Do we really live in a cyberpunk dystopia? - Spoiler warning: yes

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Chuck 'n Geck

Chuck 'n Geck

Formerly Chex
kiwifarms.net
Joined
May 23, 2023
I sometimes have bouts of realising how truly awful this world we live in is. I guess everyone has, but this thought has gotten further into my poor brain after realising 99% of search results of anything cyberpunk, pretty much anywhere, brings up that one game that's set in 2077. Almost like it has officially become less of a subgenre of noir/sci-fi and more of a brand.

Thank you SEO, very fucking cool.

Anyway, less sperging. I feel like the current, zoomer vision of cyberpunk has devolved into CGA/troon roights/synthwave neon spam with dubstep blaring at full volume - just to mask the fact that the tabletop Cyberpunk 2020 and Deus Ex w/o the piss filter predicted the world (or, at least, the individual clown moments of it) we live in with striking accuracy.

I want to say that, yeah, our present is pretty much the real-life version of cyberpunk. Without the corny "hot three megs of RAM" parts. With significantly less neon props as it's all built on top of the Old World which wouldn't change their old signs out of habit. With no flying cars as it's all built on top of the Old World where managing literal air buses would be a nightmare and potential 9/11 fuel. Yet, then we have propaganda of lockdowns, better living either for crime-invicting minorities or literally everyone, new money-making cults forming (cue that one excerpt from Cyberpunk 2020), everything's connected 24/7, yada yada yada, you already know it all.

Only thing we're missing out on is actual megacorps with undisputed monopoly on whatever they're doing - though I've heard in passing that Moldova already has their own megacorp, maybe with added influence on the gov't as well. China as well, maybe?
 
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We've entered a period when technology is making leaps and bounds at astonishing rates again - quantum computing and AI are escalating in their speed of development; we're close to curing cancer, permanently; we've pretty much mastered our own genetic manipulation (still needs refinement for the next few decades) and we've bridged the gap between the biological and mechanical/technological as we gain the ability to interpret signals from the body to something computers can understand. We're also getting ready to reach new light-speed and send probes to Alpha Centari.

I think everyone thinks they live in the worst period of history. We're not in a dystopia any more than the serfs of the middle ages were or the boomers during the entrance in to the modern era of technology were.

Objectively we actually live in the best period of history if you're in the west and of moderately normal circumstance. Fatality rate of disease and injury is down; the average life expectancy is still higher than any other point of human history; famine is down; preventable disease is down. The average person now still has more food in their stomach and money in their pocket than previous generations. We just grew up ovespoiled and expecting far too much, so now that we're in an economic lul and recovering from COVID people think everything is completely shit rather than just being a temporary dip. 200 years ago people would expect half the food, no luxuries, and limited writing and numeracy skills whereas we have access to the total sum of human history and scientific knowledge with one click of a phone.
 
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Definitely, but with the shitty aesthetic of McMansions and Wal-Mart.
Infra-red said:
I think chinks are closer to cyberpunk than americans.
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Everyone in the first world (which for some purposes includes urban China) is there to some degree and in different ways. I actually think South Korea is the most cyberpunk country. China has the totalitarian surveillance, but their government is clearly in the driver's seat for everything that goes on. Korea is ruled by Samsung, Hyundai, and a few other Chaebol megacorps and what little matters when it comes to the actual government is run by a weird feminist death cult. Even the US is more cyberpunk in those aspects, given how the lines between government and corporation are blurred.
 
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Merchmongler said:
Please share a link to that excerpt. I'm eager to find out what exactly this is about.
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On my more mopey days I'd say yes. On other days I'd say no.

If I'm being honest though I can't in good conscience seriously call the world I live in a dystopia while I'm sitting in an air conditioned room idly speculating about society on some internet forum. That would be kind of spoiled.

In cyberpunk dystopias I don't think the middle class even exists let alone being able to afford to go to the store to buy steak and fancy beers.
 
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Uberpenguin said:
In cyberpunk dystopias I don't think the middle class even exists let alone being able to afford to go to the store to buy steak and fancy beers.
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You raise an interesting point, actually. I don't remember any piece of cyberpunk fiction focusing on areas outside of megapolises and large urban sprawls - with Hong Kong being the only... possible? exception, where the middle class is pretty much non-existant, from what I know. You're either a rich-ass entrepreneur that's only mildly poorer than the CEO of Tencent, or you live in a cage bed in a subdivided flat. Or a sleeping pod. HK still has a severe housing problem.

Not much high tech to speak of, but the low life part checks out.

more like high rent, low taxes
 
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Maybe it's because I don't play the game, but this seems very autistic to me to see the world through a game franchise. I am sure there are good points in there, but connecting it with a video game seems retarded to me.

but this thought has gotten further into my poor brain after realising 99% of search results of anything cyberpunk, pretty much anywhere, brings up that one game that's set in 2077. Almost like it has officially become less of a subgenre of noir/sci-fi and more of a brand.

Thank you SEO, very fucking cool.
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This is just kinda delusional.

SEO (let's just say Google) is about serving users what they are looking for. It just so happen that when people type these keywords today, it's what the majority wants, so it is what gets served the most.

If I type apple computer, the first piece of shit they built is probably nowhere near the first page, and that's because nobody wants to see that.
 
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No, not really. Modern world resembles Bela Tarr's Satantango a hundred times more than something like Blade Runner / Johnny Mnemonic / Deus Ex or whatever. The modern world is primarily extremely boring and banal, with the only distraction being the variety show of niggers and troons (which are not distributed equally yet, I have to go on kiwifarms to learn more about these wonderful beasts, otherwise I wouldn't even know that fantasy creatures like "pooners" or "deathfats" exist). Johnny Mnemonic had a talking dolphin, the only non-human species that can talk in this dystopia is the nigger. The only cyborgs we have are the blobs of flesh driving the mobility scooters in a walmart.
 
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rel=alternate said:
Maybe it's because I don't play the game, but this seems very autistic to me to see the world through a game franchise. I am sure there are good points in there, but connecting it with a video game seems retarded to me.
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Nah, you're not wrong, it is pretty fucking retarded. But I wanted to segregate the obvious wacky parts from what would realistically happen/has already happened IRL. I'm not a walking encyclopedia on the genre by any means, and even I know there's a bit of a difference between a terrorist NPC bringing up solid points about plutocracy, and a hero protagonist of a novel about the OG Metaverse actually being called Hiro Protagonist.

Kill a Troon for Pikamee said:
Modern world resembles Bela Tarr's Satantango a hundred times more than something like Blade Runner / Johnny Mnemonic / Deus Ex or whatever. The modern world is primarily extremely boring and banal, with the only distraction being the variety show of niggers and troons
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Funny you mention that, I've already talked about that one Deus Ex game that has piss filter all over it. The game that was supposed to be a prequel to a way more grounded cyberpunk experience, where streets are (generally) about as dark and garish as you'd expect from weary nooks in 2020 proper. Relatively little light pollution, too, and people already have cybernetics - something Musk's (reportedly?) trying to shoot for, now that he funded the fuck out of ChatGPT.

And yeah, troons might as well pass for anti-corp societal reject gangs, - or, in our case, state-endorsed gangs, alongside BLM and such.

rel=alternate said:
This is just kinda delusional.

SEO (let's just say Google) is about serving users what they are looking for. It just so happen that when people type these keywords today, it's what the majority wants, so it is what gets served the most.
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Okay, part of that attitude was me hopping on my meds starting from today. The other part was that I genuinely wanted to find something that isn't the overly cliché CGA palette or closely related to that one CD Projekt game, and that was like finding a needle in a haystack. Even with "-2077" added to the query.

rel=alternate said:
If I type apple computer, the first piece of shit they built is probably nowhere near the first page, and that's because nobody wants to see that.
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That's pretty much case in point for my first paragraph, though. This would've worked better as an example if I wanted to find apples and the search results would be flooded with overpriced plastic.

KittyGremlin said:
Can't even have awesome cybernetic body parts. This dystopia sucks ass.
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stop being poor lol
 
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Not quite yet but we are almost there. And it's the faggiest, most lame possible version to boot
 
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Going into downtown Tokyo, it became clear to me now. I was so lost and the subways didn't help. GPS didn't help as even that was confused, took me about an hour to find my hotel less than 2 minutes away from me.

I also made a Cyberpunk concept called Brisbane Hellscape which is like Cyberpunk mixed in with Plato's allegory of the cave. Everyone locked in a solitary room for their whole life more retarded than brainless monkeys. It's the faggiest setting.

And yes. Brisbane Hellscape and Sakuya's Requiem are 2 different concepts. Brisbane Hellscape ruled by Kikes and Sakuya's Requiem where everything is ruled by a mainframe condemned to fatal fallacies.
 
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