Speaking as a pastor (albeit a retired one), I had to smile at the news that Facebook was changing its name to “Meta”.
Facebook is renaming itself Meta to reflect the company’s new priority on building a virtual reality world dubbed the metaverse.
“We are going to be metaverse first, not Facebook first,” Mark Zuckerberg said during a speech at the Facebook Connect event on Thursday.
Zuckerberg announced the new brand after talking up his company’s ambitious goal of creating a VR world … where virtual reality becomes so good it dominates people’s lives, becoming a new way to live, work, and play.
“Our mission remains the same: It’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and our brands, they’re not changing either. And we are still the company that designs technology around people. But now we have a new North Star. To help bring the metaverse to life,” Zuckerberg said.
There’s more at the link.
A time-honored concept in Christian theology is “metanoia”, which Wikipedia describes as follows:
Metanoia … means after-thought or beyond-thought, with meta meaning “after” or “beyond” (as in the modern word “metaphysics”) and nous meaning “mind” (as in the modern word “paranoia”). It is commonly understood as “a transformative change of heart; especially: a spiritual conversion.” The term suggests repudiation, change of mind, repentance, and atonement; but “conversion” and “reformation” may best approximate its connotation. In The King James Version of the Bible, its verbal cognate … is translated as “repent”.
Metanoia is also a psychological term. Wikipedia notes:
William James used the term metanoia to refer to a fundamental and stable change in an individual’s life-orientation. Carl Gustav Jung developed the usage to indicate a spontaneous attempt of the psyche to heal itself of unbearable conflict by melting down and then being reborn in a more adaptive form – a form of self healing often associated with the mid-life crisis and psychotic breakdown, which can be viewed as a potentially productive process.
The thought of Facebook’s new name representing repentance (a thoroughly faith-based value) for its (many) past sins against its customers, against our privacy, and against free speech, is a peculiarly appropriate one, wouldn’t you say? (Not that I think the Zuckerbot is at all likely to repent of such things, but one may dream…) As for “having a new North Star”, there’s Biblical precedent for that, too. When it comes to the psychological aspect, the thought of Facebook’s Board of Directors jointly and severally “melting down and then being reborn” is equally engaging.
What about it, Facebook? Embrace the Zuck! Extend your “meta” to the full “noia”, so the rest of us can enjoy the fireworks!
Peter
New Coke.
With regards to FactBorg, I will keep my paranoia fully engaged.
I'm guessing they're hollowing out Facebook. Shift assets to the new company, keep Facebook business to a minimum, and use the new brand to continue operating. If there's a huge loss to a judgement, or other legal liability, the losses are kept to the minimum.
And how are we supposed to trust facebook, renamed meta, with this new virtual reality? Are they going to censor people based on some "social credit" score, vaxx status, political affiliation or some other arbitrary measure?
A couple good forewarnings of where this leads…
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709250/?ref_=ttep_ep2
https://youtu.be/6a6kbU88wu0
https://youtu.be/8h4rR3dM_7Q
https://youtu.be/TAHGZSeGVww
My beloved mentioned this to me this morning. She asked me why their new logo looks like a ThighMaster (one of those exercise gadgets from the 80s) which is pretty accurate now that I think of it. My theory is that it's an infinity symbol that's supposed to look like an M as well. I'd say she's right about how silly this is.
New Coke indeed.
The hollowing out theory may have some merit. At some point they were going to reach peak users. Young people are not on there (who wants to be where your parents are) and their policies towards those not of their political beliefs have undoubtedly shrunk that base further.
One sort of critical thing is that for all of "the magic" to work, it requires things like high speed (very high speed) connections and a stable power generation and transition grid, two things that seem a bit challenging at the moment.
I have no knowledge of the movie that Unknown 0735 AM suggests, but someone suggested that the Great Reset future will be like the world envisioned in Alita: Battle Angel
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437086/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
During the scenes when you see their real world, people essentially live in junkyards, stacked mobile homes, with essentially nothing. To escape the real world and be happy, they spend most of their time in the virtual world; in computer games. And here comes Zuckerbot creating that virtual world to live in.
Reminiscent of, "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy."
Say what you will, large corporations make decisions or changes based on only one criteria, MONEY! I'm sure this is part of that legacy. I did like the new coke reference though!
I don't do Facebook. Nor Twitter. No interest.
Yeah.
Like repainting the name before it went down would've helped the Titanic.
They're over.
This is just acknowledging the reality, without acknowledging the reality.
R.I.H. Facecrack.
Seen Wendy's response? It's comedy gold: https://thelibertydaily.com/wendys-wins-the-internet-in-mocking-of-mark-zuckerbergs-ridiculous-rebranding-of-fascistbook/
I'd like to see a book titled "White Gold of the Vampire"… Silly?? Moi?? MWAHAHAHAH, hah, hah, haa….
Meta was also the name of the mysterious planet that Moonbase Alpha was tasked with exploring at the start of Space: 1999. (That was before everything started exploding, of course.) I don't think they ever got there.