Welcome to the Infraverse

The next technological revolution must go beyond screens, ads, and server farms.

I’ve mentioned in this newsletter the startup I’m developing, Run Haus. In investor-speak, Run Haus is a coworking space and commercial operating platform catering to the needs of “core runners,” a robust market segment that tends to run 4-7 times a week and organize their work, personal, and leisure schedules around running. Run Haus will also social space for these people. There are millions of social institutions meeting market demands of alcoholics, professional sports enthusiasts, and over-eaters. I figure, why not health and performance obsessed runners?

More conceptually, Run Haus is a space to be real with real people. If Facebook is about developing the metaverse, Run Haus is building the infraverse .

Whereas “meta” points to things beyond observation, “infra” points to that which is within our perceptual field. The infraverse is the universe derived from direct perception, not a “meta” reality requiring technological mediation to interpret or appreciate (“oh that’s why that jpg is worth $1M”).

Running, which is a core activity at Run Haus, is a way of spending time in the infraverse. There’s nothing “meta” about a run: it’s about the movement of mass through time and space . We run, therefore we exist. Other infraverse activities include: 

• Speaking directly to people

• Being unfiltered, unscripted, and honest with others 

• Helping each other directly, not through via nonprofits and other formal institutions 

• Making, borrowing, and sharing stuff, not just consuming it 

• Being more concerned about the here and now than the elsewhere and later 

Let me be clear, Run Haus is informed by the best data about human health and happiness. People are built to connect, to be efficient, active, and healthy, and to help each other evolve. It’s what we’re made for, yet it’s increasingly repeated that online activity and connection is a sufficient replacement.

For all the speculative fiction about how the internet has the power to help people live better lives, the reality falls catastrophically short. Tethered to technology for intellectual, emotional, and social sustenance, society has become objectively lonelier and less healthy than it was prior to the mass adoption of technology, particularly mobile technology. Large populations are losing their capacity to deal directly with their lives, others, and the outside world —and technology enables them to not deal indefinitely. Reality for too many has devolved into a distorted amalgam of direct perception and non-contextual digital filters instructing them how to interpret what they perceive. The technology that’s most needed to counteract this distortion is the perceptual technology humans are born with, but neglect to use.