Code is Law

Code is law. And it is not some technocratic turn-over nor geek’s wet dream. It is the essence of the metaverse.

Sure, we can make agreements and rules and everything and that is not the code, but that is civil law. We’re talking now about laws of nature. Our humans cannot agree to make gravity non-existent or stronger than it is. And just the same as planet Earth have its rules and laws so the metaverse have. The speed you can walk, the force you can apply to an object, the maximum height you can fly… they are all bounded by the code of second life or any other platform we’re using. You cannot enter the parcel surrounded with that ugly red sign. Nor you can make a sphere larger than 10 meters.

Ops! I saw spheres larger than that. Yes, you can hack the code. You can hack the law. It is discussable if that is the difference between nature law in the metaverse and on Earth. But what is important difference for sure is that contrary from Earth, in metaverse laws have been known from the beginning. It may be that they are, in any extent, hidden from the eyes of public, but there are people who wrote them, that maintain them and who know them. Technocrats? Yes.

Other big difference: Different set of laws is possible. We can imagine different worlds for our humans, from yellow sky to completely different physics like there is no gravity. But world our keyboards are in is like it is and there is no possibility to change so much. Metaverse can be different, and can change. Some changes could be applied as fast as uploading new set of textures. Some would take as much as regular down time every Wednesday. Some radical changes would cause a bit of trouble and lot of ranting over blogosphere for some scripts are not working anymore. But, it is possible.

And it happens. All those lovely flexy skirts and hair are possible thanks to new set of laws introduced a while ago. Things that gently follows the wind are possible thanks to the change in world’s physics.
We take the laws of the metaverse for granted. They fairly resemble what we are used to all our human lives. We easily adapt to flying, but we are thankful there is gravity. You can safely bet that population of any virtual world wouldn’t be tenth part of the actual if in-world physics is not like RL’s. Question is, at which point we are going to feel alienated due to differences between metaverse and Earth? Which “unnaturality” which is possible in metaverse shall we reject. Maybe even develop some kind of phobia? Which surrounding will induce nausea and sea sickness?

Of course it vary from person to person, and of course most people could slowly adapt. But the next set of questions comes: How different our worlds we want to be? Is metaverse just new territory that should be as same as possible? Or we building new ground with new conditions? And in which direction are we moving? Usability? Hedonism? Or are we still experiment in every direction we can?

We are still young. There is no real serious metaverse yet. But it develops very fast. Infrastructure grows faster than our capability to efficiently use it. It took at least ten years for humankind to adopt to existence of internet. And don’t think that process of symbiosis is over. And now imagine the time humans will need to get familiar with virtual world as a part of their living.