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Comment by emptysongglass | Hacker News Reader

"The people at this company actually believe in the mission of bringing the world closer together. They recognize and embrace the huge responsibility it puts on us.”

I just don't understand how very smart people can so passionately believe in a closed loop. The metaverse will never immanentize until it is a protocol. A single company in charge will never exist in perpetuity unless you subscribe to PKD's "the Empire never ended".

"Nothing gold can stay" is the better measure of a single company espousing a single vision for all.

Protocols not products. Surely some of these very smart people at Meta see that their baby must be let go before it can touch the hearts and minds of all humans everywhere.

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> I just don't understand how very smart people can so passionately believe in a closed loop

Does good programmer == very smart?

Does good mechanic == very smart?

Part of the echo chamber bias on HN is that programmers are an elite class of citizen that is head-and-shoulder's above the rest in terms of intellect. I whole-heartedly disagree with this proposition because I've met many, many programmers who were absolute ding-dongs.

If you stop deifying programmers (& engineers) it becomes easier to see they are just average tradespeople who trade happens to be in extremely high demand right now. And then other things fall into place, like how they can fall for their own bubbles.

To be fair, FAANG-like places have essentially IQ tests as a big part of hiring. I think the GP comment could be rephrased as a pretty common observation that people who are academically or "traditionally" smart in a narrow sense can be super dumb in other ways. Just because you can propose a n•log(n) solution to find the maximum volume bound between two heights and widths represented in array entries doesn't mean you have some superior political thoughts or whatever. People seem to forget this sometimes

Yep. I have a relative that is a certified genius, got a full scholarship to an Ivy League school and is now a C-level executive with one of the big banks.

He also totaled his Mercedes when he got his first job out of college because he didn't know that you're supposed to check the oil levels and burned up the engine.

Nobody knows everything.

I agree with your overall statement, but if you’re referring to leetcode puzzles then I would definitely challenge your suggestion that they’re in any way equivalent to an IQ test. IQ tests are much broader and cover many different categories of intelligence.

Selecting for high IQ and low empathy/EQ

I think you're overly focused on the long term. Consider that helping people now is, in itself, often a good thing, even when a product doesn't last.

Also, there are more ways to contribute to progress than inventing new protocols. Big tech companies often release open source tools that take a life of their own. (Not always, but often enough.)

There are also research papers. Research is often not directly useful, but someone can use it to build something that is useful.

And don't discount imitators. Good ideas are often copied widely.

Keep in mind Meta isn't developing just 1 product. The metaverse needs advanced tech for it to be realized. Once one or two companies develop the tech, of course new competitors will come in and possibly do it better. But you still need a pioneering company with vast resources to lead the way. For example, Microsoft developed XMLHttpRequest, which led to Google Maps and many other wonderful modern products/services.

"The metaverse" is just Second Life and VRChat; it's already developed. The rest is a new way to get dumb investor money.

Yes and not. It's a bit like Apple, nothing is really new or cutting edge, but the packaging is smart and the UI/UX is beautiful. I think same is for multiverse, otherwise Second Life should have won already.

That’s literally what Zuckerberg emphasized over and over in his talks though. What makes you assume that the folks at Meta won’t be developing such a protocol?

Facebook is not a protocol. Messenger started as interoperable with XMPP then poof took it away. Look at what corporations/people/nations do not what they say.

Monetization and the pursuit thereof; they need to forgo the profit motive.

I don't think they're able.

Why would they need to forgo the profit motive?

The goal would be to retain their present prime position, transported into the Metaverse.

They don't have to own the Internet and its protocols to generate $44b in operating income every year.

By helping to establish the Metaverse, they'll aim to lay down a system that makes monetization possible, which they can take advantage of with their resources. It's quite simple and straight-forward.

When you're integral to establishing a new system, you get to help form its inner workings, you get influence in setting the rules for how it works.

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