The Metaverse — Should you be afraid? Probably.

Being exposed to entrepreneurs and new innovations I find myself at times quite conflicted about where we are headed as a species. A lot of my friends are in the Meta space these days and as a technologist I appreciate the breakneck speed of progress. My legal mind constantly pumps the brakes, trying to analyze the pros and cons as well as the potential ramifications.
I find that my ethicist self is becoming alarmed more and more often that we are lacking the ability to see the forest for the trees. I set out to write this article to see what conclusions I arrive at when it comes to the Metaverse and humans as an ongoing concern.

Let’s start with some facts. Homo-erectus survived for over 2 million years painting caves. Homo-sapiens have been around for 300,000 years, created religion about 5000 years ago, visited space 60 years ago and invented the internet about 30 years ago. This is a dizzying path. The next step seems more like a conclusion than a progression to the human experiment as we know it. Our technological evolution has exponentially accelerated.

I am not so certain that our ability to comprehend consequences has caught up. Our tools have gotten more complex but the underlying biological engineering of our minds is still that of a primate trying to survive, procreate and feed.