The meta mafia

Here’s something Mark Zuckerberg said during his indescribably weird announcement video hawking Facebook’s shift into the so-called metaverse:

There are going to be new ways of interacting with devices that are much more natural. Instead of typing or tapping, you’re going to be able to gesture with your hands, say a few words, or even just make things happen by thinking about them. Your devices won’t be the focal point of your attention anymore. Instead of getting in the way, they’re going to give you a sense of presence in the new experiences that you’re having and the people who you’re with. And these are some of the basic concepts for the metaverse.

There are many things to say about this little snippet—not to mention the rest of his address. (I’m eagerly awaiting the 10,000-word blog-disquisition on the Zuck’s repeated reference to “presence” by contradistinction to real presence.) But here’s the main thing I want to home in on.

In our present practice, per the CEO of Facebook-cum-Meta, devices have become the “focal point” of our “attention.” Whereas in the future being fashioned by Meta, our devices will no longer “get in the way” of our “presence” to one another. Instead, those pesky devices now out of the way, the obstacles will thereby be cleared for the metaverse to facilitate, mediate, and enhance the “sense of presence” we’ve lost in the device-and-platform obsessions of yesteryear.

Now suppose, as a thought experiment, that an anti–Silicon Valley Luddite wanted to craft a statement and put it into the mouthpiece of someone who stands for all that’s wrong with the digital age and our new digital overlords—a statement rife with subtle meanings legible only to the initiated, crying out for subtextual Straussian interpretation. Would one word be different in Zuckerberg’s script?

To wit: a dialogue.

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Question: Who introduced those ubiquitous devices, studded with social media apps, that now suck up all our attention, robbing us of our sense of presence?

Answer: Steve Jobs, in cahoots with Mark Zuckerberg, circa 15 years ago.

Question: And what is the solution to the problem posed by those devices—a problem ranging from partisan polarization to teen addiction to screens to social anomie to body image issues to political unrest to reduced attention spans to diffuse persistent low-grade anxiety to massive efforts at both disinformation and censorship—a problem, recall, introduced by (among others) Mr. Zuckerberg, which absorbs and deprives us all, especially young people, of the presence and focus necessary to inhabit and navigate the real world?

Answer: The metaverse.

Question: And what is that?

Answer: An all-encompassing digital “world” available via virtual reality headsets, in which people, including young people, may “hang out” and “socialize” (and “teleport” and, what is the Zuck’s go-to weasel word, “connect”) for hours on end with “avatars” of strangers that look like nothing so much as gooey Minecraft simulacra of human beings.

Question: And who, pray tell, is the creator of the metaverse?

Answer: Why, the creator of Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta.

Question: So the problem with our devices is not that they absorb our attention, but that they fall short of absolute absorption?

Answer: Exactly!

Question: So the way the metaverse resolves the problem of our devices’ being the focal point of our attention is by pulling us into the devices in order to live inside them? So that they are no longer “between” or “before” us but around us?

Answer: Yes! You’re getting closer.

Question: Which means the only solution to the problem of our devices is more and better devices?

Answer: Yes! Yes! You’re almost there!

Question: Which means the author of the problem is the author of the solution?

Answer: You’ve got it. You’re there.

Question: In sum, although the short-sighted and foolish-minded among us might suppose that the “obvious solution” to the problem of Facebook “is to get rid of Facebook,” the wise masters of the Valley propose the opposite: “Get rid of the world”?

Answer: This is the way. You’ve arrived. Now you love Big Zuckerberg.

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Lest there be any doubt, there is a name for this hustle. It’s a racket. When a tough guy smashes the windows of your shop, after which one of his friends comes by proposing to protect you from local rowdy types, only (it goes without saying) he requires a weekly payment under the table, you know what’s happening. You’re not grateful; you don’t welcome the proposal. It’s the mafia. And mob protection is fake protection. It’s not the real thing. The threat and the fix wear the same face. Maybe you aren’t in a position to decline, but either way you’re made to be a fool. Because the humiliation is the point.

Mark Zuckerberg is looking us in the eyes and offering to sell us heroin to wean us off the cocaine he sold us last year.

It’s a sham; it’s a racket; it’s the mob; it’s a dealer.

Just say no, y’all.

Just. Say. No.