Facebook’s latest project, the metaverse, promises a future of virtual realities and experiences beyond the constraints of the physical world. But a thought experiment by Robert Nozick provides a cautionary tale for why we should be wary of stepping into simulated realities. Living a virtual life, no matter how full of novel experiences, success, and pleasure, is not as fulfilling as it might sound. And even if we occasionally like to give in to the allure of fantasy, we should be cautious about entering a universe curated by a company accused of putting profits over the wellbeing of its users. The metaverse might be the ultimate distraction machine, from the company’s troubles and from what we most care about, writes Peter West.

If you’ve been living in the real world for the last week or so, you’ll no doubt be aware that Facebook (now ‘Meta’) CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been making a lot of noise about something he calls the ‘metaverse’. By employing supposedly cutting edge virtual reality technology, Zuckerberg believes that the metaverse will be “the successor to mobile internet” and will allow people, wherever they are in the world, “to feel present – like we’re right there with people no matter how far apart we actually are”.[1] What Zuckerberg wants us to believe is that the future will be one in which we can all inhabit a virtual universe beyond the real world; where we are not confined by the particularities (geographical, but perhaps also financial, physical, or professional) of the lives we currently live.