P2E Dystopia

This is an article by an old gamer who's worried about the financialization of literally everything. It's this neoliberal brain-disease that says that something's worth your precious time only if there's a tangible reward after you've spent it. I hope that at the end of this article you'll see just how dystopian this development is.

_{source: Dreamstime}

There was a time, not so long ago, when we played games just to have fun. And games were made for us to have fun. I think almost all of us remember a time when we played a game for hours upon hours, trying to reach one more level, to get that one armor or weapon or to defeat a pesky boss that stood between us and progression for way too long already, only to wake up from our trance and realize it's four o' clock in the morning and we still hadn't finished our homework yet. We would then sometimes curse the game and blame ourselves for having wasted our time on such a fruitless endeavor. That armor, weapon or boss will still be in the game tomorrow, but that homework needs to be done right now!

Well, we need not fear such guilty feelings again, as the Play-to-Earn gaming model promises an end to "time wasted" by merely playing a game. Better yet: the more time spent in the virtual world of magic, monsters and treasure, the more rewards await you at the end of the journey. Doesn't that sound just lovely? No, really, ask yourself that question. Is that something you want? Is that something we want as a society? The way I see it, that guilty feeling after hours of game-play was a way of reminding me of something that's more important. It reminded me that there's a real world out there, with real people who have real responsibilities, and that I'm one of them.

I mentioned the financialization of everything, so let me explain what I mean by that, and how this goes hand-in-hand with the virtualization and gamification of everything.

There's been much talk lately about the "Metaverse," a portmanteau of the words "meta" and "universe." The technical description is simply a network of Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) worlds, to form a complete virtual environment wherein everything we do is replicated and virtualized; a world in which we live a second-hand life through our digital representations called "avatars." That's an elaborate way of saying that it's all fake; a fake self trodding around in a fake world, interacting with fake others. The Matrix and Ready Player One come to mind immediately as examples of this dystopian future we're headed for. The discussion about the Metaverse is intimately linked to the discussion about virtual money, virtual economy and NFTs, for obvious reasons. In this virtual world we can buy and sell virtual property with virtual money; this is how the virtualization of everything accelerates the financialization of everything.

I say "accelerates" and not "causes" because the financialization of everything predates the metaverse and virtual money. The neoliberal paradigm that rules the real world has already convinced us that markets driven by money, private property and profits are the answer to all questions regarding human interaction. Interaction, wherever possible, should become transaction, preferably with some sort of (smart) contract regulating and formalizing the deal. The for profit economy has become the measure of all things; if it's not profitable, it's not worth our time or effort.

Let's take education. We used to know that education is crucial for our societies. We made an investment in our schools and educational systems, not for immediate profits, but for the long term benefit of our children and society as a whole. The children are the future after all. Since the 1980s however, we've been told and made to believe that all investments should yield short term profits, that the "markets know best," and that the government is "inefficient" because it doesn't yield such profits and wastes money. So schools and universities became for profit institutions. Gone are the school cafeterias with wholesome foods for next to no money, and in come the vending machines with chocolates and Coca Cola. For profit education prepping young minds for a for profit existence...

Even our attention is now an asset to be traded and competed over. It's called the Attention Economy, the designation of human attention as a scarce commodity to be competed over. If you've read my post $Code == $Law, you'll understand that the algorithms under the surface of all major online social platforms are the code that direct, grab and hold our attention for as long as possible. Facebook (now Meta), YouTube, Instagram and Tik Tok are in fact billion dollar infrastructures aimed at your brain. To be more precise, they're aimed at the oldest parts of your brain, the parts that predate reason, the instincts that were crucial for our survival on the savanna in prehistoric times.

The monetization of attention becomes more profitable, so the scientists in service of the aforementioned social media behemoths have learned, when the algorithms play on our most primitive emotions; fear and anger. Do the terms "Fear Of Missing Out" and "Outrage Culture" ring a bell? Fear and anger translated into behavioral impulses fueled by financial incentives. A good headline isn't one that informs, but one that triggers outrage; that sells newspapers, attracts viewers and acts as effective click-bait. It's safe to say that we indeed live in an age of outrage and misinformation, the unavoidable outcomes of the financialization of attention and information. And do not for a second believe that "Fear Of Missing Out" is a new thing; every advertisement that says "Limited stock! Buy NOW!!" or "This is a limited time offer!!" prays on the same fear.

What I'm trying to say here is that we, our information, our privacy, our dreams and wishes and, most of all, our fears have become products, manufactured for the profitability of players in the attention economy. And if that's not dystopian enough for you, we've become mirror-images of these big players, especially after the introduction of decentralized blockchain economies; we, as individuals, have taken on a mindset of omnipresent profitability, on-boarding and of-boarding projects according to their (perceived) profitability. Ask yourself why you're on this platform. Is it to make money or is it because you love doing what I'm doing right now; putting thoughts, opinions and ideas to text? Are you driven by profits, or by an inner urge to convey words, phrases and paragraphs with the aim of sharing those thoughts, opinions and ideas, maybe even convince a soul or two of their veracity?

So what about the gamification of everything, you might ask by now. For an example of that aspect of our future dystopia look no further than China. If you're a gamer, you're familiar with the concept of experience points; your playable character progresses through the game-world, slaying enemies, finding treasure, interacting with NPCs and solving puzzles, all the while ramping up experience points you can use to improve your character by assigning those points to several skills. This is one of the main attractions of Role Playing Games (RPGs); it enables players to craft a completely unique character that can progress through the gaming world with the skills chosen by the player; do you want to fight your way to the next level using brute strength, or do you want to circumvent enemies through stealth? In a good RPG both are possible as well as many other strategies. In China citizens are now awarded "social credits" for "good behavior." It's experience points translated to real life, but in the inverse. The way the points are rewarded take away choice, and force "players" to adopt one strategy only; to be a good citizen. Of course, points are removed when behaving "bad" like criticizing the government or crossing a red light.

The China example already shows a dystopian fusion between the virtual and real world, so now imagine the Metaverse; how easy would it be for the designers of the Metaverse to implement the same reverse gamification in the world of their making? Will our virtual selves become subject to similar kinds of ranking-schemes? If we look at the algorithms that steer our attention and behavior right now on existing social platforms, the answer is a resounding "yes." Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and especially Tik Tok have already been accused of, and in the case of Facebook and Tik Tok admitted to, being responsible for knowingly spreading misinformation and prioritizing certain standards of beauty and wealth, causing much insecurity and anxiety among users who already are insecure about their appearance, their looks.

Another type of gamification is seen in the many "gold farming" practices in low wage and high inflation countries; people make playing the game their daily job, and have been doing so since long before the blockchain-based games and NFT games introduced P2E by trading in-game gold for real-world money:

The practice of buying and selling digital goods for real currency is not new, but this economic activity has become more universal as online communities grow and become big business. Venezuela made international news when many citizens turned to Gold Farming as their primary source of income, finding that it provided more financial stability than regular sources of employment. The practice has become so widespread that it even has its own Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica page.
_{source: Nasdaq}

In the video I share with you today it's mentioned that teenage suicides are on a sharp rise since social media platforms went mobile on our phones. Professional advertisers are masters in the art of making us feel unhappy, unfulfilled, wanting more, and now beautiful people with beautiful lives are fulfilling the same role on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok; they have become the perfect advertisement of these social platforms, the perfect depictions of perfect lifes that will be unattainable for most of us, keeping us hungry, wanting more and ultimately disappointed.

That's awful. We've really become mirror-images of the virtual platforms that shape us into real-world spawns of their dystopian business model. With the vision of the Metaverse, with VR and AR glasses and headsets, soon to be complemented with tactile inputs through VR suits, the line between what's real and not will be blurred even more. Picture this: you've just met a wonderful person online. The two of you just "click" and have conversations deep into the night. That person points to a couple of articles they've written, and you immediately feel an even deeper connection because they speak words that perfectly describe how you feel about the world, politics, life and everything else. You think you've found the perfect partner... Only problem is that all the time you've been talking to an AI, and you've been reading articles "written" by that AI. This is already happening. Articles are written by AI connected to web-crawlers that search the web on trending headlines. This is done through GPT-3, an automated language model that uses deep learning to produce text that's indistinguishable from text produced by real people. These AIs are powered by the data we collectively and willingly put online about ourselves.

The financialization, virtualization and gamification of everything is an unholy trinity that's upon us and will create a perfect storm in which it will be a challenge to not lose sight of each other and our own selves. Play to earn, NFTs, blockchain technology, Web 3.0 and digital currencies will all play a big role in the making of our future virtual world. Let's not comply with it. Let's stay vigilant and guard against the addiction to digitally induced dopamine, fear and outrage. So I invite you all to watch the below linked video, share it and this article with anyone who still has enough of an attention-span to absorb this important information. And thank you for reaching this far into this old man's rant; I really appreciate you spending some of your valuable time and attention here ;-)

_{Why we should be worried about the Metaverse & the Attention Economy}

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