Even in the Metaverse, Not All Identities Are Created Equal (bloomberg.com) 64
An anonymous reader shares a report: The complexities of the real world are starting to bleed into the Metaverse -- the virtual arena where identity functions as both a reflection on and determinant of social capital. Differences in prices for digital avatars based on race, gender and skin color are emerging among a popular collection of NFTs known as CryptoPunks, belying the utopian and egalitarian ideals touted by the closely connected world of crypto, decentralized finance, blockchain and non-fungible tokens. According to both participants in and observers of the space, these price discrepancies are partly explained by the lack of diversity among the investors who favor these status assets. It's a demographic that skews mostly male and White. Female CryptoPunks, and those with darker skin colorings, tend to sell for less than avatars with male traits or fair skin. CryptoPunk investors say the price disparity is not a function of individual prejudice or racism, but of the fact that the people currently willing and able to pay top dollar for digital goods aren't bidding on avatars that don't look like them. "If you look at the blockchain space, it largely tends to be white, it largely tends to be male," said Tony Herrera, an immigrant activist in California who owns 60 CryptoPunks. "One Punk could be dark and one could be light, and the lighter one is going to be the more desirable."
Greatest Sword Fighter (Score:2)
If I can't be the last of the freelance hackers, and greatest sword fighter in the world (or at least the Deliverator), I'm not interested.
I shall be honest. I expected everyone to choose (Score:2)
a girl with enormous knockers. Seems like there are no G.I.R.Ls on the net anymore.
Re: I shall be honest. I expected everyone to cho (Score:2)
Thank you for putting images that I never wanted in my head.
Re: I shall be honest. I expected everyone to cho (Score:1)
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I wonder if they will have a "real attributes" clause, a bit like the real name one except that you have to have an avatar that broadly matches your real body.
They can't win either way, either people complain about the options or people complain about the inevitable systemic discrimination that creeps in. Unlike the real world though, since Facebook built the metaverse and have complete control over it, they are liable for everything that happens in it.
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Unlike the real world though, since Facebook built the metaverse and have complete control over it, they are liable for everything that happens in it.
There's no reason why the CDA (and Sec. 230) shouldn't apply there just like anywhere else, which is to say that user creations and user dialogue (etc.) are the responsibility of users, not Faceboot. Now in some other countries they might be responsible for that stuff, but no more responsible most likely than a mall is responsible for what happens inside. That is to say, mostly not, unless they are considered to be encouraging a specific behavior.
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CDA doesn't help with most of this stuff though. Take for example the abuse of Facebook's advert targeting system.
More over, even if there is no legal issue, people will still get upset about it. It will be trolled to hell from day 1, and it's success is by no means guaranteed.
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CDA doesn't help with most of this stuff though. Take for example the abuse of Facebook's advert targeting system.
Well, you can say that facebook should do more to reform it, and I'd say you're right. I think that there's a strong argument to be made that they are willfully assisting others with violation of the law when they permit them to use targeting features unlawfully, e.g. targeting racist demographics when advertising housing. But otherwise, not so much. Unless someone at facebook has to manually approve an ad, anything where they didn't provide tools to target the ad illegally should be the responsibility of t
Re: I shall be honest. I expected everyone to choo (Score:2)
I'd say in that case you'd just make every avatar a stick figure, but you can't have that either because it would be making a stereotype of the anorexic community. So instead we'll just have nothing. You just turn off your monitor, stare at a blank screen, and pretend to be there.
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Anything with a differentiating characteristic. (Score:5, Insightful)
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As children grow up and become adults, they learn to control their urges. A young child won't be able to delay gratification, but hopefully they will learn to by the time they are older.
In the same way, people can learn to notice their biases and dismiss them. That said, it really helps if they don't develop those biases in the first place.
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And unless you 'grow' people in total isolation, that's pretty much impossible.
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Not really. We are now seeing kids who grew up with things like same sex couples being entirely normal.
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Not all biases are bad things. In fact they are the basis of any heuristic approach. For example, I have noticed that petting small cats often results in purring and a general calming effect. However many people seem to have a significantly worse outcome when trying to pet the cats called "lions". So my quick heuristic suggests that I should NOT try to pet lions.
Sometimes that heuristic goes awry. Many people have been more or less permanently put off of a particular food because the first example they trie
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Ticks all the boxes (Score:4, Funny)
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The metaverse, crypto, NFTs and diversity issues. This article is like Christmas come early. In any case, minorities ought to be pleased that it's only white dudes wasting money on this nonsense.
Maybe it's final proof that black women are just smarter than white men.
Re: Ticks all the boxes (Score:1)
And lo, I was discriminated against for sharing too much reality with racists. They are such sad little snowflakes.
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It can only tick the boxes if the article can be understood in the first place. It's a bunch of ridiculous gobbledygook or random English words strung together. The parts that can be understood are just stupid - people bid to buy digital pictures of avatars, ie, icons? Is this some bad fan-fic or is someone actually taking this crap seriously?
If there's bias it's because that only those with so much wealth to waste their time on this crap get involved, and having that much wealth skews clearly into the o
in his own image (Score:2)
"the?" Metaverse (Score:4, Insightful)
When these kinds of stories talk about "the Metaverse," which video game are they referring to? Facebook's? Someone else's?
Has it been predicted that once VR gets popular, everyone will decide to run the same client, they'll enable querying objects for what skin they'd like rendered, they'll all agree to use a single, global/nonbalkanized coordinate system, etc? Forgive these innocent, stupid questions but apparently I'm far behind the times on the level of consensus that has been already reached about this vaporware.
Re: "the?" Metaverse (Score:3)
Oh, we don't know the details yet, but once the metaverse paradise arrives, we're pretty sure that your status there will be decided by which meaningless tradable tokens you "invested" in before the crash.
That, or the things you were buried with in your tomb. Better to diversify a bit into grave goods too, just in case.
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It's not going to happen, but some people are making sure to first fleece a lot of money out of the gullible ultra-wealthy before the whole NFT scheme falls apart.
If this ever does happen, I call dibs on the avatar that's just a sphere of uniform mass.
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When these kinds of stories talk about "the Metaverse," which video game are they referring to?
Canonically, the Metaverse is Neal Stephenson's literary creation: Snowcrash. Everything else is just a co-opt of his "invention."
Would you ask the same question about "the" cloud?
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If people said they were buying and selling the best parts of the cloud, then yes, I might ask that.
Oh for the ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I give up.
Okay, "anti" racists, you win. I'm going to start thinking about race all the time, focusing on it all the time, just like you.
clickbait by journalists who need money. (Score:2, Troll)
It's not the "anti racists". It's the media, or more specifically, it's "Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou" and "akyala gardner" needing to get paid by Bloomberg.
They write these articles because they have to spin up crap in order to publish articles in order to not get fired. Woke claptrap like this article is just filler material meant for Journalists to get paid.
There's some legitimate anti-racist reporting out there, but this article in specific is just the hottest left-wing garbage I've ever read in my life. It'
When people talk about privilege... (Score:2)
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You post racist shit all the time, don't pretend you just started thinking about it now!
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You post racist shit all the time, don't pretend you just started thinking about it now!
Lol like what?
Inequity is the point for these guys (Score:5, Insightful)
For most of us the promise of a virtual world is that anyone can be anything, have anything, do anything. There is no inherent scarcity in cyberspace. However, for these rich guys building the thing for the mass market, the infinite abundance of the digital world is a bug, not a feature. They want to reproduce the inequity of the real world so that they can import their wealth and status and have it matter. If there can be only 1 Iron Man(tm) avatar as authenticated by this NFT on the block chain, then (a) You can get rich selling it for $10 million, and (b) You can show off your wealth and status by buying it.
It's like these guys didn't understand that Neuromancer and Snow Crash depicted dystopias. They looked at all the awful shit from those worlds and were like "cool, let's do that!"
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You just described the internet when it began, as well as TV, radio, books, and many future technologies and media.
People might want to temper their optimism when they think some new technology will level the playing field. New technologies don't change people's or culture's values. They tend to become tools of the people using them, often augmenting their power and the slope of the playing field.
How much is tall and thin? (Score:2)
I'm guessing that tall and thin is as valuable if not more so than white and male. So basically, the metaverse is no different than the real world except that the demographics aren't random. Clearly, the metaverse is taking cues from the airline industry that has monetized status 27 ways to Sunday.
Who is suffering here? (Score:2)
Clearly Racist (Score:3)
these price discrepancies are partly explained by the lack of diversity among the investors who favor these status assets
So the problem is that selling what looks like the heads of 1980's 8-bit video game characters is collecting more money from white men instead of all sectors of the population equally? That's clearly terrible. How dare other sectors of the population make more intelligent "investment" choices! We should demand equal access to stupidity for all!
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Gee, If They Keep Saying "Metaverse"... (Score:3)
In Second Life... (Score:2)
...folks were often an idealized version of their 20 year old self or fantasy, so lots of large chested blonde white "women" running around. Male avatars were a rare exception, stores filled with female skins/hair/body shapes, and if not a Playboy model-eque form, then a animal, furry, or other exotic creative expression was donned.
Not sure NFTs are representative compared to lust.
Wtf is this nonsense? (Score:2)
What does a metaverse interface have to do with CryptoPunks? Is there a game where you can actually use CryptoPunks as your avatar? Is that even possible with the CryptoPunks licensing terms?
Yeah No (Score:2)
Fake News (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary and overall complaint is 100% bullshit pure fake news.
How do I know? Because I looked at the top earning CryptoPunks [larvalabs.com]
The top two are blue skinned. 3-10 are either green or a monkey. #11 is a black woamn with a Mohawk, #12 is a green entity in a mask and sunglasses.
Not a single white avatar among them...
What a stupid complaint.
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
How is a white person buying a white avatar racist? How about a white person buying a white barbie, or a black person a black barbie, is that racist too?
Supply and demand determines prices. So apparently the NFT producers are keeping supply in check for their main customer demographic. So what?
And what's with the "Metaverse" reference? Does FaceBook own the concept of avatars now, and what exactly do avatars have to do with NFTs ?
What's the Problem? (Score:2)
They say: "Female CryptoPunks, and those with darker skin colorings, tend to sell for less than avatars with male traits or fair skin."
I say, "Females and people with darker skin colorings who want a CryptoPunk that looks like them, tend to spend less for avatars than white males."
From a consumer perspective, this completely reverses the "complexities of the real world," so what, exactly, is the problem?
Ackshually, this is progress (Score:2)
Mindless Gibberish (Score:2)
"It's not racism; it's racism." (Score:2)
From the Summary: "CryptoPunk investors say the price disparity is not a function of individual prejudice or racism, but of the fact that the people currently willing and able to pay top dollar for digital goods aren't bidding on avatars that don't look like them."
I see! It's not racism, silly. It's racism!
What PR flunkie wrote that mangled sentence?
So like most of Nerd World... (Score:1)
... it's a sausage-fest.
Title is bullshit (Score:2)
Even in the Metaverse, Not All Identities Are Created Equal
That's exactly wrong. They're all created equal. They're simply not valued equally.
Um, look in the mirror? (Score:1)
Your entire business model revolves around the celebration and monetization of narcissism. You have turned the once mighty software industry into reality t.v. or the fashion industry. It's Keeping up with the Kardashians 24/7/365 with you lot.
And, narcissism is all about creating social hierarchies -- who's cool and who's not.
YOU CREATED THIS HELL HOLE.
You don't like the smell, then stop shitting on the living room carpet.