockchain and other software and hardware technologies in support. In the past, we could only see such scenes in science fiction films, and the maturity of technology can make science fiction a reality.
Why did the metaverse suddenly explode?
The popularity of the metacosm is closely related to Facebook's name change. At the same time, it is also closely related to the current development stage of the Internet industry and capital.
First of all, the internet giants need to break through the bottleneck. At present, not only the number of Facebook users has basically peaked, but also the business model has peaked. This is like the development of the Internet into the bottleneck of 2008, with the popularity of 3G networks, the era of mobile Internet began to arrive.
Similarly, the mobile Internet has also entered a bottleneck today, where is the next development? Facebook says it's a metacosm. This is also related to the maturity of VR, 5G, virtual reality and other technologies. And Facebook has invested in VR for many years, and has not seen any gains so far, and by promoting the metaverse concept, it can make its investment in VR technology pay off.
Now people communicate on Facebook through graphics and videos. In the future, everyone wears VR glasses, the meta-universe social platform, can be in this virtual world, direct face-to-face communication, and even do anything they love to do.
Second, to meet the needs of virtual currency companies to cut leeks. Virtual currencies are considered illegal by countries in reality. China explicitly prohibits the use of virtual currency to purchase goods and prohibits the use of renminbi to exchange virtual currency.
The metacosm is undoubtedly a very good application scenario for virtual currency. Rebuild cities, make goods, and create services in the virtual world, which allows you to use virtual currency to buy. This means that capital can continue to appreciate in a newly built virtual world. Earn more money by trading virtual currency with fiat currencies.
So, they all saw media reports that a virtual currency company sold a property worth $2.43 million on a virtual platform for 618,000 virtual coins. The transaction of this virtual property is like a trust to create a hot selling scene in the real world, with the purpose of luring those speculators into the game to participate in the transaction, so as to achieve the cutting of leeks.
Again, the need for capital appreciation. It seems that it is difficult for capital to continue to find rapidly increasing investment targets in reality, and almost all of them have capital figures. It is a good idea to invest funds in the virtual metaverse and continue to increase in value.
So capital is willing to hype up this new concept, which can promote more metaverse concept stocks in the stock market, thereby achieving capital appreciation. Ironically, these concept stocks have skyrocketed en masse, with a super high turnover rate and a combined rating of all selling.
Is the metaverse worthless?
The metaverse is valuable, and it can drive a lot of technological advancements. If in the future, every Internet company launches a meta-universe platform, after the technology matures, we may have to enter the virtual world.
For example, if you want to socialize in the United States, you must buy a VR glasses before you can log on to Facebook and communicate face-to-face with friends in the virtual world. In China, Tencent also has its own meta-universe platform, and you need the same way to talk about WeChat.
Companies that work on the dating software are likely to develop virtual venues where you can consume services on a per-a-session basis or in other billing ways as long as you buy a wearable.
This means that new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, VR, AR, quantum computers, and blockchain will be well applied, which will also accelerate the influx of capital into these technology fields and promote the maturity of technology.
But where exactly will the metaverse take humanity? This seems controversial.
Obviously, the illusory dreams that humans cannot achieve in reality can be realized in the virtual metaverse, and this attraction is huge.
Science fiction writer Liu Cixin said: "The future of mankind is either to go to interstellar civilization or to indulge in the virtual world of VR for many years. It would be a disaster if humanity achieved a highly realistic VR world before moving towards a space civilization. Liu Cixin feels that the metaverse is a very tempting and highly hallucinogenic "spiritual opium", and worries that human beings are immersed in the virtual world and rest on their own.
Compared with the metaverse, he admired Musk's construction of a second home for human beings on Mars and The human space travel business carried out by Bezos, because when humans could not survive on Earth, they must consider becoming planetary creatures. The exploration of space will help humanity escape the disaster on Earth.
The Heart of the Rock believes that the metaverse will definitely attract a large amount of capital, which is caused by the nature of capital. And when the metaversics develop into scale, they are bound to encounter policy regulation, because any legitimate government cannot allow itself to lose control of society, whether real or virtual.
At the same time, this also raises a philosophical question, if humans can enter the virtual world through devices and find a life parallel to reality in it, then, do humans live in the virtual world or live in the real world?
In addition, human beings should have experienced many civilizations, but they were too long to be recorded. Is Darwinian evolution wrong? Are humans really monkeys, or alien immigrants?
At present, for the colonization of Mars, Musk has basically gained the recognition of capital. Tesla has achieved a cosmic valuation, and SpaceX is constantly launching rockets.
Nowadays, the virtual metaverse and the real universe are on a par with each other, which seems to be quite good.
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