Permanent Vacation

words by Julien Coignet

Since the beginning of human societies, people, facing wars, pandemics, natural disasters, have imagined, sought and planned better worlds. At each period, a collective imagination has been built, strongly influenced by religions, superstitions, fables or literature and more recently by cinema, sciences or technologies. This is how science-fiction has become a source of ideas endlessly exploited by the leaders of digital field, with technological advances facilitating the achievement of some of these concepts.

In October 2021, Mark Zuckerberg presented a long promotional video in which he introduced his plans to design a metaverse (as well as the new name of Facebook becoming Meta) made of over-communicating avatars in colorful environments. Starting with an auto-criticism of his own social networks being not immersive enough, with the limitations of current interfaces, he wants to move towards a digital universe parallel to our concrete reality, where, equipped with 3D glasses, users could travel anywhere, anytime, with whomever they want, in whatever form they want, in short, live a new parallel existence that would be richer and more entertaining than our daily experience of reality.

Seen like this, we might wonder what could prevent us from abandoning once and for all the more or less dull and repetitive reality, even more sanitized after two years of the covid pandemic. Two years that would have prepared us for this new non-contact society and that would have accustomed us to being distanced from each other by interposed screens. While we were still talking about mobility as a trend in contemporary life, in a few months we have moved towards near-complete immobility, individual isolation and an ever greater digitalisation of all our activities.

But already long before this pandemic, we have seen in many countries a trend towards the standardisation of the living environment and ways of life, in urban planning and architecture for example, where we have invested less in an open living environment with real public spaces (and not necessarily for commercial purposes) and more in technological, hyper-connected and supposedly environmentally friendly solutions with the smart cities that are being built or transformed all over the world. 

If we imagine the future that seems to be prefigured here, we would see individuals remaining locked in their homes, with their interfaces connected to the infinite flow of digital data as their only windows to the outside world, and sustained for their vital needs with the help of platforms for delivering food and goods by drone, as proposed by Amazon. The automation and robotisation of all services would inevitably lead to the rarefaction and disappearance of all paid human activity. 

This is why we have seen the reappearance of the idea of a universal basic income, which was put forward by Jeremy Rifkin in 1995 in "The End of Work » [1] and supported by the leaders of the digital industry (as underlined by Eric Sadin in The Silicolonisation of the World [2] ), to accompany this growing automation of all sectors. After the wave of automation in industry and administration from the 1960s-70s onwards, we could eventually see the replacement of human labour, even intellectual and creative works, by artificial intelligence in many new sectors, at least according to the main supporters of new technologies.

In all scenarios, however, this universal basic income would only allow for survival or at best a very modest life, and thus the absence of travel and entertainment, which could further push people to take refuge in the metaverse in order to escape a reality that is becoming less and less exiting.

What better way to imagine the future of metaverse than for individuals to be freed from the constraints of work and to be able to abstract and disengage themselves from everyday reality on the basis of a basic income paid to all? Will many be caught up in this artificial paradise of technology, in permanent vacation, participating in an all-encompassing entertainment far from all constraints? Doesn't the Meta version of the metaverse aim to create a space detached from all current regulations, a world where all the rules of the game would ultimately be dictated by the demiurge creator of this new universe? 

For the moment and in the near future, the metaverse envisaged look at best like a video game and it is still the marketing that show them as worlds as rich or better than reality. Are we not too fascinated by the simulacra of realities made possible by the advances of digital technologies to see their limits and sometimes their vacuity? And because of our addiction, we have step by step become unable to discover the possibilities offered by the real here and now, and not in this parallel universe of commercial and hyper-connectivity order called metaverse.

[ 1 ] Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work, 1995,  Putman Edition

[ 2 ] Eric Sadin,  La Silicolonisation du Monde, L’irrésistible expansion du libéralisme numérique, L’échappée Edition, 2016 -  P.240 : « We oppose the new fad of the age. That is, the universal basic income, which ultimately aims to consent passively and irresponsibly to the replacement of humans in work by algorithmic systems, ratifying the Silicone Valley model and proceeding to an institutionalised renunciation. It is no coincidence that all the technolibertarians support this measure… »

常駐的假期

文｜Julien Coignet

自人類社會開創以降，人們不斷面臨戰爭、流行病與各種自然災害，也因此從中不斷地想像、計畫並謀求著更美好的未來世界。在每個時期中，集體的想像力會透過不同形式被建立： 過往是受到宗教、迷信、寓言或文學的強烈影響；而近期則是電影、科學或科技。這也就是為何科幻小說得以持續成為科技領域中領導者的思想來源，當今科技技術的進步也恰恰展現了這些小說當中的某些概念。

馬克・祖克柏（Mark Zuckerberg）於 2021年十月發佈了一則關於新計畫的宣傳影片，這個計畫將會是一個由許多「頻繁交流」的虛擬角色所組成的絢爛空間—「元宇宙」（也就是臉書的新名稱Meta）。在這個宣傳片的開頭，他便批評自己現在的社群媒體產品，因當前使用介面之侷限而缺乏沈浸式的體驗。有鑑於此，他提及，希望未來社群媒體能成為與我們現實生活並行的數位世界。在這個世界當中，配戴3D眼鏡的用戶，可以隨時隨地與他想邀約的人、以他想要的任何形式旅行。換言之，未來這個世界將能是一個與現實世界平行的存在，甚至還能比日常體驗更豐富有趣。

照此情況而言，尤其在經歷了兩年的新冠病毒疫情的「洗禮」之後，我們會更想知道是否有事物能夠一勞永逸地阻止我們去放棄這沉悶且重複的現實生活。而這兩年的期間已經足以讓我們為這個新形態的非接觸社會做好準備；同時間，我們也早已習慣透過螢幕去介入生活，並藉此與他人保持適當的距離。雖然，我們仍會談論移動性是如何成為當今生活的趨勢之一，但或許再過幾個月後，我們將會完全走向幾乎無法完全移動、個人孤立及一切活動皆數位化的那個未來。

不過其實早在這場疫情之前，我們就已經能在許多國家看到生活方式與其環境有傾向「標準化」的趨勢。舉例來說，在城市規劃和建築方面，我們已減少開放式的生活環境與公共空間（這不一定是指商業目的性的空間）的投資，而在世界各地的建設中、改造中的智慧城市裡，則花費更多資源去開發無論在技術上、超連接和可能對環境友善的解決方案。

若我們嘗試在此想像，這似乎便預示著未來我們將會看到人們持續地被困在家中，不斷透過自身的「介面」連接到無限的科技數據洪流之中，並以此「介面」作為通往外部世界的唯一窗口。如同亞馬遜（Amazon）積極提倡通過無人機運送食品和貨物的服務平台般，象徵著人們未來將透過互聯網來滿足自身重要需求。最終，所有自動化和機器人化的服務將不可避免地導致有償的人類活動減少，甚至消失。

這也正是為什麼我們會再次見證由經濟學家傑里米·里夫金 (Jeremy Rifkin）在 1995 年於The End of Work中所提出的關於普遍基本收入的想法〔1〕，此想法不僅獲得數位相關行業領導者的支持，也因此伴隨著應證所有部門的日益自動化的現象。（這也同時正如作家艾瑞克·薩丁（Eric Sadin） 在 The Silicolonisation of the World 一書所強調的內容如出一徹〔2〕）。早在 1960 年代至 70 年代以來工業、行政管理自動化的浪潮後，至少對於新科技的主要追隨者而言：人工智能最終將能在許多新領域中取代人類的勞動力、智力，甚至是創造力。

然而，在所有情況下，這種普遍的基本收入只能夠維持生存，或者充其量只能夠讓人過上最質樸的生活，而因此沒有其他的娛樂和旅行。這也將進一步促使人們選擇繼續留在虛擬世界中避難，以逃避並退出那正在縮減、趨於無聊的現實。

有什麼能讓人從工作的束縛中獲得自由，同時在能夠支付基本收入的基礎上，脫離或抽象化日常現實，並以更理想的方式來想像元宇宙的未來呢？是否將有許多人會在這個永久的假期中，參加某個無拘無束、包羅萬象的娛樂活動，而就此陷入這個人造的科技天堂呢？元宇宙的原初版本難道不就是一個由造物者支配世界所有遊戲規則的新空間嗎？ 其創建宗旨不正就是為了創造一個脫離所有現有規則的空間嗎？

在現在和不久的將來，即使我們所設想的虛擬世界看起來如同一場電動遊戲，但其仍需透過市場行銷的手法，才得以向我們展示那些虛擬世界是如何比現實世界更豐富、更美好。我們是否對於數位技術的進步所帶來的現實幻象太著迷，以至於忽視了它們的局限性，甚至對於它們所產生的空虛感視而不見呢？由於對虛擬世界的成癮，我們早已一步一步地變得無法察覺存在當下的真實與其所提供的可能性，而這些都不應是在那極具商業性質與超連結秩序的平行宇宙——元宇宙所能觸及的。

[ 1 ] Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work, 1995,  Putman Edition

[ 2 ] Eric Sadin,  La Silicolonisation du Monde, L’irrésistible expansion du libéralisme numérique, L’échappée Edition, 2016 -  P.240 : « We oppose the new fad of the age. That is, the universal basic income, which ultimately aims to consent passively and irresponsibly to the replacement of humans in work by algorithmic systems, ratifying the Silicone Valley model and proceeding to an institutionalised renunciation. It is no coincidence that all the technolibertarians support this measure… »