The similarities and differences between our reality and Snow Crash

Snow Crash is a science fiction book by Neal Stephenson. It was written in 1992. It takes place in Los Angeles, U.S.A in the near future. The U.S. has become a place where there is little to nothing. It has gone so downhill that there are only four strengths it has left: making music and movies, program software and delivering pizzas.  The strength that is looked at the most is program software, which relates to the metaverse, the main character Hiro Protagonist introduces us to. Hiro Protagonist is a smart and hardcore guy. He is very much a problem solver that takes risks. Stephenson portrays Hiro this way in the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a virtual world which is a popular multiplayer game with avatars as the characters. The Metaverse and the reality that Stephenson makes are very different places compared to our reality, this is certainly seen with security. I'll be focusing on the similarities and differences between our reality and Snow Crash's' reality and the Metaverse and how plausible each circumstance is. 

There are many differences between our reality and the Metaverse and the reality seen in Snow Crash. One example of a difference is how in Snow Crash's' reality there is a private military as oppose to a national military that we have in our government. I would say that this plausible to happen, however not likely in the near future. It certainly rethinks the idea of security because one of the core responsibilities of the government is to keep all of its citizens safe but with a private military than it would only be responsible for those that invest in it. The idea of a private military goes to show that Americans could possibly want more personal and private security, rather than have the government involved  I say this is plausible because we already have such a leiz-a-faire type of economy and wouldn't be surprised if there was more privatization of the government. Another difference that I see as plausible is a post-job world. In Snow Crash the only jobs that we are introduced to in the U.S. job workforce is anything the four industries of music, movies, program software and pizza. Even as a developed country, we still struggle to have enough jobs all throughout the country and we had a economic depression and just got out of a recession. Of course, this the difference between our reality and the one in Snow Crash, the U.S. is certainly stronger than other economies with plenty of jobs making it the strongest economy in the world. However, with more and more outsourcing, it makes it plausible that we could have a post-job world.    

There seem to be more similarities than differences between Snow Crash and our reality. One similarity is organized crime. In Snow Crash, people rely on the mafia in order to have a job in a world with little opportunity. The mafia also controls so much and has so much power. Uncle Enzo is at the top of the hierarchy, acting as a king. This is similar as organized crime in the U.S. because organized crime increases when there are few opportunities and there is someone at the top of the mafia who controls so much and is so powerful. Another similarity is snow crash. In the Metaverse, it is a drug that gives a virus on the person's computer and also impacts the persons health that got the virus as well. In our reality we do have drugs that impact peoples health whether they know the consequences or not. I would say that it is not plausible, at least in the near future. By that I mean it is not plausible that there could be a drug in a virtual reality that could harm a persons health. Another similarity in both realities is the inequalities that arose after the government became less involved. In Snow Crashs' reality, the government becomes less involved and thus can't provide basic public goods. This caused more a Leiz a faire economy, where corporations became more powerful and controlled peoples day to day lives. An example is how law enforcement no longer existed allowing crime to increase. This is a threat to security because the basic necessities such as public goods are no longer provided by the government for everyone. This is similar to our reality because are various different political, economic and other types of conflict that are government needs to figure out how solutions can benefit everyone. This makes it so that there wouldn't different security threats. This is certainly plausible, it is just not likely in the near future. It is plausible because there are so many different ways that the government could fail.