Tips & Tricks for negotiating The Metaverse with........Pooky Amsterdam
Peter Diamandis is the Founder of the ANA Avatar X prize which looks to develop avatars which can transcend their natural borders of screen to traverse distant geographic locations where they might be needed more. The $10 million Xprize will be given to an avatar system which feels real. This prize is to spur on development of avatars, avatar sentience and presence. 20 teams have already been selected to compete.
Q21: Will The Metaverse lead to new scientific discoveries?
Years ago there was a $10 Million Qualcomm XPrize for a "Star-Trek like" medical tricorder.Would this have occurred without Star Trek itself? While I do not have a crystal ball for this answer, I do know that science fiction's new inventions inspire reality. Science Fiction has storytelling at its core, we both utilize these stories and the gadgets within them for templates of the future.
Those of us in The Metaverse must take on an avatar form in order to enter them, but we never leave our human presence behind, or rather we are all too human behind our avatars, bringing our personalities with us. The development of an avatar with a physical presence, does not necessarily entail an avatar who is nice to other avatars, in this brief there are no prompts which give points for creating a calm, loving or healing avatar. This is to deploy a human like presence when human presence isn't available or desirable, as in there aren't resources to sustain the human, when an avatar can take up less space. It's mind-bendingly futuristic, but could this prize be offered without The Metaverse having come first?
Writers of Science Fiction, are Writers of the Future, Neal Stephenson is someone whose "Snowcrash" not only inspired Second Life, but who has now stepped forward to be apart of a new creation of his own Metaverse. Here is a link to the white paper he just dropped on his THEEE metaverse which is coming on the Lamina1 blockchain, an open framework for all. What a powerful moment of time this must be for him, to have written a book and be able to create what he wrote about 30 years later. Just as young Star Trek fans were greatly influenced by what they saw on the weekly TV show, here is a crossover effect for science, fiction and fact.
Pointedly, storytelling is more than entertainment, it is free imagining which leads to actualization, as it carries an audience along, allows that audience to dream with the writer, and even continue that writing onto other forms. Traditional media told us a story in Movie, or TV format where we used to watch passively. Video games allow us to play within the games story, within the first week of its release, Star Wars: The Old Republic recorded 60 million in-game hours played (which is roughly equivalent to watching all 6 Star Wars movies over 4 million times). And 3 years ago this month SWTOR was closing in on a billion dollars of lifetime revenue, making it an incredible return on it's original $200 million dollar budget. This narrative structure is somewhat tightly drawn, and the players are forced to work within the game designers story, but the title inspires many who wish to keep the franchise alive at all times.
Surely these players use the available assets and create their own interpretations of the future they are playing a part in. The Imperial Agent in SWTOR will have to acquire new skills and equipment to help them combat the ever growing threat to the Empire, they have to think fast and deploy as fast as they can. This is no leisurely adventure: action and reflexes are the demands of this kind of game. The player is involved with the technology in new and highly immersive ways, but the scope of the story does not depend on the Players originality, but on their ability to work the buttons.
The question becomes: Do you play someone else's story? Or do you organize your own? The billions of dollars of investment in The Metaverse wait and see on that. The Metaverse member becomes their own story participant so the narrative they are living will be taken to another level through immersion. The authenticity of that story though becomes irrefutable and becomes entwined with who you are when it's something you are living, not playing, not waiting for the next game prompt, but originating yourself. So the question is: Is there more money in playing somebody's else life or one's own?
In The Metaverse, we can author our own new fiction, and our first person story becomes a multi-person story with whom we meet and with whom we form events of our virtual lives. There certainly is some Science Fiction roleplay in what we are doing in the Metaverse, not just with starbases and spaceships, but with customization of our avatars and authoring our events in far out formats. How enterprise will grow out of these storylines means new invention will occur within these virtual environments that help us stretch our imaginations and fantasy. And these ideas will be taken even further and form the seeds of a new reality, not only as it will be, but as it is now! While brands want a big place in that, the goal should be the experience we take with us and come back for. Monetization of user behaviors to enable selling of stuff, needs users to monitor and users need a fun and meaningful experience.
While I am one person, and can think of a lot, I am only one person, with "you" there are twice as many ideas, and with a legion of folks enterprising and playing we can think of that much more. Stephenson does need creators, every Metaverse needs us as creators and should have a place for us. In the Hive Mind more can be produced. We are beyond merely suspending our belief, we are willingly putting ourselves into a new story of our virtual lives which will grow and evolve daily, and / or every time we log in. Second Life, which was inspired by SnowCrash, isn't just a game, the Metaverse is not just a game, even if you can play games within them. It is our life stories told against a virtual backdrop and yes, some of it is of our creation, just like on Earth itself.
This living story we are telling one another is vital to the history of ourselves. Being active participants in something we can experience beyond the "mere mortal-ness" of our daily and present lives. Powerful stuff. I do look to this Metaverse plane to create the new inventions, new discoveries because it is what we are doing in this new creator marketplace which will be setting the physical world in wonder within the next decade or so.
And The Metaverse is a kind of Thought Kitchen of the future as well. Not only is this a place for people to create their own stories, but also where actual scientists and educators are talking. This is the platform for the development of the future, as we can use full media within the environment, where we can invite scientists to sit across a virtual table, actual location unimportant. We can even use Wolfram Alpha on a prim to cross fertilize ideas in real time with no limits, follow up with 3D actualizations for all to investigate further and continue to build upon.
What we can invent, discover, uncover and realize in The Metaverse will make it the home of future thought leaders as we utilize not only real time interaction, video, film, etc for problem solving, but the even greater resources which are one another.
If you have a question, please email info@pookystudio.com with Metaquette in the subject line and it will be answered!
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