Virtually expressed ethnicity

Many socially shared VR platforms do a very bad job of reflecting the ethnicity of participants. This is not so surprising. Avatar technology is still in a relatively primitive state, whereas actual people are very complex.

But that has gotten me thinking. If we do eventually get to the point where the sort of reality envisioned in Snow Crash becomes the norm, then questions surrounding ethnicity might become different.

Your literal appearance might matter less than your tribal identity. Ethnicity will be less about ill conceived responses to superficial genetical traits, and more about shared heritage and culture.

If that happens, I wonder what that will mean for social, cultural and economic interaction between people with different ethnic identities. I hope, among other things, that it will level the playing field.

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