Patri Friedman

When I read @readyplayerone (https://amzn.to/2PcJBaf ), it felt like just nostalgic geeky young adult delightful fun. I didn't think a lot about the setting. Yet as it has sunk in over the years, I've concluded that the near-future dystopic elements may prove prescient.

.@readyplayerone features real-world poverty which people escape via a fakely epic gamified virtual world whose best content is all copied from a more culturally rich past era. This is already manifesting in employment trends among young men:http://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2016/article/video-killed-radio-star …

I think the reality will be more like the instability of UBI+VR in @KarlKGallagher's Torchship world (https://amzn.to/2BeM8O9 ) or the webfic RA (https://qntm.org/ra ). Having a growing fraction of society spending their time unproductively in a fake world is not stable.

Such a society is - and this is speaking entirely from an analytic standpoint, no moral judgement- an abomination to Moloch (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ …). The abomination is even worse with UBI, and x100 in a democracy where UBI recipients can vote.