this is your world on drugs

let me preemptively apologize for the length of my post, I just loved the discussion of communication and relations in Snow Crash.

Snow Crash––both in the “future” world which has truly become the capital-driven state of simulation that Baudrillard described (where everything is programmed, like the Burbclaves, and everything is driven by capital and protocol), and in the admittedly simulated meta-verse––raised some interesting questions and dichotomies about the nature of interpersonal (ie: human) relations in a simulated environment/world.

Back in the “real” world, which, just as Baudrillard described, has become a simulated environment due to the rise of capital’s power (consider the artificial, algorithmically-plotted, max-valued worlds of the Burbclaves, or the way in which companies have become programs, running via the protocol laid out in impersonal three ring binders rather than human decisions), communication is problematic. The “real” and the simulated intermingle and, au-Baudrillard, are indistinguishable. Consider Y.T.’s first conversation with the MetaCops in White Columns after she’s been apprehended (48). Human language seems to have lost all meaning. One MetaCop spits the impersonal binder protocol, the second refers to an older code that became naturalized through simulation (namely, movies and tv cop shows). They’re translating one protocol-driven sim-code into another (and we’ve already encountered a language called Taxilinga where language and franchise capitalism actually merge). Neither of them sound genuine (and both of them sound like idiots), and to top it off, they’re called MetaCops. The scene is hilarious.

Also just as Baudrillard described, “people no longer look at each other, but there are institutions for that.” Now what Snow Crash added was that those institutions have been replaces by computer programs, which can perhaps better adhere to the protocol of capitalism than can inter-human communication, which I suppose is more fallible from the franchise-capitalist perspective. Take for example the way in which people are scanned when they enter Burbclaves and welcomed by the PA systems. A better example is actually probably Y.T.’s encounter with the two jail receptionists after her capture in White Columns. The first discovers that she is female by reading his computer screen, rather than by looking at Y.T. (51). The second only glances at her right before leading her to her cell, “to make sure she is really a person, not a sack of flour” (53). On every level at the novel’s beginning sequences it is computers and interfaces that are enabling interpersonal/human interaction/contact/sharing and exchanging of information.

But that yearning for “real” interpersonal relations is still present as well. This is revealed in the by Hiro’s consideration of Juanita’s belief in the value of “real” human relations as “classy,” and in that the Black Sun is a favorite because in it, people are rendered more individually––well enough that their faces become expressive and they cannot in fact merge together.

Nevertheless, this world is tainted. First of all these revelations take place in the Metaverse, which is a pretty decent tip off.

Here, at the Black Sun, the greater quality of face-to-face contact is due to the programmers superior knowledge and understanding of code and computers, not a greater knowledge and understanding of humanity (consider the “bitheads” reaction to Juanita’s interest in faces). Also, the expressions that people are capable of having remind Hiro of Juanita’s and his own, on which she modeled the programming. The programming itself is still pretty impersonal.

Then there’s the unstated comparison between humans and computers––only that humans have organic interfaces (their faces) that better enable the transmission of information––”fact” was the word Juanita used, not emotion or feeling. (And people––their positions (the “Bigboard” reveals a large “Industry” meeting to Hiro while he’s at the Black Sun), their gossip (the actors give Hiro a tip about a director’s love of Bazookas), their lives, really––are considered sources of information.)

But the other result of this comparison is the idea that people do understand people than they do their computers––as Juanita discovered, “the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information––if it comes in the right format. The right interface” (60). And the human face is the original interface (though unlike the computer interface it is not a simulation), and even in the computer world it still works the best. So it’s a breach of utility that people interact solely through protocol and programs (kids on the Street were on dates), which begs the question, in such an environment of simulation and protocol (evident in both the real world and in the Metaverse), is that lack of human interaction avoidable?