Snow Crash on a snowy day

"That's okay, really," Hiro says. "You're a pretty decent piece of ware. Who wrote you, anyway?"
"For the most part I write myself," the Librarian says. "That is, I have the innate ability to learn from experience. But this ability was originally coded into me by my creator." (109)

The innate ability to learn from experience. Haha. The further the novel takes us into Metaverse and technology-operated Burbclaves, the more we see that technology cannot compensate for basic humanity. People can and will be assholes, expecting a "cyber shield" of sorts to protect them. As Hiro's victorious swordfight over the Nipponese businessman demonstrates, being an avatar does not make you safe to do or say what you want.

"This is the gender that invented the polio vaccine?" Y.T. wonders (80). Instead of an androgynous, machine-like future being, the characters have clear genders and personalities. Stephenson implies that gender divide will persist, even if both sexes have equal technological knowledge, like Juanita and Hiro.

"You spend too much time goggled in," she says. "Try a little Reality, man."
"Where we are going," Hiro says, "we're going to get more Reality than I can handle." (120.)

The "Reality" of the Burbclaves, Mafia, taxis, and intense advertising seems to be more garish and unnatural than the software-constructed environment of Metaverse. At least in the Metaverse, people can walk and converse with each other without getting run down or attacked with loogie guns. Here, technology has created a haven for humans to express themselves through "natural" interactions.