(METAVERSE 2022) Cyberpunk and Cypherpunk: a philosophical analysis comparing two "views of Metaverse"

Hanlin Ma (Suzhou University of Science and Technology, China)

As ancestors of the idea of "Metaverse", Cyberpunks and Cypherpunks propose two distinct attitudes towards Cyberspace, and this difference would also be endowed to the attitudes towards Metaverse. These two attitudes will powerfully influence the developmental direction of the Metaverse and how it would be recognized and accepted by human society. Given that the visual space is an artificial reality by technology, these two different attitudes not only illustrate two different ideas towards "realities other than the physical one of human society", but also illustrate two different ideas towards technology itself. The Metaverse view of cyberpunk could be techno-pessimistic or Luddite. In addition, Cypherpunk's metaverse view is "technological transformationism", which has not had many conflicts with technological pessimism, though is almost incompatible with Luddism's metaverse view.