Life in the Metaverse -- Advanced English Conversation and Listening Comprehension Worksheet
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We discuss what life could be like in the Metaverse. Suppose you are interested in technology, sci-fi, and the future of society. In that case, you might want to tune into this advanced listening lesson to test your comprehension and practice your communication and conversation skills.

Test your listening comprehension skills with these two worksheets. I recommend listening through once and getting the conversation's overall gist. Then, you can complete the questions as you listen to the episode a second time. If you prefer to attempt these questions on the first listen, then read through the questions before you listen to the episode to prime your brain! I will reveal the answers to these questions in next week's newsletter. Keep an eye out for that.
 

Here is the full transcript of our conversation:

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:33:27
Mary Daphne
Hello, Advanced English learners. Welcome back. We are so excited for this episode. I am joined by the one and only Greg and today we thought we would talk about something that I think is on a lot of people's minds. But before we jump in, I just want to remind you that, you know, we're doing this for you to help you improve your listening comprehension, to help you hear what Connected Speech sounds like in action to help you with your pronunciation, your intonation, your prosody.

00:00:34:04 - 00:00:52:24
Mary Daphne
So communication in general, and then also, you know, giving you an opportunity to learn new vocabulary, new expressions, and learn a little bit about Americans' perspective on certain things going on in the world. So that being said, do you want to know today's topic? I would.

00:00:52:24 - 00:00:53:19
Greg
Love to know today's.

00:00:53:19 - 00:00:57:23
Mary Daphne
Topic. So I thought we could talk today about the metaverse.

00:00:58:14 - 00:01:01:24
Greg
Metaverse, that's hopeful for a big topic.

00:01:02:02 - 00:01:06:13
Mary Daphne
Yep. All right. So let's get into it.

00:01:09:27 - 00:01:30:00
Mary Daphne
All right. So the metaverse, this is something that I think is on a lot of people's minds as it is on the horizon. We started to hear a lot about it more recently in the news. And I think people are starting to realize that this is probably the direction that we are headed in.

00:01:30:22 - 00:01:42:22
Greg
Yeah, well, it is certainly a direction. And, you know, obviously I think before we dive into the specifics, it's probably good to define what the metaverse is.

00:01:42:23 - 00:01:45:16
Mary Daphne
I think that's a great idea. It's a great starting point.

00:01:45:17 - 00:01:46:00
Greg
Yeah.

00:01:46:01 - 00:02:00:04
Mary Daphne
So what is it? It was actually a term coined by the author of this book called Snow Crash Back. I mean, several years now, maybe I want to say the seventies or eighties.

00:02:00:05 - 00:02:05:13
Greg
Yeah. Yeah. Back in this sort of the origin of the cypherpunk era.

00:02:05:20 - 00:02:15:16
Mary Daphne
Yeah. So from this sci fi novel we've heard it also more recently in the book turned film ready. Player one.

00:02:15:20 - 00:02:17:29
Greg
Mm hmm. A Steven Spielberg film.

00:02:18:11 - 00:02:24:26
Mary Daphne
Great film, by the way, if you haven't seen it, highly recommend it if you're into futuristic sci fi as we are.

00:02:25:06 - 00:02:25:25
Greg
And gaming.

00:02:26:08 - 00:02:54:06
Mary Daphne
And gaming. So we still didn't define it. So I feel like you as someone who games can help shed light on the definition. But my understanding is that it is a place, a virtual realm in which we have avatars that are representations of us in the metaverse. And there is not just one metaverse yet.

00:02:54:07 - 00:03:21:22
Mary Daphne
There might be in the future, but just like there's not one search engine, we have multiple search engines, Yahoo, Google, Brave, Mozilla, all these different search engines, we're probably going to start out with multiple different Metaverse is such a virtual realm in which we can interact with each other. We can have entertainment, we can learn things, we can live our virtual life, which is parallel to our physical life.

00:03:22:03 - 00:03:42:03
Greg
Yeah, I actually think that's a really good description of the metaverse. You also. I really like your comparison to a search engine. Why? Because when search engines first started, there were many search engines. Right. You had Yahoo! Google, AltaVista was like dogpile. You remember that?

00:03:42:03 - 00:03:42:25
Mary Daphne
I don't know that one.

00:03:42:25 - 00:03:45:21
Greg
Yeah. Yeah, there were a bunch. Ask Jeeves.

00:03:45:21 - 00:03:46:16
Mary Daphne
As Jeeves. I do.

00:03:46:17 - 00:03:54:12
Greg
Yeah. Yeah. We're dating ourselves here. These are all sort of like back in the nineties, early 2000 and AOL. AOL.

00:03:54:26 - 00:03:56:12
Mary Daphne
America Online. That was big.

00:03:56:12 - 00:04:18:21
Greg
Exactly. So. Messenger and MSN Messenger. Yeah. MSN had their own search, so all of these existed at one time. It was kind of what you call a Cambrian explosion, right? Like the Cambrian explosion in prehistoric times is when, you know, a lot of different dinosaur species came into being. So there was a Cambrian explosion of search engines.

00:04:18:29 - 00:04:26:28
Greg
And then over time, the best performing search engines out competed in a Darwinian process. They outcompeted the other one.

00:04:26:29 - 00:04:31:23
Mary Daphne
So survival of the fittest. What was the best, exactly and strongest? Who survived?

00:04:31:24 - 00:04:55:22
Greg
Exactly. So that's called a Darwinian process, right? Darwin came up with this idea of evolution where the fittest survive, and that happened in the search engine game. And of course, now we all know the largest search engine, which is now a verb called Google. Google. Right. And so what Google does best. It indexed all the content of the Internet in a way that was much more efficient than other search engines.

00:04:56:06 - 00:05:20:26
Greg
And the reason I bring this up is Google has what's called Metcalf's law. It benefits from MIT cat slog. Right. These network effects. And it says that the bigger the network gets, the more valuable that network becomes to its participants. And that same law will apply to the metaverse. Right. And so this metaphor.

00:05:20:26 - 00:05:22:29
Mary Daphne
Bigger the metaverse, the better it is.

00:05:22:29 - 00:05:41:25
Greg
The more that values the metaverse, the more used it becomes, the more value it provides. And therefore, the more people are drawn to it. Yes. And the same thing happened with Facebook, right? For a long time, Facebook was basically the only social network out there. Yeah. Because that's where everyone got their information from their friends, right?

00:05:41:25 - 00:05:56:25
Greg
Because that's where all their friends were. And so you go where your friends are going. Over time, though, interestingly, other social media companies have been able to enter and compete. Yes. Right. So that's an example where even though there was one dominant player, new players came in, competed with them.

00:05:56:26 - 00:05:57:24
Mary Daphne
Right. Exactly.

00:05:57:24 - 00:06:12:21
Greg
And so these are the same dynamics we're probably going to see play out in the metaverse. And, of course, you're probably familiar with one of the big contenders for the metaverse, which is what we mentioned already, Facebook. Facebook. Right.

00:06:12:25 - 00:06:23:22
Mary Daphne
The newly called Metta. And you wonder why, right. Metta. So we actually in English, we don't say metta, but it's spelled meta. Right. But we say metta that the D sounds like a G.

00:06:23:22 - 00:06:32:27
Greg
Yeah. Right. So they label themselves Metta. This is their whole transition strategy. Right? They're going to pivot to becoming a metaverse and that kind of makes sense, right?

00:06:32:27 - 00:06:38:28
Mary Daphne
In a lot of ways because it's already a social network. There are a lot of people on it. There's hundreds of millions of people there.

00:06:39:05 - 00:06:39:22
Greg
Billions.

00:06:39:22 - 00:07:03:19
Mary Daphne
Billions, millions playing. Yeah. I remember when it first started out as a college only social network. So you could only enter if you had a dot edu. So a dot education email address, which you would get when you entered university here in the U.S. And they first opened it to only a select few universities, and then it became it.

00:07:04:03 - 00:07:05:13
Greg
Started Harvard only.

00:07:05:14 - 00:07:28:05
Mary Daphne
Harvard only. And it was actually based just a little outside tangent here because it kind of shows the evolution of how these things work. “The Facebook” was an actual, tangible, physical book of people's faces, and so it was a way to get to know people. This is again, it's almost prehistoric. I actually still have the one that we had in college.

00:07:28:05 - 00:07:46:03
Mary Daphne
Our college Facebook first year. Yeah. It's somewhere so funny in the attic, but it's so funny because it started out like that. So who knows? A book, a physical book where people's faces. So that being said, you can imagine how, you know, we have all these ideas about the metaverse and who knows how that's really going to start out.

00:07:46:03 - 00:07:49:02
Mary Daphne
And then looking back to be like, Oh really it was that.

00:07:49:02 - 00:07:54:07
Greg
So that's a really important concept in technology. It's called Skeuomorphic design.

00:07:54:08 - 00:07:55:16
Mary Daphne
Skeuomorphic.

00:07:55:16 - 00:08:15:27
Greg
Skeuomorphic design. And what it refers to is when a new medium of technology comes out, in this case, a digital social network. Yet the initial instinct is for people to replicate what existed in the previous paradigm. Right. And so the previous paradigm was books.

00:08:15:27 - 00:08:16:25
Mary Daphne
Right, that you're.

00:08:17:03 - 00:08:32:07
Greg
You could and you also had the social register, right? That was a book. Yeah, right. Where you could look up people's names and phone numbers and phone books, right? Yes. So the Skeuomorphic adaptation in a digital context would actually be called Facebook. Yeah. Because it's like a book.

00:08:32:11 - 00:08:33:04
Mary Daphne
They just dropped the The.

00:08:33:04 - 00:08:46:16
Greg
Yeah. And it had a picture of someone and a little information about them. So it was very similar to the actual book. And over time that turned into what it is now, which is like a newsfeed, it's a sharing code, it's a place for people to come together, form groups, sell things.

00:08:46:16 - 00:08:47:09
Mary Daphne
It's a marketplace.

00:08:47:10 - 00:09:05:07
Greg
Marketplace. And those are all things people could have never anticipated at the start. And we can expect something very similar in the metaverse. Right, right now, what you described is what we're all sort of envisioning. It's this incredible digital world where we can do everything, we can play games, we can learn, we can interact.

00:09:05:07 - 00:09:17:12
Mary Daphne
We can go shopping. I was reading somewhere that people, even experts are contending, they're anticipating, they're surmising and guessing that people can even get married in the metaverse.

00:09:17:21 - 00:09:20:27
Greg
Oh, sure. I mean, that already happens in games like World of Warcraft.

00:09:21:00 - 00:09:21:21
Mary Daphne
How does that work?

00:09:21:21 - 00:09:41:07
Greg
People meet each other online. They're playing the game together. And some of these games are hard, right? And so people bond over adversity. Yeah, of course. And so they're doing something fun together. And over enough time, they build a real relationship. Yeah. And that world means something to them. And so conducting the ceremony in that world in which they form that relationship seems actually quite reasonable.

00:09:41:24 - 00:09:45:22
Mary Daphne
Yeah. And it reminds me of a more recent film. Yes. Guy.

00:09:45:22 - 00:09:46:08
Greg
Yes, Guy.

00:09:46:09 - 00:10:18:11
Mary Daphne
Yes, that's I think it's on Netflix if you're interested again in seeing sort of this is not a dystopian reality, but it's just a reflection of things that happen in the metaverse, stay in the metaverse, but not always. And it just kind of reminds me of how, you know, relationships can form in this off world, not off world, because we're not talking about going to Mars or Venus, but in this online versus offline reality and how these two realities, when they collide, or are they what they seem to be, it.

00:10:18:11 - 00:10:19:10
Greg
Can be very confusing.

00:10:19:10 - 00:10:19:22
Mary Daphne
It can be.

00:10:19:22 - 00:10:33:25
Greg
So, yeah, it can be very confusing. And that's, I think, a real concern that people have, which is if these virtual worlds, these metaverse, have become so engaging, you know, will people even do anything in the physical world?

00:10:33:29 - 00:10:34:09
Mary Daphne
Right.

00:10:34:12 - 00:10:46:01
Greg
We have yet to see what and how that blend works. And there's also another part of it, which is maybe the metaverse isn't quite as enveloping as we think, at least in that traditional sense, where you put on a headset and disappear.

00:10:46:09 - 00:10:49:06
Mary Daphne
Maybe enveloping is when you're completely consumed by.

00:10:49:15 - 00:10:49:28
Greg
Things like an.

00:10:49:28 - 00:10:53:02
Mary Daphne
Envelope. An envelope. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, go ahead.

00:10:53:04 - 00:10:58:07
Greg
So maybe instead what happens is you're wearing contacts.

00:10:58:16 - 00:10:58:26
Mary Daphne
Right?

00:10:59:06 - 00:11:20:05
Greg
And you get a heads up display so you see the real world. But on top of that is the metaverse that's overlaid on top of it, right? So I'm sitting here in this room and I'm looking at the camera here and maybe I can see you standing next to the camera, but you're not actually there. It's just a, you know, the representation of you on my contact lens.

00:11:20:05 - 00:11:34:11
Greg
Really. Right. And I'll see some information above it about the weather or like maybe the script that I'm speaking about, right? So there's many different ways that you can overlay digital worlds onto our actual reality, and that's more.

00:11:34:12 - 00:11:36:07
Mary Daphne
Like an augmented reality.

00:11:36:08 - 00:11:53:11
Greg
Air Augmented reality. And so maybe the metaverse is actually because of what we found so far with VR. Yeah, is that people get tired of it after not too much time, right after an hour or so, they're kind of like, I need to get back to the real world. This is just too disorienting, right? Right.

00:11:53:11 - 00:12:17:24
Mary Daphne
Yeah. And not to mention, like I remember doing the ski skiing in the virtual world, but, you know, with the high was it HoloLens that was. Oh, right. Yeah. I found it really jarring and I found like I was not it made me dizzy immediately. So even though I like to see in the real world and I'll do it almost every year, like I could not really do it properly in the virtual reality.

00:12:17:24 - 00:12:20:01
Mary Daphne
And I just was like, Greg, get me out of here.

00:12:20:05 - 00:12:42:11
Greg
Totally. And that might just be growing pains, maybe as the technology becomes more comfortable, we can spend more time. But I would not be surprised if we find that we prefer to blend virtual reality and physical reality rather than completely supplant, completely replace physical with the virtual.

00:12:42:11 - 00:13:00:28
Mary Daphne
I think I would make that guess as well, particularly since I think transitioning into air first is a lot easier than going from this world, this realm straight into the virtual realm. Yes, we need to still feel a semblance of the physicality of our.

00:13:00:28 - 00:13:02:00
Greg
Yeah, we'd like to be grounded.

00:13:02:01 - 00:13:18:15
Mary Daphne
Yeah. Out of our space. I think as humans, generally speaking you might have another opinion and I welcome that and we would love to hear what your thoughts are. I want to talk a little bit about applications of the metaverse. I can think of one that I'm really excited about. Do you want me to tell you?

00:13:18:16 - 00:13:19:12
Greg
Yeah, I'd love to hear.

00:13:19:18 - 00:13:55:19
Mary Daphne
So I think the education component of this learning, right. So learning by doing suddenly, you know, you're in let's say you're learning French, suddenly you're in France and you're ordering a baguette and you're ordering coffee and you're wearing whatever from a cafe in a cool district in Paris. Right. So suddenly you're in this space and you're practicing your language skills, or maybe you're learning complex coding concepts and you're surrounded by coding experts and with coders and you know, you're leveling up that way.

00:13:55:19 - 00:13:56:29
Mary Daphne
I think it's super cool.

00:13:57:05 - 00:14:16:00
Greg
Yeah, I think learning is a terrific example. Yeah, the metaverse because you can bring together people from all around the world who might never have a chance to physically meet. You can bring them together in this virtual space. They can represent themselves however they like, and they can even be speaking different languages, right? And they're sort of translated.

00:14:16:00 - 00:14:33:15
Greg
You're not going to get the it's not the same thing as if they were speaking, you know, the language natively. Sure. But you can at least communicate, you know, without much interruption. Yeah, right. Without too much friction, because everything's sort of enabled digitally. So.

00:14:34:02 - 00:14:36:11
Mary Daphne
So there'll be like real time translation maybe.

00:14:36:11 - 00:14:47:11
Greg
Yeah. Yeah, to some extent. Right. The point is, at the very least, they can sort of come together and share experiences and a lot of things. Actually you can have a shared experience without even speaking. That's all.

00:14:47:13 - 00:15:03:12
Mary Daphne
Is true. Yeah, because there's so much that gets conveyed through the nonverbal communication, the smiles, expressions, the body language, right? We can sense someone who is hostile towards us and someone who's friendly toward us without them even opening their mouth to speak. Right. I mean.

00:15:03:12 - 00:15:07:28
Greg
Think about Charlie Chaplin, right? Yeah. We love Charlie Chaplin. And silent films.

00:15:07:28 - 00:15:09:12
Mary Daphne
Yeah. Hilarious.

00:15:09:12 - 00:15:16:24
Greg
Hilarious. The other thing that's, I think, really important to consider, regardless of the application of it, is who owns it.

00:15:17:05 - 00:15:18:22
Mary Daphne
Interesting. Like what company owns.

00:15:18:23 - 00:15:21:03
Greg
Yeah, right. And this comes up and ready player one.

00:15:21:03 - 00:15:22:13
Mary Daphne
Which is oh yeah, who's.

00:15:22:13 - 00:15:23:18
Greg
The master of the universe.

00:15:23:18 - 00:15:27:29
Mary Daphne
That's the underlying premise, that's the underlying sort of idea of the movie.

00:15:27:29 - 00:15:45:09
Greg
And it's kind of scary. We talked about Facebook potentially being a contender. I personally don't want Mark Zuckerberg to own the metaverse, right? I don't really want to live in his world. I want to live in my own world. I want to find my own rules or I want the rules to be defined by everyone sort of collectively.

00:15:45:10 - 00:15:51:27
Mary Daphne
Right. That's so funny. Said the same way that we're not sure this is not scripted, by the way it is. There is no script for it.

00:15:52:06 - 00:16:12:23
Greg
So that's why I also personally believe if we do do the metaverse, I'm a huge proponent of doing it in a decentralized way. Right, right. I want a metaverse where the participants get to choose the rules, where it comes together and provides people a lot of freedom as to how they interact, what they bring into it, what they do with it.

00:16:12:23 - 00:16:41:23
Greg
Yeah. And so from my perspective, a decentralized metaverse, which requires decentralized technology, right? That's why I think the blockchain, one of the most important applications of the blockchain in the future, is to power this decentralized world. Right, right. When you run things on an incredibly neutral network, right where no one controls it or everyone controls it, you don't have to worry about any one person saying, Oh, you can't do this or you have to do this, right?

00:16:41:26 - 00:16:43:24
Mary Daphne
It's being dictated or censored, right?

00:16:43:24 - 00:16:44:15
Greg
No one can tell you.

00:16:44:15 - 00:16:45:18
Mary Daphne
What to do or what to do.

00:16:45:19 - 00:16:58:16
Greg
Because, you know, it's when you have a million people all weighing in. Yeah, everyone's going to have a different perspective, of course. So the only common ground you can find is to let everyone do what they want. Now, this can be chaotic.

00:16:58:16 - 00:16:59:24
Mary Daphne
Well, it could be anarchy, right?

00:16:59:24 - 00:17:00:22
Greg
It could be anarchy.

00:17:00:22 - 00:17:02:24
Mary Daphne
Would you rule this lawless?

00:17:02:24 - 00:17:03:16
Greg
Lawless.

00:17:03:16 - 00:17:08:00
Mary Daphne
So we see that also in dystopian movies. What was it with that we were watching?

00:17:08:12 - 00:17:08:20
Greg
Mad.

00:17:08:20 - 00:17:21:15
Mary Daphne
Max? Could be. I've actually never seen Mad Max, but you see dystopia, common tropes, common themes that we see where if everyone just wants to do it or whatever, there's just going to be pure chaos.

00:17:21:15 - 00:17:23:11
Greg
Right. So you obviously don't want that.

00:17:23:11 - 00:17:23:23
Mary Daphne
No.

00:17:23:23 - 00:17:49:12
Greg
But beautiful with a sort of decentralized, neutral foundation. Yeah. On top of that, you can build whatever you want. So Facebook can on top of that, build a safe space for their metaverse or their section of the metaverse. Disney could build a wonderful version of their metaverse, but they're building on top of a neutral foundation where everyone can sort of create their own version of what they think the metaverse should be or sort of their corner of the metaverse.

00:17:49:23 - 00:17:55:20
Greg
And that way everyone can choose what networks to participate in and which parts to stay away from. Right.

00:17:55:20 - 00:18:05:26
Mary Daphne
So absolutely, I think, yeah, you still have that human agency, meaning you have that choice to make as humans, like what you want to do. How do you want to participate? How do you want to engage in the metaverse?

00:18:05:27 - 00:18:06:12
Greg
Totally.

00:18:06:12 - 00:18:09:27
Mary Daphne
So it's something to think about. There's still so many questions, honestly, and.

00:18:09:27 - 00:18:25:22
Greg
What you want to teach, going back to your example, that maybe in some countries it's not acceptable to teach certain subjects. In other countries it is acceptable, right? Right. So having a place where you can teach what you want to teach without feeling beholden to, you know, what your government says. That could be interesting, too, right?

00:18:25:22 - 00:18:47:00
Mary Daphne
So there's just so many questions. I think over time, you know, some people are saying as soon as 2030, we're all going to somehow be involved in the metaverse. So it'll be interesting to see if that plays out that way. Could be sooner, could be later. What are your thoughts? Do you think we're going to be entering the metaverse sooner or sooner or later?

00:18:47:00 - 00:18:47:26
Greg
What's it going to look like?

00:18:47:28 - 00:18:50:01
Mary Daphne
Yeah, exactly. What should it look like? Yeah.

00:18:50:01 - 00:18:50:25
Greg
What do you want to take away?

00:18:51:29 - 00:19:12:08
Mary Daphne
So there's a lot to think about here. We're happy to do a part two, if that's something that you're interested in. And again, it would be really cool to hear your perspectives on what you're thinking about the future of the metaverse and where that's going to take us as a human race, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah.

00:19:12:19 - 00:19:35:07
Mary Daphne
So thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. If you really enjoy the podcast and the channel, feel free to give it some love. Show it some love meaning. Give it a light, give it a comment, give it a Q&A, give a review. Leave a review of that. Something that you feel adamant about, meaning you feel strongly about in a good way and share it.

00:19:35:07 - 00:19:58:20
Mary Daphne
That really makes a difference because we are able to get the podcasts and the content to as many people as we can. And our goal is to empower you as a communicator to communicate much better in your social life, in your personal life, your professional life. So these are important resources to have and hopefully you're enjoying it as well because we definitely are.

00:19:59:00 - 00:20:19:20
Mary Daphne
And I have some exciting news that I'm going to be sharing very, very soon. So make sure to get that news to be, you know, in the mix of what's going on here at advanced english dot co. Thank you, Greg. That's the word I was looking for. You want to make sure that you're subscribed to our newsletter so you can easily do that.

00:20:19:20 - 00:20:41:00
Mary Daphne
It's a free newsletter. You just go to our website, Advanced English dot co, and there's a little pop up and you can just sign up. You can also scroll to the bottom and you'll see a mailing list. So just doing that, it's 100% free and you get lessons from us every week as well as some upcoming very exciting news that Greg and I are super excited to let you know about.

00:20:41:00 - 00:21:06:04
Mary Daphne
So that'll be cool. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. And we'll see you very soon. Everyone.

⚡⚡⚡

And here are the answers from this conversation on The Metaverse:

1. What is The Metaverse? [2:37]
A virtual realm in which we have Avatars, which are representations of us. There is not just one Metaverse yet, there might be in the future several. In this virtual world we can interact with each other, have entertainment, learn something, and live our virtual life, which is parallel to our physical world.

2. All of the following search engines are mentioned EXCEPT [~3:07]:
Answer: (d) Yandex

3. What does Greg mean when he says “we’re dating ourselves here.” [~3:54]
Answer: (b) We are revealing our age

4. What is a “Cambrian explosion?” [~4:12]
In prehistoric times, it refers to a time when many different dinosaurs came into existence. In this context, there is a “Cambrian explosion” of search engines, meaning when we first had search engines, there were so many different ones.

5. What is a “Darwinian process?” [~4:35]
Based on the evolutionary concept that Charles Darwin came up with which is that the fittest survive. It’s also known as “the survival of the fittest.”

6. What is Metcalf’s effect? [~5:15]
Network effects. Metcalf’s law says that the bigger the network gets the more value that network becomes to its participants.

7. In the early days of Facebook how could you sign up for an account? [~7:00]
Answer: (c) With a [.edu] address

8. What was the original Facebook? [~7:25]
It was an actual, tangible, physical book that had a photo of every single Freshman Year (first year) College student at the university/college in the U.S.

9. What is the technology concept “skeuomorphic design?” [8:15]
When a new medium of technology comes out, the initial instinct is to replicate what existed in the previous paradigm.

10. What is one concern people might have about virtual worlds (i.e., Metaverse)? [~10:35]
If the virtual worlds are so engaging will people even do anything in the physical worlds?

11. How does MD re-engage Greg in the conversation after they went off on a little tangent? [~11:03]
Answer: (b) Go ahead

12. What’s another word for “supplant?” [~12:51]
Answer: (d) Replace

13. What is one application of the Metaverse that MD is excited about and why? [~13:33]
Educational aspects and learning by doing in the Metaverse. Being able to try out the concepts you’ve learned would be powerful. This way, you’re really trying out the concepts and learning by doing.

14. Why does Greg think MD gave a terrific example? [~14:17]
This is a great example of bringing people together from all over the world to connect and interact with each other. And this might give people an opportunity to to interact with people that they’d never be able to interact with due to time zone constraints, geographical constraints, and other time/space barriers. Also, they can use whatever representation they’d like (i.e., Avatars) and show up however they choose.

15. Why is Greg a huge proponent of a decentralized Metaverse? [~16:14]
If it’s decentralized, then the participants get to choose the rules. People have freedom how to interact with each other, what to do with it and so on. And one of the most important aspects of blockchain in the future is to power this network. But with a decentralized foundation, on top of that you can build whatever you want. So companies like Disney and Facebook can build on top of a neutral foundation. This way everyone can choose which networks they can participate in and what they stay away from.

About the Author and the Explearning Academy:


Mary Daphne is an expert in communication, executive skills and professional development. She is the founder of the Explearning Academy, a platform dedicated to helping individuals enhance their social fluency, boost their careers, and elevate their social game. Through immersive group coaching programs like the Executive Communication Lab and self-guided journeys, participants gain the social superpowers and career catapults they've been searching for. If you're ready to take your negotiation skills to the next level and connect with like-minded individuals, visit academy.explearning.co and explore the various plans available. Join the Explearning Academy community and unlock your full potential.

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