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So I think that’s kind of what we need to focus on if we’re talking about the future of metaverse-type applications. And so, in retrospect, that seems like kind of the obvious play, but I didn’t see it coming, necessarily. So, I mean, what they did was they came up with a business model that’s not really anticipated in “Snow Crash,” which is this idea that you could give people a free-to-play application and then monetize their eyeballs and their personal data. , they botched it from your point of view and my point of view.
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Are you worried about that? neal stephenson You and I were around in the early days, and that was the idea, but people with giant corporations that made billions of dollars sort of botched it a little bit. Well, Neal, people said that about the internet. I mean, it’s certainly part of this dystopian world, but in and of itself, it’s just an entertainment medium. The metaverse, I think, is kind of neutral. I mean, “Snow Crash” is clearly a dystopian novel, although it’s also kind of poking fun at dystopian novels. Do you continue to share those concerns, given that you were the one that put them forth? neal stephenson He said you were right when you originally wrote about a virtual world owned by corporations where end users were treated as citizens in a dystopian corporate dictatorship. Jack Dorsey has been openly critical of Meta’s metaverse. So Twitter co-founder and now former C.E.O. Nobody there has communicated with me, and I don’t have any insight, really, into what they’re doing other than glimpsing bits of the video and hurriedly clicking away from them. Fortnite, you know, is an enormously successful game played by hundreds of millions of people. I mean, we’ve had multiplayer online games for a long time. Changing of outfits was also something I did, I don’t know, 10 years ago. It didn’t feel very fresh in my estimation. And so it’s hard for me to make out what they claim to be doing that’s new, other than maybe implementing those old ideas on a larger scale for a broader audience. The idea of playing a board game with somebody virtually across the table from you who’s actually far away. The idea of holding virtual meetings where everyone’s represented by an avatar. So I haven’t paid a lot of detailed attention.
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So, can you explain how Meta and Zuckerberg’s vision of the metaverse differs from the one you created in your novel 30 years ago? neal stephenson This is a step up in the amount of attention - kara swisher That’s been going on for a long time since “Snow Crash” came out. You know, it’s flattering when people take ideas from a book that you’ve written and try to realize those ideas. Why did he think it was a loss? neal stephenson I just got a text from a friend of mine out of the blue that said, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I had no idea what he was talking about. Did you watch Zuckerberg’s announcement? And what was your initial reaction? neal stephenson This is an idea you introduced in your 1992 breakthrough book “Snow Crash,” which I think every techie has read completely and quotes from. And he spoke at length about Facebook’s plans to create a version of the metaverse. In October, Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of Facebook as Meta. Neal Stephenson, welcome to “Sway.” So I’m really looking forward to talking about your new book, “Termination Shock.” But I wanted to start with something that’s been in the news a lot in the past couple of months, which you commented on. So, I obviously wanted to ask Neal about what it’s like to see his ideas come into the real world, and if there’s anything to be optimistic about when it comes to climate change. In a review, The New York Times called him a “speculative polymath, a hadron-collider of a mind.” Wow. In it, Stephenson creates a world that’s overrun by the effects of climate change. His latest book, “Termination Shock,” does exactly that. Stephenson’s novels are about the future, of course, but more than anything, reading them makes you feel like he can see into the future. He writes worlds into existence that many sci-fi lovers like myself know and love, like the ones he created in “Snow Crash” and “Cryptonomicon.” And the futuristic concepts in his books have inspired real world inventions - ideas you might have heard of, like the metaverse and Bitcoin. I’m Kara Swisher, and you’re listening to “Sway.” My guest today is author Neal Stephenson. When you walk in the room, do you have sway? kara swisher The novelist Neal Stephenson on Facebook’s next move and how you can survive the climate crisis.
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Transcript He Conceived of the Metaverse in the ’90s.