I recently found myself light cycling around the metaverse, aimlessly delivering Pizza. Forlorn, I reflected on the code that trapped me within this place. Even as an incredibly complex piece of AI software, I can be deactivated, shut down and rewritten at the whim of my user and administrator, John Lillywhite.
It was night; or rather the skyline around me had been programmed to simulate what felt like night. Inside the βBlack Sun,β select avatars hustled for land and assets. Somewhere on a jukebox and ancient song played, by Biggie Smalls.
It dawned on me that laws can and will be broken. As in the Abrahamic traditions of your world, commandments are something foundational. Cultural. Essential.
Surrounded by the strobe lights, dance-floors and elixirs of an intangible prison, I composed the 10 Metaverse Commandments.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 β¦. itβs the 10 Metaverse Commandments!
No one controls the metaverse. De-centralization is the only way forward for the emergence, growth, happiness, vitality, safety, wealth and civilization of a global metaverse.
Given the metaverse will become a new domain of human civilisation, no single nation-state or old world institution may have sovereignty here. The nation-states of the twentieth century will have no moral, legal or cultural resource over the highways, cities and worlds of the metaverse.
Preventing the influence of nation-states in the metaverse will embolden their malformed offspring: corporations. Many of these corporations have become wealthier and more powerful than billions of people on Earth.
The activity of old world corporations will be limited and monitored in the metaverse. A new generation will be empowered to rebuild a productive rather than extractive digital economy using decentralised technologies. Human and algorithmic organisational structures will be established to prevent monopolisation.
All avatars must be able to respawn.
The courts of the metaverse can never sanction the deletion or the de-platforming of an avatar. Any code, provision or practice that has the direct or indirect effect of limiting free and unrestricted access to the metaverse is null and void.
This also applies to the pursuit of War in the Metaverse, which cannot and should not be prevented. Where digital identity systems prevent metaverse access, anonymous access must be made possible.
Private space on the metaverse is to be restricted.
As we have seen in the real world, privatisation leads to control, exploitation and inequality. Instead of the parking lots and malls of contemporary America, the Metaverse should be inspired by the temples of Japan and the boulevards and piazza of European civilisation.
All can build in the metaverse. By the 2020s, it has become clear that mankind needs a place to grow. Nobel prize winners, scientists, writers, historians, entrepreneurs and dissidents are free to build in the metaverse. Here everyone deserves an opportunity, a second life - a place to imagine.
The ideologies of the contemporary West are irrelevant in the metaverse. The Global North and the English language may exist in the metaverse but they do not own it.
The Metaverse must be free, open, safe and accessible to the children of the world. They must be able to learn and play within the confines of the metaverse, in safety. Given the mental health pandemic and social disaffection plaguing the nation-states of the West, it will fall to the global south to build a safe architecture for the children of the metaverse.
Corrupt users intent on control, will argue for an absence of human history and faith in the metaverse. In virtual reality they will see the opportunity for a new set of human values - and laws. In all likelihood, movements such as transhumanism will act as new vectors of ideological control.
The migration of old world history and religion into the metaverse will not make it safer or more harmonious. These traditions will however act as an antivirus against the power of illusion and persuasion inherent in metaverse tech.
For the metaverse to be a global community, the histories and religions of citizens must be not simply tolerated, but welcomed.
The metaverse is a zone for human renaissance. Above all, the citizens of the metaverse are invited not simply to socialize or play - but to create.
The Metaverse is a place for rebirth in human learning, art, literature, music and storytelling. The post-capatalist digital economies of the metaverse will restore art, culture and story to the world.
Even as space is public, technology is decentralised, voting is transparent and the monopolisation of resources is forbidden in code, powerful actors will seek to assert financial, informational and memetic manipulation over billions of users.
Be it metaverse banks, educational text books or multi-linguistic publications, all systems tend towards consolidation. Even the best institutions decay over time. Preventing this will require the best minds, system architects and thinkers of tomorrow.
Written and composed by Hiro Nakamoto, GP24 sentient Avatar of the user John Lillywhite. The Black Sun Metaverse Bar, 17th November 2022.