Other than Metaverse: war is real (and digital)
The Sunday appointment with an in-depth study by Paola Liberace, scientific coordinator of the Institute for the Culture of Innovation
Among the reports of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, news such as the stop to the distribution and sale of tech devices (primarily smartphones, but also their components such as chips) and operating systems and software, the blocking of services such as Internet connection, access to social media and more generally to online information channels, interruption to web marketing planning, and the use of electronic payments. In some cases these are updates relating to the initiatives taken against Russia, in other cases they are mentioned in relation to the measures decided by the Kremlin itself in response; but in both cases it is further proof – if any were needed – that in the age of the global Net, war also means digital war, not only in terms of cyberattacks (and it is certainly significant that on both fronts since the first day of the war, large networks of hackers such as Anonymous and Conti have been deployed), but more generally, as a physical and virtual embargo.
The first reflection that can be made in the face of the situation revealed by the Ukrainian war is therefore this: the unavailability of services now considered essential, such as those mentioned, makes as much news (and causes as much damage) as the suspension of the supply of water and of energy. As if to say, we are at the base of Maslow’s pyramid, at the level of the basic needs for human survival. But there are at least two other thoughts to consider. Just before the media attention was forced to rush to the conflict unleashed by Russia, there was nothing but metaverse, emphasizing in particular the virtual dimension of the parallel universe that Facebook has tried to monopolize, at least onomastically, with its rebranding in ” Half”. At this point, on the contrary, we have the painful confirmation of the enduring primacy of reality in the most traditional sense, which is far from having been relegated to the attic of history, and which has indeed clearly distinguished between functional and superfluous technology, re-pushing the latter atop Maslow’s pyramid itself – occupied with needs that can only be met when all others are already safe.
The third and final reflection concerns the fate of globalization, which was the enabling condition for the massive advent of digital technology, and for the development of the Internet itself. No one can say today how events will develop, what the course of the war will be, and whether the global dimension of communication services and the distribution of access devices to them will be restored. The impression, however, is that the discontinuity marked by the war events is not transitory, but destined to change the very character of the “onlife” experience, to quote Luciano Floridi, hitherto reassuring “non-place” that welcomes everyone in the same way the accounts that populate it. From a rule it could become an exception: the very fact of having experienced this transition could deeply mark our global and connected life, a condition that we have perhaps given too soon for an established conquest.
metaverse