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Snow Crash: A Novel
So where does the metaverse come from? A common answer—the clear and tidy one—is that it comes from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, which describes a computer-generated virtual world made possible by software and a worldwide fiber-optic network. In the book’s 21st-century Los Angeles, the world is messy, replete with social
... See moreGenevieve Bell • The Metaverse Is a New Word for an Old Idea
With technology increasing, we’ll move closer and closer to Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse in Snow Crash, where we live as much online as offline and conduct ourselves according to the online laws and customs, working in the cybereconomy.
James Dale Davidson • The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State
In the three decades that have passed since Snow Crash was published, many of the underpinnings of Stephenson’s virtual world, such as social networks and artificial intelligence, have materialized. And the metaverse, like other ideas foreshadowed in the cyberpunk tradition, has persistently found its way into broader conversation. It has featured
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