145A. Authentication Goes Global [Updated 01-08-25]

In 2010 I predicted a future metaverse by 2030, with global strong authentication as a non optional prerequisite technology. The adoption of this tech is rapidly taking form.

[Update August 1st, 2025: Asmongold just published something of an emergency broadcast to his 4 million followers to explain that global authentication was here and would be unavoidable: ]

In 2010 I did an experiment where I attempted to do a simultaneous multi system trend analysis with the goal of predicting what gaming would be like in 2030. The result of that work was my Third Tier of Game Development paper, which has aged quite well. So well, that you can see the prerequisite technologies required for the Metaverse I described, forming right on time. That paper has gotten a lot of attention from major platform companies, though it would seem that Mark Zuckerberg proceeded without reading it. That was an expensive decision.

The reason a strong authentication system is necessary is tied to what the purpose of this metaverse is. It purpose is not, as Zuckerberg hoped, a larger platform for data collection and advertising. That will happen in parallel but does not require a metaverse.

Some of the key trends I was following in industries adjacent to game development were the proliferation of falsified identities and credentials.

It seemed to me that this would make the assembly of qualified teams, both large and small, almost impossible as even one “catfish” could ruin a project if they were in a key role. The trend was that perhaps more than 50% of hires would end up being catfish, rendering teams non-productive. In the next paper, 146B, I will give a real life example from a company all of you know quite well.

Thus the imperative for this global metaverse would be to authenticate not only workers, but their skill sets. With such a data base, teams of any size and complexity could be assembled anywhere in the world, in minutes, if you know what skill sets were required. Most of these workers would be doing remote work. I also predicted in that paper (in 2010) that the move towards remote work would be accelerated by “microbial evolution”, i.e. pandemics. This is because global travel speeds up microbial evolution, and banning travel (and working from home) slows its spread and mutation rates.

Trillions of dollars of productivity are lost every month globally because finding qualified labor is time consuming and often leads to “false positives” which I generally lump into the category of “catfish”. From my conversations with people in their 20s, they tend to believe that everyone falsifies their credentials, and they have to do this because everyone else is doing it. That makes sense, and will continue (and get even worse) until this Metaverse that I described in 2010 is completed.

One study put the rate of resume falsification at 70% in 2023, and more recent studies put the rate at almost 80%.

We generally call the honest people who don’t lie on their resume, “long term unemployed”. The example I gave my physical therapy and sports medicine students back in the 1990s was that if you are playing professional football and the guy across from you is doing steroids, you have to also if you want to keep your job. The only way to prevent this is to test/regulate everyone, and that would be a lot of work.

Unfortunately, if the choices are “inability to create productive teams” and “a lot of regulation/authentication/testing”, the latter starts to look attractive.

Global Authentication

The creation of a global system of authentication is complicated. If you want a detailed explanation of what that looks like, go back and read the Third Tier from 2010 if you have not already. Since this is a very complex megaproject that will cost the collective species trillions of dollars to fully implement, what you will see is intermediary steps as we approach that unified system.

Current global efforts seem to be focused on:

1. Data security

2. Age/Identity verification

Countries currently taking major steps to regulate/promote data security include:

The EU, China, India, Australia, and Brazil. Due to the fragmented condition of the USA federal government, efforts are being initiated on the state level in Texas, Oregon, Florida, Montana, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Rhode Island. I would expect the rest of the world to follow the lead of these countries as resources and technology permit.

Age and Identity verification is harder to implement due to public distrust of governments and companies. I think that distrust is warranted, given how both companies and governments are misusing data. Meanwhile the public really is undereducated on these subjects, again that’s a failure of governments to take the subject seriously. This happens in part because companies that benefit from the lawless nature of data collection and commerce benefit from the lack of regulation and education.

The problem is that social media use is known to be dangerous for, well, everyone. But it is especially dangerous for children. China and South Korea have been gating internet access for children for years. The EU (and especially France), UK, and Australia are all in the process of implementing age related safeguards/authentications. The USA has the Kids Online Safety Act “pending”, which means it may not be implemented. Several states are implementing their own rules.

Blocking children from using social media would reduce the number of users of social media, thus those companies will oppose the regulations. They also likely do not want the brand damage that would come from a wider knowledge of the lack of safety for their products. The scenario is similar to the situation with cigarettes and alcohol, products that were eventually age gated. While chemically different from alcohol, social media and cigarettes both target the release of dopamine, which in turn has a wide range of affects on the adrenal and autonomic nervous systems. These systems react differently and more permanently in children.

The “Tea” app is a cautionary tale. They promised to allow women unrestricted and anonymous gossip on men, in return for users providing their state sponsored identification. These identifications, along with pictures and even messages were almost immediately released to the public, exposing users to uncomfortable or even dangerous/legal exposure. People need to be very careful who they trust to mediate authentication procedures. Again, the wilful lack of education of citizenry puts them at risk of this and other scams.

Disunity

This patchwork implementation is going to be a nightmare for companies caught in the web of increasing regulation. I attempted to ease this transition by warning these companies to work with regulators over the last decade, but their leadership attempts to prevent regulation will just result in a rougher and more expensive landing for them.

Next steps are going to be to get countries to agree on standards they are all willing to accept, in order to approach one agreed upon global standard. China will not agree to these standards, but they already block social media from other countries, and even their own social engineering platforms directed outside of China (for instance, Chinese citizens are protected from TikTok exposure in China).

The public is going to be very disoriented by the loss of anonymity on the internet. In more authoritarian countries, this will have a chilling effect on dissent. Quelling social unrest (which could include methods unpleasant for civilians) could take years depending on whether a country’s government serves the people or vice versa.

Once this process completes, the Metaverse can start being built. That will ultimately improve productivity dramatically in every country where it is implemented, but the road from here to there is going to see a related drop in production efficiency due to catfish and social upheaval until that process completes.

As I wrote in Third Tier, I don’t see this transition as optional. We have to push forward because with the damage we have done to the ecosphere, and the race against microbial evolution, humans have to get more efficient if they want to avoid going way back in technology level. AI is a bit of a wildcard, as it eats so much energy and does so much additional environmental damage that it accelerates this “race against time” by reducing the amount of time left.

As catfish are being recruited to use AI tools like Grammarly, and even being programmed to see their catfish role as ethical and heroic, human productivity on average is going to continue to go down even as AI productivity goes up. This could go a number of ways, and if a conflict between humans and AI occurs then the Metaverse will not ultimately be built. AI does not need or benefit from the Metaverse unless it decides to continue to utilize humans as a servant class. In that case I don’t see humans being able to sustain anything close to their current standards of living or freedom.