Snow Crash: How Technology Affects A Society

In Snow Crash, a novel by Neal Stephenson, Stephenson examines how expanding technology affects a society. He introduces us to a world where a computer virus is altering people’s minds, and where they have no control over themselves. He vividly describes how Hiro, the protagonist, must fight the virus to save the future of the world. Technology is expanding everyday. Our society has grown and expanded and has become extremely powerful because of new technologies. People are learning how to use computers in place of their tasks. The Internet is a prime example is of expanding technology. One can obtain yesterday’s and today’s news, listen to music, talk to a friend over seas, view pornography, and countless other things in the privacy of one’s home via the Internet. There is no way to really regulate what is on the Internet. Essentially, the government has no place on the Internet.
He did not know, for fear, if it would be a virus, and that would hurt his computer. Death was not possible in the Metaverse until the creation of Snow Crash. In the Metaverse, it was possible to fight, but no one was literally hurting anyone. It was possible to break up someone else’s avatar with whatever tools one could create. Hiro was able to fight with swords that he always kept with him. Hiro wrote rules where after you had "slain" an avatar, the avatar was thrown out of the Metaverse, and in reality the person could not re-boot into the Metaverse for a few minutes. With the invention of Snow Crash, all of that changed. Snow Crash was a virus that not only shut down your computer, it shut you down mentally as person. People entered the Metaverse so regularly-especially hackers- that subconsciously their has become a susceptible binary code in computers. Snow Crash affects the optic nerve and because of this the infected person loses control of their