this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025

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Cyberpunk

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What is Cyberpunk?

Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.

Cyberpunk characteristics include:

Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.

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Cyberpunk is a warning (lemmy.zip)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I think I've come to realize it's actually the other way around. People create some cool things. Good Sci-fi uses that technology to reveal things about our culture and society. Bad Sci-fi just makes it the most evil villainous thing out for reasons. There is a lot of bad Sci-fi. We all grow up reading and watching it. The people who create stories for other shows we watch, all grew up reading and absorbing it. It then becomes our zeitgeist that any new tech will ultimately be our doom. Its a tyrannical chicken dystopian egg problem.

ultimately the technology that we all should have been concerned about was books.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And this dude is tweeting on the torment nexus despite its nazi owner making money when people use it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

It was no more Nazi-owned than any other publicly traded company

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

It's a warning to the people but it's a utopia for corpos.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago (2 children)

the problem is conservatives are incapable of abstract thought, so they have no media literacy and can never think about what the stories mean. even when they're quite explicit.

that's why a moron like elon looks at them and thinks "cool, Torment Nexus, it even has the cool X in the name! I should have someone make that. and the world will finally love me."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean I feel like it's less conservatives in general not having media literacy and just people in general not having media literacy. Even liberals will watch stuff like Andor and still not understand the deeper messages it has about resistance. At the end of the day it's just a general lack of education especially in America.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I mean liberals are a whole other thing but even if you would say this about leftists instead, my point didn't imply that the exact opposite is true: obviously being a leftist doesn't automatically make you a genius media analyst. I'm just saying the conservative mindset is extremely adverse to any level of abstraction, which renders them incapable of a lot of things, understanding analogies being one of them.

also why they can never understand big picture issues (I'm holding a snowball so global warming can't be real), prioritize statistics over anecdotes (I got sick after a shot so vaccines don't work at all), or empathize with people they don't know (eg oppose gay rights, only to support when a family member comes out–if at all).

now that doesn't mean someone who believes in worker rights automatically is better at all of this, but at least it isn't physically impossible for them to be so.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago

Demonizing people is dangerous because it leads us to miss when we make the same mistakes.

In the past I've had an idea for a project at work or as a hobby. But when I look into it a bit closer, maybe I got the idea from something I've read where it didn't turn out well. It's easy to say: I've been warned so I'll avoid the problems and it'll turn out okay. But that's why collaboration and review is so important, because it provides a more objective perspective.

If anything, I'd guess that oligarchs have these terrible ideas because they surround themselves with enablers who aren't objective.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Cyberpunk is a description of the 80s through a techno-futurism lens. It is a warning about now

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

And fantasy is meant to do similarly about past dangers a la Tolkien making mythology for the British after the World Wars.

[+] [email protected] -23 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Corporations are more efficient than governments. Getting rid of governments and moving towards corporate dominance is the only move forward.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

Wow, the delusion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Yes.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Now please excuse us while we charge twice as much for this previously government run service and run it so poorly that it slowly collapses.

[+] [email protected] -15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The previous experience shows that in most cases services run privately are better quality and cheaper. Unless you live in a 3rd world country like the US.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

My water is privatised. My waterways are full of shit. Every single one. The companies are bitching about needing money to fix the pipes even though they are getting more money than ever before but the CEO is getting a bonus for doing such a "good job". Fuck off.

Oh my Internet is also privatised too and I have two options dog shit speed or dog shit stability.

The buses are privatised the timetable says a bus every 20 minutes. They show up every hour on a good day and you have to check their site and guess when the bus is going to pull to your stop based on where it is on the route.

Trains are most expensive in europe. Technically they are state owned. Foreign state owned. But hey atleast the track is still state owned.

Privatisation is bollocks. You don't get the competition lowers cost when your options are a single company. Even then they would collude on pricing or mopolise anyway.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

With the exception of water, where the government botched the privatisation, and trains, which are under full government control, everything else in the UK benefited greatly from privatisation. Back in the days you couldn't even get a phone line installed. The fuck are you even complaining about?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Look if private companies want to make their own networks they can go right ahead I don't see why politicians buddies should be allowed to buy infrastructure on the cheap.

Internet access is effectively a duopoly with Virgin on one side and everyone else reselling OpenReach on the other.

What do you mean trains are under full government control? 10 of the 14 train companies are private entities. Labour is putting them back under state ownership currently, well said they will.

Privitisation is always short term gain for a long term loss.

There is also the NHS which is constantly kneecapped to make privatisation seem like a good idea too.

I also don't believe private entities should be allowed to own defacto monopolies and critical infrastructure you can put as many rules as you like in it's still not a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

How do you define efficiency?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

A ratio between resources spent to achieve a specific result.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Then corporations are very inefficient - they waste incredible amount of resources on advertising, stock buybacks and undermining their competition, they exploit renewable resources way past their replenishment rates (look what happened to tuna and codfish), they ignore ecological damage they create, pursue increasing wealth inequality and try to leech off state subsidies and direct technology transfers.

The only way you can call corporations efficient if the desired result is the short term profits of the shareholders.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

Ads, buybacks, etc all bring value to the company. Exploration of renewables past their replenishing rates is the definition of efficiency. You basically want to live in a stone age.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The world is turning into the cyberpunk universe. Just with multitudes more corpo fascist shit and very little of the technology.

And geopolitically it's headed that way. How many of the following traits do you think will come true ?

In cyberpunk..

North America is a wasteland. 60 percent of the population dies of famine. There's a civil war in America. And private entities carved out their own fiefdoms where everyone except the executive class lives like cattle

Eastern Europe and most of Asia minor is a never ending warzone

Western Europe and east Asia become the world's financial and economic centers. Except they too live with their own disasters

Entire countries are wiped off the map either from war or climate disaster

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There were definitely a few Lockheed ass mfs who completely missed the point of Horizon: Zero Dawn

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Years after I saw an article about a company working on fueling machines with animals.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Oh, you mean this.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-tactical/robots-that-eat-people/

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission."

Excuse me while I dust off my feathered headdress and technospear.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Tbh, I wouldn't mind seeing an actual project ZD instead of the shitty $500 billion data center that project Stargate is. You better believe that after I claim the presidency by beating Trump in a fist fight, that's going to be our moonshot.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

Just want to add, Musk's Grandad, the enlightened scientist and leader of the technocratic movement, was a chiropractor. They're all crooks.

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