Snow Crash
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The founders of Linden Lab were inspired by Neal Stephenson's science fiction novel Snow Crash.
Snow Crash is credited as the first work to introduce the concept of avatars and metaverses. Snow Crash takes place in the near future in the U.S., where the power of government has weakened and franchise nations have become powerful." Franchise states have their own laws and security regimes, and the power of the president does not extend to them.
A similar structure can be seen in Metaverse, where certain areas are set up so that only certain members can enter.
The worldview of Snow Crash reflects libertarianism, an ideology that advocates minimal state intervention. In the work, the metaverse and the real world exist in parallel and do not intersect.
The protagonist, Hiro, is a pizza delivery man, but also a prominent hacker who writes the code for the combat rules in the metaverse. The story begins with a viral attack in Metaverse
Hiro's friend Da5id is infected with the Snow Crash virus and is sent to the hospital in the real world
Hiro begins a dialogue about Sumerian culture with Metaverse's Artificial Intelligence Librarian
Five thousand years ago, in Sumerian culture, society was controlled by "mee" (rules and algorithms).
The "Me" programmed human behavior and was the foundation of society.
Media King L. Bob Reif Plots to Rule Using 'Me'
Sumerian god Enki rewrote "Me", causing language diversification and self-consciousness
LIFE tries to spread two viruses around the world - one rewrites the human brain and the other destroys the brains of computers and hackers
Raif's goal is to increase his followers and eradicate the power elite of hackers. Hiro boards the aircraft carrier Enterprise to foil Raif's plan.
Key themes and observations from "Snow Crash:"
This work deals with two themes:
Law Programming
Programming the Mind
About the programming of the law:
In Metaverse, each area owner is free to rewrite the rules in code to maintain order.
This is similar to object behavior coding using Linden Script Language in Second Life, for example.
On the programming of the mind:
The ancient Sumerian technique of "mee" is described as programming the mind.
This is influenced by Chomsky's view of language and Richard Dawkins' meme theory.
At present, however, programming of the mind is not yet possible.
Deciphering the work:
Snow Crash intersects artificial language (programming), natural language, neural language (me), biological language (DNA), and social language (religion, memes) to depict the relationship between cyberspace and the state.
The power of information in a near-future society:
Like the franchised temples of ancient Sumer, which used mee to program the mind, the franchised cultural controllers in the near future society will program the manual.
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