And yet the aesthetics of the metaverse, with its ghastly translucent holograms, evoke the specter of death. Its schedule of activities reads like an advertisement for a virtual retirement community where isolated millennials can live out their final days, gazing at what Zuckerberg calls “a view of whatever you find most beautiful” as advertisers conceive of new ways to drill advertisements directly into their skulls.

It’s enough to make you long for a truly eccentric billionaire, someone who will at least offer a thrilling spectacle in exchange for becoming entrapped in his thought prison. Sadly, Zuckerberg is not the only internet tycoon building a new world to his bland specifications: While Zuckerberg moves to colonize the mind, Jeff Bezos is extending his influence into the cold reaches of space, where he plans to construct a private space station pitched as a “mixed-use business park.” Together they have slain our childlike fantasies of space exploration and virtual reality adventure, redirecting our imaginations into sealed corporate environments that can be exploited for profit.

The worst future.