The Future Looks Bright?

To begin with I found "Snow Crash" to be very interesting, but also a little frightening. It parallels the current world in many ways. The Metaverse is strikingly similar to what is happening on-line right now. Like the book, there are many people out there who are very interested in their on-line persona and their network of friends and associates who they know through the web. I found it very interesting that Stephenson wrote this book all the way back in 1992. He foresaw what is going on right now. I liked his vivid descriptions of what this Metaverse looked liked and how it ran. I believe that the possibilities of what you can do on-line are amazing and I can understand why so many people devote a lot of time and energy into it. I am sure if I had the pleasure of owning a computer I too would be a lot more heavily involved in on-line entertainment and networking. The thing about the book that scares me is the current condition of the world they are living in. A dystopic future is what they called it in the cyberpunk article. Instead of a central government that controls and handles everything it is the huge financial corporations that run the show. And if they run the show, they also make the rules. How many different sets of rules would there be to follow? How would you know who was in charge and who or what to believe? Not to mention the separation of all the different social groups and classes. It seemed evident in the book that people associated with other people of their same background and ideals. It also seemed that these conflicting groups would be more than ready to fight and defend people of their social groups against other groups. This may lead to an eventual breakdown of society. Another area of the book I found a little scary is all the scanning devices that were used. Y. T. is covered with these to gain access to different areas and places. It does not seem too far-fetched that this type of control may be used in Reality in the future. It seems to me like that would be an end to a lot of our freedom as we know it. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like people having access to my entire life history just by scanning a bar code I wore on my shirt. It could be the beginning of a bad situation. Keep in mind Big Brother is always watching.