There have been a lot of excellent critiques thus far of the emerging technology of the "metaverse," but perhaps none have been as critically important as that from Louis Rosenberg, arguably the father of augmented reality:

Imagine walking down the street in your hometown, casually glancing at people you pass on the sidewalk. It is much like today, except floating over the heads of every person you see are big glowing bubbles of information. Maybe the intention is innocent, allowing people to share their hobbies and interests with everyone around them. Now imagine that third parties can inject their own content, possibly as a paid filter layer that only certain people can see. And they use that layer to tag individuals with bold flashing words like "Alcoholic" or "Immigrant" or "Atheist" or "Racist" or even less charged words like "Democrat" or "Republican." Those who are tagged may not even know that others can see them that way. The virtual overlays could easily be designed to amplify political division, ostracize certain groups, even drive hatred and mistrust. Will this really make the world a better place? Or will it take the polarized and confrontational culture that has emerged online and spray it across the real world?

Does that sound so far-fetched? Could the metaverse really be twisted and transformed in such a way? Well, consider the evolution of Facebook itself, which has gone from innocent dorm-room entertainment project...

...to ghoulish, fake-reality $1 trillion technology conglomerate that is warping our world into a horrifying synthetic pastiche:

I think we have no idea what we're on the brink of with the birth the metaverse. Buckle up.