IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023 - 9

" metaverse " can leave people unaware of, or lacking
time to pay attention to, encroachment on or
reduction of human rights. There is no material
benefit for a group of people in multiplayer mode
in some online game to be knee-deep in digitally
generated goblin corpses, if in the " real world, " a
bunch of malignant PPE goblins are going to pursue
absurd pie-centric economics while curtailing the
right to strike, restricting the right to protest, limiting
freedom of movement, obstructing the right to
vote, and taking other illiberal measures to diminish
or remove rights that " the people " have struggled to
have recognized for centuries.
The liberal concern for human rights lost to distraction
spills over to the issue of political self-determination.
While the principles for sustaining common-pool
resources through self-determination [20] have been
observed in online computer games [21], the central
problem, according to Bartlett [22], is that the drivers
of technology and democracy are in conflict. The
irony is that the democratization of technological
access has resulted in a de-democratization of political
control: the decentralization inherent to both
direct or representative democracy is not reflected in
centralization due to the so-called " platform revolution "
[23], the network effect leading to the domination
of " BigTech, " and the privatization of what were
once considered, but are no longer, public spaces
[24]. The essence of this is that democratic processes
are, intentionally, slow: they are reflective, exceptionable,
deliberative, accessible, adjustable, reversible,
and seek consensus. Compare this to the " smart contracts "
of distributed consensus technologies, which
are impulsive, deterministic, irrevocable, opaque,
fixed, and essentially majoritarian.
In the consideration of both rights and self-determination,
there are two further points worth noting.
The first is that it is important to identify the trust
(and indeed the faith) relationships: in democracy,
one has to trust (have faith in) a set of interlocking
institutions (deliberative assemblies, political parties,
independent judiciary, free press, and effective
enforcement) and shared values, in particular, legitimate
consent, responsibility, and accountability;
these values are required for continuous systemic
improvement and tangible consequences for misrule
or corruption. The second is that none of this
actually exists except in the heads of those involved;
and none of it matters except the one that does, i.e.,
the social construction of institutional reality relative
March 2023
to the " real world. " Authoritarian technocrats have
managed to detach established trust relationships
from traditional democratic institutions, reattach
" trust " to themselves instead, and compromise social
construction through the creation of false narratives
in misinformation and disinformation.
Propagating misinformation is also the key to undermining
traditional knowledge gatekeepers, in particular,
the universities and the press [25]. Research was
once the preserve of a trained and educated elite, but
for all that, at least objective and in pursuit of the common
interest. This has been supplanted by the exhortation
of any snake oil salesperson with a keyboard
and an internet connection for people " to do their own
research, " by which they mean to use a search engine
(whose algorithms are biased to prioritize the content
of maximum provocation) and give in to confirmation
bias, rather than conduct a double-blind randomized
controlled trial and submit their results for peer review.
Moreover, and quite evidently, the ability to weaponize
misinformation, data science, and targeted advertising
to insidiously cause maximal disruption has not gone
unnoticed, or unpracticed.
Increasingly, the privileges that technology
brings only belong to those that can afford it, especially
when the state withdraws from the provision
of national infrastructure and public services.
Those who are sufficiently asset-rich to own an
electric vehicle can be paid to consume electricity
during storms, while those without have to choose
between heating or eating. Those who earn enough
to pay for ride- " sharing " services can outbid others
for a taxi, while those who do not must wait
for unreliable and overcrowded public transport.
Those who (already) have available resources
such as home computers and unlimited internet
access can access online learning to continue
their education during a global pandemic, but
for those who have not, even that which they had
(a right to an education) is restricted or denied.
Those who are struggling with mental health issues
but have enough disposable income to look after
themselves can get a consultation with a professional
therapist or counselor, and those without
can make do with LLM-generated platitudes from
a cheap chatbot [26].
Consequently, the argument over the social contract
determining what is a privilege and what is a right
no longer only impacts traditional issues of health,
education, welfare, and movement, but now also
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023

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