I have been thinking about Snow Crash, a science fiction novel, by Neal Stephenson for a few days now. The thoughts were triggered after reading The McDonaldization of Society article by George Ritzer as part of a coursework for Elephants and Cheetahs by Prof Saral Mukherjee in IIM Ahmedabad.

In the article, author talks about what is peak standardization and what will happen to humanity once we achieve that level of standardization – essentially what we see at McDonald’s from an operational point of view. Ritzer has proposed that such a society will be characterized by efficiency, predictability, calculability, substitution of nonhuman for human technology, and control over uncertainty. Let us look at each one of these –

Efficiency – In a rational society, major emphasis will be placed on how efficiently an end can be achieved. Whatever gets defined as an end, a great deal of resources will be invested in figuring out how to achieve that efficiently. Interestingly, Ritzer takes the example of Nazi concentration camps where the emphasis was on how to make the killing mechanisms more and more efficient. Once an end is decided, only efficiency gains matter to achieve that end.

In the context of McDonald’s and fast-food restaurants in general, the emphasis is on serving the food as efficiently as possible. If eating is a must, which generally is, and you need to do it in the most time-efficient manner – fast-food is the answer. The food delivery apps and services are also trying to achieve this. Delivery in 30 minutes or less – anyone?

Predictability – The second characteristic of a rational society is predictability. Your favourite food or beverage will be the same and predictable no matter where you go. Fast-food restaurants spend a lot of resources to ensure this kind of predictability. Starting from streamlining the procurement of raw material to standardizing the food preparation and the service procedures.

Calculability or Quantity rather than Quality – Ritzer considers emphasis on quantifiable measures to be the most defining characteristic of a rational society. Standardization using quantitative measures seem to disturb him the most – one of the most telling examples he has picked and which I agree with (going through the experience now) is rating of teachers in an educational institution. Teaching ability is hard to evaluate – but the administrators have to do the evaluation. So they have gone quantitative – ask the students to grade teachers through opinion polls, sum the scores, take average and compare. He says –

“easy teachers in “gut” courses may well obtain high ratings while rigorous teachers of difficult courses are likely to score poorly. .”

Ritzer also asks the reader to think about why it’s “Big Mac” and not “Good Mac”. Size is measurable, quality is notoriously hard to measure.

Substitution of Nonhuman technology – When Ritzer wrote this article, “drone-based delivery” was still in future. But he mentions that there is a reason why the interactions in the fast-food restaurants feel like interacting with robotized humans. There is a standard for everything – even how to greet and how to say “what will you have”. As he says –

“McDonald’s does not yet have robots to serve us food, but it does have teenagers whose ability to act autonomously is almost completely eliminated by techniques, procedures, routines, and machines.”

When McDonald’s will be able to deliver the same level of service through robots more efficiently, it will do so. Rationalizing the society further.

Control – The last of the five characteristics of the rational society is Control. What is the major source of uncertainty in your life? If you think for a moment – you will see that its other people. In a rational society, there will be procedures to control this uncertainty. Assembly line was the first major step towards ensuring this kind of control. But that control is only on the employees, fast-food restaurants have extended it to the other side of the counter and they control the behaviour of the customers also in the pursuit of further rationalization.

In conclusion of the article, Ritzer introduces “Irrationality of Rationality” and calls it the inevitable by-product of the process of the rationalization. He says that if you look at the arms race, then the focus on the quantifiable aspects of the nuclear weapons may have actually made the occurrence of a nuclear war more unpredictable. But the biggest negative effect of such a rational system is on the individuals who work for them and are served by them. He says that this rationalization brings in a certain “dehumanization” and people are reduced to working like robots. Two sentences from his article were quite thought provoking for me –

“Rationalization also tends to bring with it disenchantment leaving much of our lives without any mystery or excitement. ……………..  Overall a fully rational society would be a very bleak and uninteresting place.”

I read it and my brain protested – “We won’t allow that to happen.”

Another voice said – “But don’t you see, this rationalization is in progress. Evidenced all around us. Better to bow down to the efficiency exemplified by McDonald’s.”

And then a voice that drowned every other thought – “Whatever happens – humans will make the place interesting and exciting. They can’t survive boredom. Remember Snow Crash.”

Snow Crash and Pizza delivery

“The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He’s got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing for his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.”

In this opening paragraph of Snow Crash, The Deliverator is a pizza delivery guy. This is America of the super globalized future, which only does four things better than anyone else –

Music, Movies, Microcode (Software) and High Speed Pizza Delivery.

Pizza delivery is now a major industry, a managed industry. You have to go to CosaNostra Pizza University for four years just to learn it.

“The Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car and file a class-action suit.”

The rationalization of Ritzer is complete in this society. In the physical world, the Americans have found a way to keep things exciting. Pizza in thirty minutes or free will be boring, how about bring a gun in the mix. Humans can’t survive boredom. We need to have some place where we can engage our brains.

Think about it. Imagine a fully rational society which is a bleak and uninteresting place. If you take a sufficient number of people in that society, you can imagine a certain percentage of them flipping to make things interesting – in any manner, playing God or playing Devil. We can’t remain uninteresting for long.

So what happens to the hard fought and hard won rationality if humans are going to upend it sooner or later? The answer is simple – “We will upend it only if we are bored. Make sure that we are not bored.”

The Metaverse

Welcome to The Metaverse. Stephenson’s metaverse is an urban environment based virtual reality. He has envisioned it as a city spread around a single hundred meters wide road running through the circumference of a perfectly spherical planet. People access it through their personal terminals which project high quality virtual reality display on goggles worn by them or through public terminals in booths which give a low quality black and white grainy reality. Fun fact for the nerdly inclined ones, the circumference of the planet is 65536 km (2¹⁶ km) and the monorail that serves for transport has 256 express ports 2⁸ kms apart. There are some users who are permanently connected in the metaverse and because of the goggles look like gargoyles and are called so.

The story of Snow Crash takes place in the Metaverse as well as in the physical world. Stephenson explores languages, mythology, computers, philosophy and the history of cryptography in this novel. I spent a substantial amount of time to read up on the Code of Hammurabi, Asherah, Enki and the ancient theories of creation after reading this book. It was a fascinating exploration in ancient history which is difficult to tell apart from myth.

The Future

We saw a version of the metaverse recently in Ernst Cline’s novel “Ready Player One” (read it, its better than the movie). Some have argued that The Matrix was also a metaverse and even the Wikipedia page on the Metaverse lists The Matrix as a metaverse. But there is a difference – In the Metaverse you do not completely forget that you also exist in another reality, you choose to walk out of the Metaverse – pull the plug, so to speak. In The Matrix, that choice is not there. Just my view, of course.

So, what is next? Since the time Mr. Zuckerberg announced that he is going to rename his organization to “Meta” because he plans to build a “metaverse”, I have been thinking “the future is here, folks!” If the Metaverse develops to be what has been envisaged in these books, here are some speculations –

1. Class divide – Anything that needs a means to access a world creates a divide between the haves and the have nots. A part of humanity will have access to the metaverse as it gets created by Mr. Zuckerberg and Co, and another part – probably the larger one will not have access. Will this divide the already divided society further?
3. I think that to start with, it will. But convergence happens and these days the convergence happens sooner rather than later. The Metaverse doesn’t come into existence on its own, a profit driven organization creates it. And the “unserved customers” have to be brought in. Google and Jio teaming up to launch a cheap smart phone is not driven from an altruistic core. The unserved have to be served.
5. Privacy and Anonymity – As you start living out your life in the Metaverse, how private your life will be. The big corporations will know all about you, but in the verse, you will be anonymous to almost everyone. Your Avatar will have to build a life of its own. The reputations within the verse will be different from whatever life you have in the physical world. Is that a concern? Depends on the point of view.
7. Meaning of Life – Imagine yourself to be a part of many of the marginalized communities who have to struggle for their voice to be heard and who are clamouring for recognition of their uniqueness. In the verse, the uniqueness will be the reason for celebration. They will be able to live their life on their own terms in the world of make-believe. The fulfilment will be instant and absolute. What will be the meaning of life then and its purpose. Will we go for replicating the newfound fulfilment from virtual to physical world, or, will we start spending more time in the virtual.
9. New celebrities – The latest celebrities on Instagram are the star kids. They have not done much in their lives yet, but they have got the genes. The genes of a superstar, and that is enough to get them a million followers on Instagram. In the new world of Avatars, the rules will be re-written. It won’t matter who you are in the physical world unless you want that to be known. But imagine calling out yourself as the star kid and then getting beaten by some street punk who has a bigger reputation than yours in the verse. Ready Player One plays out this theme admirably.

What happens to the Social Media Influencers then? I think the influencers who have worked to build their influence will again work to build their influence and may well succeed. But the influencers who have got the influence as a side effect of who they are in the physical world, may well lose out. Watch out Virat Kohli.

The marketplace – The Metaverse will have it’s own marketplace. Things which have no existence in the physical world will command premium in this market. In fact, we don’t need to wait for the metaverse for this. The cryptocurrencies and the NFTs are nothing more than a series of ones and zeroes which exist on a network. But they are paid for by real money of the physical world. There will be a new class of rich who will derive their wealth from the world of this make-believe.

Finally, just remember – it is all Fiction till it becomes Reality

If you haven’t read it yet – consider reading Snow Crash. The likelihood that it’ll be considered canonical in a decade’s time is really high.

You can let me know your thoughts on this post through the comments section. May we keep inspiring each other.