Cyberpunk: A Thread About the Genre, Lifestyle, and Pseudo-Prophetic Ramblings of the Merger of Man & Machine, Whether Dead or Alive!!!

[TRXTR]

Cyberpunk.

That word means something.

Yes, even to you, friendly-neighborhood-poster.

So what exactly IS what we call "Cyberpunk"? In your own thoughts, words, images, memoirs, manifestos, phreak-accidents, short stories, gruesome tales of watching a pal who's left the meat, gone skreamin', and catches a patch of corpo black ICE, or when your pizza delivery boy turned out to be an agent trying to kill you before you could find a landline konexun to get out of the Matrix and back to the ship...

WOT IZ CBRPNK!?!

 

[MorphedSnowman]

It's one of the coolest sci-fi genres, but nowdays it's kinda just became stripped down of everything meaningful and just became symbolism. It's basically "neon skyscrapers and robots". What it is for me though is a combination of criticism about financialization mixed with the exploration of transhumanism.

Where it falls though is that in criticism it basically ends up saying "the world is bad", without giving any alternative. Most cyberpunk protagonist are basically just lucky enough to be skilled as to navigate around or above the dystopia alive, but only few people can do that and they hardly have certainty they won't lose the next day. The risk of the protagonist meeting a grim end tomorrow is pretty high seeing they still live in a terrible world. For that reason I really would like a cyberpunk story with a grand happy ending about the world becoming a better place through people's actions, even if just to make a statement and be somewhat "punk".

The transhumanism part is kinda pessimistic too. Since I would assume transhumanism not to just be being able to have 3 arms or whatnot, but also some "spiritual assendence". Not exactly in religious sense, but just becoming a better person who spends his time doing things in life they find important and worthwhile and pushing the limits of what they can do, while at the same time leaving the petty parts of humanity behind. In cyberpunk the opposite happens. People become even more tribal and groundless, essentially becoming slaves to their desires (coonsoomers) with barely any hope of turning around. The technoly is used not to elevate people, but make it easier for them to give in to their addictions.

 

[Chao Tse-Tung]

Cyberpunk is now. High tech/low life? Here I am, Mr. Working Poor Man with multiple fancy light boxes and access to a massive network of communication and knowledge. Rampant capitalist exploitation and control to the point that the interests of "big corporations" and "government" are practically synonymous? Check. Near-complete social control through constant psy-ops and the usage of new tech to turn people against eachother by reaping greater rewards on top and fucking the little guy a little harder? You betcha. I mean, for Eris sake, nicotine and weed? Electronic. Meth and heroin? Pills. The modern tech industry? Literally so robust that fucking fake internet money mining operations actively contribute a notable to the destruction of our climate.

All we missed out on are the cool aesthetics that the modern media's idea of the genre focus on (i.e. "crazy futuristic tech," neon megacities, and technological augmentation/prosthetics better than organics) because those are the parts that we don't actively live in. It has to focus on being boiled down to the aesthetics, because otherwise it seems too eerily like a story set a single-digit number of years away.

It's important to remember the "punk" in cyberpunk-- it is, at its core, a logical extrapolation (and therefore harsh criticism) of where the neoliberal system is headed-- and thus uses certain levels of hyperbolic metaphor to define those criticisms of the system. For instance, maybe the "Corpos" don't have an army of physical androids and mechs to physically crush resistance, instead, irl the Capitalist class uses a mix of online bots and human "robots" who've been radicalized into System-ism.

Cyberpunk is, at its core, a telling of one possible future in which people maintain the Status Quo for an undefineable about of time, to the point that every possible material condition has run to its endgame of literally a full 100% of the power and wealth in the hands of the top, and nothing in the hands of the great many, and no way to fight back, a-la the Gilded Age ramped up to a hundred when nobody fights back at the point they did last time.

@MorphedSnowman above me makes the point that cyberpunk's criticisms fail in that they never see the world change, but that is the criticism, or part of it, at least. That if the current mindsets and ways of living in which profit and desire of the few are prioritized over the material quality of life of the many continue on, that we will reach a point where change genuinely cannot be achieved, that the only hope that the average man has for survival is just what you mention- pure fuckin' luck combined with natural aptitude.


The real cyberpunk question is, are we all the way there yet? And if we aren't, is there even still time to stop it?

 

[Chao Tse-Tung]

The transhumanism part is kinda pessimistic too. Since I would assume transhumanism not to just be being able to have 3 arms or whatnot, but also some "spiritual assendence". Not exactly in religious sense, but just becoming a better person who spends his time doing things in life they find important and worthwhile and pushing the limits of what they can do, while at the same time leaving the petty parts of humanity behind. In cyberpunk the opposite happens. People become even more tribal and groundless, essentially becoming slaves to their desires (coonsoomers) with barely any hope of turning around. The technoly is used not to elevate people, but make it easier for them to give in to their addictions.

To this I'd say, it's commentary on how transhumanist tech would be utilized in a cutthroat rugged-individualist society such as our own. There's a few routes you can take with that, from the point you bring up, that they would be utilized to create and codify addictions (see: internet algorithms), or to become an untouchable dictator through mind-uploading or what have you (see: govts and corps with working quantum computers that can completely hack and drown out any opposing online presence without breaking a sweat and ruin them completely), or through special body augmentation and robotic body parts unbeatable and untouchable by anyone else (see: the massive edge in firepower and tech that the MIC [and therefore Govt., Inc.] have over the general populace). But the key point is that these technologies without a massive change in how we view eachother and function as a society would have disastrous and more-or-less irreversible consequences.

 

[Still a Youth]

Cyberpunk.

That word means something.

Yes, even to you, friendly-neighborhood-poster.

So what exactly IS what we call "Cyberpunk"? In your own thoughts, words, images, memoirs, manifestos, phreak-accidents, short stories, gruesome tales of watching a pal who's left the meat, gone skreamin', and catches a patch of corpo black ICE, or when your pizza delivery boy turned out to be an agent trying to kill you before you could find a landline konexun to get out of the Matrix and back to the ship...

WOT IZ CBRPNK!?!

been meaning to write a blog/ezine post about cyberpunk ethos so this is encouraging.

 

[tofuDWU]

Cyberpunk is now. High tech/low life? Here I am, Mr. Working Poor Man with multiple fancy light boxes and access to a massive network of communication and knowledge. Rampant capitalist exploitation and control to the point that the interests of "big corporations" and "government" are practically synonymous? Check. Near-complete social control through constant psy-ops and the usage of new tech to turn people against eachother by reaping greater rewards on top and fucking the little guy a little harder? You betcha. I mean, for Eris sake, nicotine and weed? Electronic. Meth and heroin? Pills. The modern tech industry? Literally so robust that fucking fake internet money mining operations actively contribute a notable to the destruction of our climate.

All we missed out on are the cool aesthetics that the modern media's idea of the genre focus on (i.e. "crazy futuristic tech," neon megacities, and technological augmentation/prosthetics better than organics) because those are the parts that we don't actively live in. It has to focus on being boiled down to the aesthetics, because otherwise it seems too eerily like a story set a single-digit number of years away.

It's important to remember the "punk" in cyberpunk-- it is, at its core, a logical extrapolation (and therefore harsh criticism) of where the neoliberal system is headed-- and thus uses certain levels of hyperbolic metaphor to define those criticisms of the system. For instance, maybe the "Corpos" don't have an army of physical androids and mechs to physically crush resistance, instead, irl the Capitalist class uses a mix of online bots and human "robots" who've been radicalized into System-ism.

Cyberpunk is, at its core, a telling of one possible future in which people maintain the Status Quo for an undefineable about of time, to the point that every possible material condition has run to its endgame of literally a full 100% of the power and wealth in the hands of the top, and nothing in the hands of the great many, and no way to fight back, a-la the Gilded Age ramped up to a hundred when nobody fights back at the point they did last time.

@MorphedSnowman above me makes the point that cyberpunk's criticisms fail in that they never see the world change, but that is the criticism, or part of it, at least. That if the current mindsets and ways of living in which profit and desire of the few are prioritized over the material quality of life of the many continue on, that we will reach a point where change genuinely cannot be achieved, that the only hope that the average man has for survival is just what you mention- pure fuckin' luck combined with natural aptitude.


The real cyberpunk question is, are we all the way there yet? And if we aren't, is there even still time to stop it?

Agree with all points said. Morphed Snowman's comment on how Cyberpunk falls short in the sense that it doesn't really show a way forward is true, but it's also missing the point of the genre's thematic fundamentals and what it's really about. The point of Cyberpunk as a genre isn't even necessarily to provide a critical view on human society (although, let's face it, most of the time it is a critique of how things are now and how they will be in the future should no change be made), but it also serves as maybe an impartial commentary on the current state of things. Cyberpunk isn't necessarily leaning either way on the spectrum in some cases, though, for the most part, yes, it is criticism.

 

[Kolph]

Reject Cyberpunk 2077, embrace Snatcher

View: https://youtu.be/ZuyUShtcn94

 

[Chao Tse-Tung]

Cyberpunk is now. High tech/low life? Here I am, Mr. Working Poor Man with multiple fancy light boxes and access to a massive network of communication and knowledge. Rampant capitalist exploitation and control to the point that the interests of "big corporations" and "government" are practically synonymous? Check. Near-complete social control through constant psy-ops and the usage of new tech to turn people against eachother by reaping greater rewards on top and fucking the little guy a little harder? You betcha. I mean, for Eris sake, nicotine and weed? Electronic. Meth and heroin? Pills. The modern tech industry? Literally so robust that fucking fake internet money mining operations actively contribute a notable to the destruction of our climate.

All we missed out on are the cool aesthetics that the modern media's idea of the genre focus on (i.e. "crazy futuristic tech," neon megacities, and technological augmentation/prosthetics better than organics) because those are the parts that we don't actively live in. It has to focus on being boiled down to the aesthetics, because otherwise it seems too eerily like a story set a single-digit number of years away.

It's important to remember the "punk" in cyberpunk-- it is, at its core, a logical extrapolation (and therefore harsh criticism) of where the neoliberal system is headed-- and thus uses certain levels of hyperbolic metaphor to define those criticisms of the system. For instance, maybe the "Corpos" don't have an army of physical androids and mechs to physically crush resistance, instead, irl the Capitalist class uses a mix of online bots and human "robots" who've been radicalized into System-ism.

Cyberpunk is, at its core, a telling of one possible future in which people maintain the Status Quo for an undefineable about of time, to the point that every possible material condition has run to its endgame of literally a full 100% of the power and wealth in the hands of the top, and nothing in the hands of the great many, and no way to fight back, a-la the Gilded Age ramped up to a hundred when nobody fights back at the point they did last time.

@MorphedSnowman above me makes the point that cyberpunk's criticisms fail in that they never see the world change, but that is the criticism, or part of it, at least. That if the current mindsets and ways of living in which profit and desire of the few are prioritized over the material quality of life of the many continue on, that we will reach a point where change genuinely cannot be achieved, that the only hope that the average man has for survival is just what you mention- pure fuckin' luck combined with natural aptitude.


The real cyberpunk question is, are we all the way there yet? And if we aren't, is there even still time to stop it?

Related to the "No way to win" thing, here's an except from this ACDCA page that I've had saved for a long time.