A famous science fiction book, praised by some "AI maximalists" for "predicting the future" 30 years ago, was it really?

Trying to implement the idea of "Metaverse" costed Facebook tens of billions of dollars (and business name change!), and was rejected by the users. And while VR exists, it is not common even in gaming.

NVIDIA's $96.2B Quarter, China's 200,000 Fake Accounts, & OpenAI's New Chip | EP #284 - 

the hosts explicitly discuss Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash (1:01:47). During a conversation about future narratives and predictive science fiction, the group reflects on Stephenson's body of work, noting that Snow Crash was written over 30 years ago and remains remarkably relevant and "perfect" in its predictions today.

the hosts do discuss the challenge of making long-term predictions (1:01:23 - 1:02:01).Peter Diamandis specifically poses a question to the group about how one can build models to create viable future narratives in a world where it is extremely difficult to predict what might happen in even three months, let alone three or thirty years.

Amazon.com: Snow Crash: A Novel eBook : Stephenson, Neal: Kindle Store

"Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.
...weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma
...investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood."

Snow Crash - Chapter 1 - YouTube

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson | Summary, Audio, Analysis, FAQ

SoBrief provides a summary and analysis of Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, Snow Crash.

Core Premise

Set in a dystopian, franchise-dominated America, the story follows Hiro Protagonist—a pizza deliverer for the Mafia and a hacker/warrior prince in a virtual reality realm called the Metaverse. Hiro teams up with Y.T., a teenage skateboard courier, to investigate "Snow Crash," a mysterious digital drug and mind-control virus that inflicts real-world brain damage on programmers.

Key Plot Points

• The Snow Crash Virus: Media mogul L. Bob Rife resurrects ancient Sumerian as a neurolinguistic virus to turn people into programmable followers, using a massive refugee armada called the Raft as his base.
• The Counter-Virus: Hiro and his former colleague Juanita acquire and release the nam-shub of Enki, an ancient counter-virus, on the Raft to break Rife's control over the infected.
• The Climax: Y.T. escapes capture with help from Mafia boss Uncle Enzo. The lethal harpooner Raven kills L. Bob Rife, and Hiro defeats Raven in combat, neutralizing the threat.
  
  

Main Characters

• Hiro Protagonist: Hacker, swordsman, and Metaverse pioneer.
• Y.T. (Yours Truly): A daring, resourceful teenage Kourier.
• Raven: A lethal, glass-dagger-wielding Aleut antagonist.
• L. Bob Rife: The main antagonist and media tycoon behind the virus.
• Uncle Enzo: The head of CosaNostra Pizza and the Mafia.