day no. 16,341: meta is beta

Isaiah 5:20-21

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;

that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; 

that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes,

and prudent in their own sight!

There are few things more beta than Meta. Nothing quite cries, “I can’t get the girl,” like inventing an online one. 

What could be lamer than crutches complaining about broken legs? What could be more cowardly than retreat? What could be more ungrateful than spending your life pretending to be alive somewhere else? What could be more audacious than criticizing the real world from the safety of an artificial one? The artificial is derivative of the actual. Shadows cannot exist without light and shade cannot be thrown at the actual without first borrowing from it.

Woe to those who call the real "evil" and the fake "good" and put the actual on trial while putting on parades for the artificial.

"Bemused and besotted as we are, we still dimly know at heart that nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges, that it should be resistant, should be itself. Dream-furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang your knee." — C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

Meta is beta. It is a world where you never stub your toe. It is full of packing peanuts and knee pads. By trying to eliminate every obstacle to self expression it eliminates the meaning of self. It eradicates the opportunity to prove yourself by cancelling all adversity and adversaries. 

Meta is suicide. It is a full scale rejection of reality. It forsakes itself as creation by attempting to be its own creator. It is like the snake devouring its own tail and calling the result eternity. It consumes its own end once it begins.

Meta is mass murder. It doesn't merely eliminate the self, it seeks to eviscerate all selves. It unsubscribes to every outside influence and suffocates in the vacuum of self-indulgence. 

Firsthand experience will always trump secondhand speculation. Virtual reality is a cut-rate reality. The only thing real about it is the machinery and accouterments required to keep it running.

Speculation may look up for now and guess, but revelation will always come down in the end and remove all doubt.

“Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.” — G.K. Chesterton