Neal Stephenson's Lamina1 Drops White Paper On Building the Open Metaverse (venturebeat.com) 49
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Neal Stephenson's Lamina1 blockchain technology startup dropped a white paper today on building the open metaverse. It's quite the manifesto. In the document, the company said its mission is to deliver a Layer 1 blockchain, interoperating tools and decentralized services optimized for the open metaverse -- providing communities with infrastructure, not gatekeepers to build a more immersive internet. The effort includes some new original content: Under active early-stage development, Neal Stephenson's THEEE METAVERSE promises a richly-imagined interactive virtual world with an unforgettable origin story, the paper said. Built on the Lamina1 chain, creators will come to experience Neal's vision and stay to develop their own. Stay tuned for more details, the paper said. [...]
In the paper, Stephenson said, "Inexorable economic forces drive investors to pay artists as little as possible while steering their creative output in the directions that involve the least financial risk." The aim is to correct the sins of the past. The paper said that Web2 introduced a period of rapid innovation and unprecedented access to entertainment, information and goods on a global scale. Streamlined tools and usability brought creators and innovators to the web en masse to build digital storefronts, engage and transact with their customers. Owning and controlling that growing ecosystem of content and personal data became a primary, lucrative initiative for major corporations. Consumer behavior, recorded on centralized company servers, offered constant, privileged insight into how to monetize human emotion and attention, Lamina1 said. At its best, Web3 envisions a better world through the thoughtful redesigning of our online lives, instituting stronger advocacy for our interests, our freedom and our rights, the company said. Much as Web2 flourished with the maturity of tools and services that offered creators and consumers ease of use, the open metaverse will benefit from open protocols for payments and data, and a set of interoperating decentralized services to support virtual worlds. Lamina1 will be the rallying point for an ecosystem of open source tools, open standards and enabling technologies conceived and co-developed with a vibrant community of creators. [...]
Lamina1 said it approaches the open metaverse with a multi-pronged approach: Layer 1 blockchain, metaverse-as-a-Service (MaaS), community economic participation and incentives and original content. Lamina1 said it uses a high-speed Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, customized to support the needs of content creators -- providing provenance for creatorship and enabling attributive and behavioral characteristics of an object to be minted, customized and composed on-chain. "We chose to start with Avalanche, a robust generalized blockchain that delivers the industry's most scalable and environmentally-efficient chain for managing digital assets to date. This starting point provides Lamina1 with a flexible architecture and an extendable platform to support our goals in data storage, interoperability, integration incentives, carbon-negative operation, messaging, privacy, high-scale payments and identity," the white paper said. Lamina1 said its metaverse services work will explore creating a metaverse browser and it will align itself with the Metaverse Standards Forum. To enlist community support, the company isn't aligning with Big Tech. "We march waving the pirate flag at the front of the cultural movement, asking both creators and consumers to join the fight for greater agency and ownership -- the fight for an economy that is imagined, produced and owned by its creators," Lamina1 said. "It's going to be hard, and it's going to take heart, but the upside of providing a maker direct access to their market is staggering."
The paper added, "At Lamina1, we believe two things will power expansion and growth in the metaverse -- a straightforward and principled approach to serving a diverse, open and self-sustaining community of makers, and a powerful ecosystem of content and experiences that will drive fans and funding directly to the platform."
In the paper, Stephenson said, "Inexorable economic forces drive investors to pay artists as little as possible while steering their creative output in the directions that involve the least financial risk." The aim is to correct the sins of the past. The paper said that Web2 introduced a period of rapid innovation and unprecedented access to entertainment, information and goods on a global scale. Streamlined tools and usability brought creators and innovators to the web en masse to build digital storefronts, engage and transact with their customers. Owning and controlling that growing ecosystem of content and personal data became a primary, lucrative initiative for major corporations. Consumer behavior, recorded on centralized company servers, offered constant, privileged insight into how to monetize human emotion and attention, Lamina1 said. At its best, Web3 envisions a better world through the thoughtful redesigning of our online lives, instituting stronger advocacy for our interests, our freedom and our rights, the company said. Much as Web2 flourished with the maturity of tools and services that offered creators and consumers ease of use, the open metaverse will benefit from open protocols for payments and data, and a set of interoperating decentralized services to support virtual worlds. Lamina1 will be the rallying point for an ecosystem of open source tools, open standards and enabling technologies conceived and co-developed with a vibrant community of creators. [...]
Lamina1 said it approaches the open metaverse with a multi-pronged approach: Layer 1 blockchain, metaverse-as-a-Service (MaaS), community economic participation and incentives and original content. Lamina1 said it uses a high-speed Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, customized to support the needs of content creators -- providing provenance for creatorship and enabling attributive and behavioral characteristics of an object to be minted, customized and composed on-chain. "We chose to start with Avalanche, a robust generalized blockchain that delivers the industry's most scalable and environmentally-efficient chain for managing digital assets to date. This starting point provides Lamina1 with a flexible architecture and an extendable platform to support our goals in data storage, interoperability, integration incentives, carbon-negative operation, messaging, privacy, high-scale payments and identity," the white paper said. Lamina1 said its metaverse services work will explore creating a metaverse browser and it will align itself with the Metaverse Standards Forum. To enlist community support, the company isn't aligning with Big Tech. "We march waving the pirate flag at the front of the cultural movement, asking both creators and consumers to join the fight for greater agency and ownership -- the fight for an economy that is imagined, produced and owned by its creators," Lamina1 said. "It's going to be hard, and it's going to take heart, but the upside of providing a maker direct access to their market is staggering."
The paper added, "At Lamina1, we believe two things will power expansion and growth in the metaverse -- a straightforward and principled approach to serving a diverse, open and self-sustaining community of makers, and a powerful ecosystem of content and experiences that will drive fans and funding directly to the platform."
Sounds great but... (Score:1)
I really like the philosophy behind the whole thing, and doubly like it's not under the control of any existing big tech company.
But I still wonder, is it filling a need not that may people really have? Are there really enough people that even want a meta verse that this will gain much traction or be worth the effort?
Maybe at the point when Elon Musk masks the brain/computer direct interface works, then VR would be able to take off... seems like a while away still..
Re: Sounds great but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
More buzzwords than a beehive on a crack-sugar mix.
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds like a bunch of buzz words strung together to try to enlist money.
I have to say I can't disagree with that statement, and it seems most likely.
Re: (Score:3)
As much as I enjoy Neal's writing having "Previously Chief Futurist at Magic Leap. First employee at Blue Origin" in your CV doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Re: (Score:3)
It also sounds a lot like what High Fidelity [wikipedia.org] was trying to do and gave up because the hardware wasn't ready. They really sound like they are just trying to pump the same ideas for more venture capital. Once High Fidelity took all their stuff private, the next best open VR platform seems to be Mozilla's hubs [mozilla.com].
It also seems that the summary is mostly about a digital provenance model, not about the "metaverse". Basically we currently establish provenance by external archiving - i.e. if two people claim the
Re: (Score:3)
Even if it fails, "metaverse" will just end up being, like, a next-generation video conferencing system for businesses. A dominant position therein would be insanely profitable.
Of course every industry group on the planet is going to want to jam their sticky fingers into anything resembling this money machine. It doesn't really matter that much if they're right or wrong, or even whether anyone actually wants it.
Re: (Score:2)
He dropped it? (Score:2)
Re:He dropped it? [The social standard?] (Score:1)
Come on Slashdot, you can do funnier than that. But much as I like a good joke, don't look at me to write it. Want proof? Here's my current "joke" as adapted to Neil Stephenson. I have to prep the bad joke by explaining that "this one" shall refer to Stephenson:
"The focus is strong with this one," in my worst Yoda voice, "but the focus is weak with yours truly."
I'll be here all week, but the chicken is much better than the steak...
However, I do have some tangential thoughts on the topic. It's about the weather in the multiverse, but in the special form of social atmosphere. "Is it too hot in this multiverse
Re:He dropped it? [The social standards?] (Score:1)
Ever notice how the noisiest advocates of "free speech" have the least speech worth hearing?
But I suppose I should clarify that I don't care where the trolls masturbate as long as I don't have to watch them at it. And yet I do think the "averages" should be considered.
Re: (Score:2)
But much as I like a good joke
It may or may not be a joke. Has anybody actually found this white paper yet? If somebody did pick it up, forget the joke... where did they find it?!?
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently you have to be accepted on the Lamina1 Discord server first
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Discord needs better weather. Social speaking, it's a blizzard or worse. On it's good days.
But the punchline there is that the abuser-friendliness of the system has forced them to implement security countermeasures that make the system unusable most of the time. I've tried to revalidate one of the servers a number of times.
Re: (Score:2)
My issue with Discord is the amount of resources that it demands, and since it is focused on streaming content I mostly assume it is spying on me
Re: (Score:3)
s/multiverse/metaverse/g
*sigh* Or did the spelling checker do it when I wasn't looking?
Re: (Score:2)
Is this a good, sustainable idea? (Score:1)
What is the carbon footprint of the envisioned metaverse? How much energy is necessary? And how will this luxury (that, at best, only "solves" first world problems) impact the real-world need for actual resources in regions that are not that fortunate? Shouldn't we simply donate the resources needed for implementing this fantasy to people who actually need them?
Re: (Score:2)
What is the carbon footprint of the envisioned metaverse? How much energy is necessary?
Probably no more than playing Fortnite.
(let's face it, the target audience is the people who are playing games right now, not the general public)
If they're doing one, they can't be doing the other, so... it's moot.
Re: (Score:2)
In The Fall, they ended up planning on a Dyson sphere to run the blockchained virtual world to store all the brain images of the Earthly dead
So yeah, big footprint
In summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
An author wrote a mission statement chock full of buzzwords. Take Stephenson's name off it...and it's just run-of-the-mill, tech startup bullshit.
Re: In summary... (Score:1)
.....if it is left to the private sector who already develops the hardware, software, dev tools, operating environments,...it is going to suck for a long time. We need the equivalent of public tv, radio for development in the cloud if this is to make sense.
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Neal Stephenson is one of the authors that true influencers in the tech world read (and who control massive amounts of investment capital). Like them or not, as Wikipedia quotes: "Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, John Carmack, and Peter Thiel are all fans of his work." Which is why, with Stephenson's name on it, it gains even more attention.
Nope (Score:2)
The article isn't on Lamina1's server doesn't actually link to any white paper from Lamina1, so this is merely a rumor. No evidence has been presented that this has actually happened, or if it has, that it says what they characterize it as saying.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry they are not making this terribly easy, just act like it is I Love Bees
LAMINA1 will be a company bridging the spatial/Metaverse world with the crypto world, and we will need help. You can join our Discord at https://discord.gg/lamina1 [discord.gg] and get engaged with us in the ‘traditional’ crypto manner or you can drop us a line at hello@lamina1.com.
Re: Nope (Score:2)
Why the discord requirement? The info about a distributed, decentralized platform should be easily and publicly accessible. (Otherwise it's not any of those things.)
Re: (Score:2)
Discord is pretty 'gamified' and they can collect a lot of data while people are requesting access, as opposed to a link from slashdot which would give them relatively little info on who is accessing the whitepaper
Re: Nope (Score:2)
Why the controlled audience? Easier to scam?
Discord could be available after people read the paper who are still interested.
Isn't there a wiki for all these things somewhere with low barrier of entry simply to read & learn?
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a Metaverse, then open. Like the Internet. Of course, like the internet, commercial interests will still try to take over.
But...why blockchain? WTF does that have to do with anything?
Re: (Score:2)
The internet was open because it was academic. The web was created by a scientist. The openness was an accident. You know it will never happen again, not even born out of academia. Have you seen academic networks lately? But this isn't even academia: It's a business, and no matter how much they want to be seen as the little guys, they're in it for the money, and that defines the result.
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I assume he's trying find out if he can publish OC in a new media form? ie. web3 and blockchain.
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But...why blockchain? WTF does that have to do with anything?
decentralized by technology (story, decision making, etc.)
I'm not yet certain about it all, but this might actually be a use-case for a blockchain that's not a solution looking for a problem.
Metaverse? Not this century... (Score:3)
The tech is just not there and continues to not be there. At the same time no fundamental breakthroughs have been made. Throwing in a well-known name and "blockchain" will not change that one bit.
It's quite the manifesto. (Score:3)
It's quite the manifesto.
O RLY? Did Neal Stephenson write something incredibly long-winded and pedantic, describing ideas he dreamed up in his moments of reverie and yet which are somehow either obvious to everyone or completely irrelevant to anyone but Neal Stephenson? Do tell.
so "white paper" just means "ad" now (Score:2)
thanks, I hate it
Slow clap ... physical location? (Score:2)
Wh00t - so far, so ... typically buzzword enriched.
The one thing these startup web3 touting evangelists never quite seem to be able to explain, is exactly _where_ the millions of petabytes of data are going to be stored and here the millions of hours of compute power are going to come from - and who, exactly, is going to pay for it.
So, the half-assed idea is that it is financed by buying into the entire ecosystem - via a proof of stake.
Then we get onto the idea of governance - if this is to be truly decentr
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Have you noticed that you could say all the same things about the Internet - and yet, somehow, that one works fairly decentralized?
The realtime processing power for the graphics is locally anyway. What you need in networked processing is largely state information and objects (i.e. what is where at which time). That's, I assume, where the blockchain comes in - a distributed system.
The infrastructure already exists, the system can piggyback off the Internet.
And yes, a consensus mechanism is in charge - the bl
Pirates? (Score:3)
We march waving the pirate flag at the front of the cultural movement, asking both creators and consumers to join the fight for greater agency and ownership
Uuh.. So its pirates fighting for ownership by creators?
Quickly, send these people a dictionary!
Re: (Score:2)
I think you must have a very small penis...
Not byzantine enough (Score:2)
I'm almost disappointed this doesn't involve using copper plate as punch cards and riveting them to the hull of a ship.
same old same old (Score:2)
same problem (Score:2)
"It's quite the manifesto"
Have you read anything written by NS recently?
I enjoy his writing, certainly but succinct had never been his style.