Living in the Cyberpunk Now #cyberpunk

In working on this history of cyberpunk series, I’ve been reading and watching a ton of content related to cyberpunk fiction, past, present, and forthcoming, and the ongoing cultural response to the genre. Here’s an interesting piece, on Modern Mythology, about how cyberpunk has caught up with itself and needs to be reinvented. Again.

Cyberpunk broke science fiction. Creeping in alongside the commercialization of the internet, it extrapolated the corruption and dysfunction of its present into a brutal and interconnected future that remained just a heartbeat away. Cyberpunk had an attitude that refused to be tamed, dressed in a style without comparison. Its resurgence shows that little has changed since its inception, and that’s left cyberpunk incapable of discussing our future.

We live at a time where 3D printing is so accessible refugees can obtain prosthesis as part of basic aid. People forced to migrate because of an iceless arctic will rely on that assistance. Or we could lower temperatures and slow climate change by spraying the atmosphere with sulfate, an option that might disrupt advertising in low-orbit. Social credit systems are bringing oppressive governments together. Going cashless is altering our expectations of others. Young people earn so little they’re leveraging nude selfies to extend meager lines of credit. Productivity and constant notifications are enough to drive some into a locked room, away from anything with an internet connection. Deepfakes deny women privacy, compromise their identity, and obliterate any sense of safety in exchange for porn. Online communities are refining that same technology, making false video convincing, threatening our sense of reality. Researchers can keep our memories alive in chat bots distilled from social media, but the rich will outlive us all by transfusing bags of teenage blood purchased through PayPal.

In a world that increasingly feels like science fiction it’s important to remind ourselves that writing about the future is writing about the present. Artists worthy of an audience should be unable to look at the embarrassment of inspiration around them and refuse the chance to say something new.

Read the rest.


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