It's been slow, metaverse happening. We got the world wide web instead.
Now we have social networks. The movie The Matrix tacitly hid that whoever designs a fake reality controls its laws and hence its people's choices, which became more apparent to the public with social networks. Changes if spies/hackers/ais are directing things instead of the virtual reality manufacturer. Regardless, having a safe metaverse is analogous to have a safe line of brain implants, a safe monopolistic social network, a safe monopolistic news agency, a safe GPU provider etc. We need things to be run by public, free, community code, and most important we turn into borg slaves if we rely on a system, cultural component, or technology that is monopolistic, anywhere in the chain. It's happening right now with the IP stack. People look to radio, snail mail, personal visits, but really everyone's addicted to the internet. A big wifi antenna labelled "IP routing infrastructure" sticking out of everybody's eyeball. As security reduces, our tools prepare to instill our next global dictator, because in the span of a decade or two we all forgot how to use a pencil. Nobody paid attention when some raised warnings, because nobody knew all the cards that might be played. If there's a vulnerability, somebody can use it to prevent the closing of it. Others will be planning for that. So, like everyone else will common-sensically parrot, make sure to hack and clone your metaverse. Run it on a toaster you built yourself, or a 3d-printed intelligent rock. Reverse engineer the marketing protocols and get a collection of vr-addicted human drones to build a real world set of open hardware community spaceships. Then we can all see the real galaxy of aliens, for free. BTW. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59090067
Regards Stefan