Ragitsu Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 I have read that cyberpunk, in the 1980's and somewhat, the 1990's, was about fighting the man behind the machine. Nowadays, it is supposedly about fighting the machine behind the man. Is any of this true? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Nowadays? There's cyberpunk nowadays? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted April 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Nowadays? There's cyberpunk nowadays? It's around in various non-overt forms, just not usually so blatant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tasha Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? I have read that cyberpunk, in the 1980's and somewhat, the 1990's, was about fighting the man behind the machine. Nowadays, it is supposedly about fighting the machine behind the man. Is any of this true? It was a dystopian setting that postulated a future where Corporations became the new form of government. It was about how regular people stayed free and fought back. It was about fighting our own greed and not becoming a cog in the corporate structure. It's about survival despite the stranglehold megacorps have on the rest of the people. 'borging out was just part of the look and the attitude. Now, with it looking more and more like corporation are in control of everything and that some of the predictions of the genre coming to pass. I don't really see much that I would really call cyberpunk. I think that Steampunk and Urban Fantasy have really taken it's place as the popular sub genres Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legendsmiths Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? What was cyberpunk has evolved into transhumanism or posthumanism. You have to think beyond the chrome and the 'net. What happens when we can live forever? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Cyberpunk was never About the corporations, the chrome, or the net. I'm on an iPhone and don't feel like typing out my very long response to this on it; cyberpunk was, is, and will be about The Present (like any good SF actually). It's not even particularly dystopian. A lot of CP lit was full of all kinds of good things and hope and et cetera. Cyberpunk is about identity: Personal, Social, Global, and Corporate alike. Longer answer pending. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted April 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? I have seen quite a bit of cyberpunk explore "what it means to be human". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legendsmiths Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? I see it as about social upheaval, power consolidation and transfer from governments to megacorps, integration of technology and its disruptive impact on human physiology, and the hacker/criminal subcultures as a reaction to oppression. This is a result of the vision of the future we saw in decades past. Now that future is here and it looks very different. The vision of the future is significantly different than what once was. The foundation of cyberpunk is still relevant, but it's realization looks to be much, much, different. Our ability to evolve current trends and reconcile their impact is greater as are the trends themselves. The future looks very different than it did 40 years ago. Cyberpunk, and the assumptions that created it, are a reflection of the fears and dreams of that era. We had no idea what social networking would do to the way humans communicate or view privacy. The structured access to data and communications that seemed so futuristic at the time, are now antiquated. If Neuromancer is the iconic representation of what is Cyberpunk, then the vision of postmodern science-fiction is very different today, as we would expect it to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legendsmiths Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Here is an example of what I am talking about. I remember these adds and remember thinking about how amazing those ideas were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? From Twitter: "The worst part of the 80s was waiting for someone to invent the Web." There's a reason Gibson started setting his novels in the present instead of the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shigeru Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? From Twitter: "The worst part of the 80s was waiting for someone to invent the Web." There's a reason Gibson started setting his novels in the present instead of the future. That's a very good point. I think a lot of the reason that cyberpunk, in its pure form, is considered a retro genre, is that in the 80's things were right around the corner. And today, they are already in your home, or assumed to be in a lab somewhere ready to burst forth. I felt a lot of it was about how human nature (at its basest) didn't really change. But the interests, ideas, perversions and visions of people would broaden with the advent of higher technoloigies. Gibson cited it in Neuromancer when describing Chiba City : "like an experiment in social Darwinism, with one finer permanently on the fast-forward button". Paraphrased, but that was the gist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Cyberpunk really can be summed up with: "The future is here, its just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legendsmiths Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Cyberpunk really can be summed up with: "The future is here' date=' its just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson[/quote'] And that's exactly my point - we are in Cyberpunk right now. But the future is going to be entirely different, and within our lifetimes. The future that was beyond the future envisioned by the cyberpunk authors has come to pass, more realized in some ways, less in others. But the future we see now, the future that seemed like abstract science fancy, is now within our grasp and it looks nothing like Neuromancer, or Blade Runner, or any of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legendsmiths Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? And that's exactly my point - we are in Cyberpunk right now. But the future is going to be entirely different' date=' and within our lifetimes. The future that was beyond the future envisioned by the cyberpunk authors has come to pass, more realized in some ways, less in others. But the future we see now, the future that seemed like abstract science fancy, is now within our grasp and it looks nothing like Neuromancer, or Blade Runner, or any of that.[/quote'] I can, right now, pull my mobile platform out of my pocket, log into my server, and start executing whatever code I need to, all while sitting on a train or walking down the street. We have transcended what was believed to be fiction. By the time we would perfect artificial prosthetics we will have mastered organic. It's time to look at the next evolution of man and machine and what that integration even means. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister E Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? There's no "punk" in it anymore. It is all interwoven & ubiquitous. I can see cyber-psychosis (cyberchosis?) as still being a problem, but it ought to be virtually seamless with mainstream culture. For me, the most important part of cyberpunk was the shock-value of blending different cultural trends together into fashion-blasting body modifications. Now it seems practically everyone has a tattoo. Take the old image of the mercenary "street samurai" for instance. Back in the early eighties, in California, sushi was still strange. Sure, you could go out and find it, but it wasn't anything like it was going to be in the near future... when Japanese megacorps owned the most of the Pacific Ocean. In the future, everybody was going to be eating with chopsticks... living in coffin-flats... riding in bullet cars... working in corporate secrets... in either some "ultra-violent" de-militarized zone or a sterile wage-slaving arcology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? I can' date=' right now, pull my mobile platform out of my pocket, log into my server, and start executing whatever code I need to, all while sitting on a train or walking down the street. We have transcended what was believed to be fiction. By the time we would perfect artificial prosthetics we will have mastered organic. It's time to look at the next evolution of man and machine and what that integration even means.[/quote'] I have come to find a certain level of irony in the fact that William Gibson, in one novel, invented the word "cyberspace" (and effectively predicted the modern internet) and failed to predict cell phones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? There's no "punk" in it anymore. It is all interwoven & ubiquitous. I can see cyber-psychosis (cyberchosis?) as still being a problem, but it ought to be virtually seamless with mainstream culture. For me, the most important part of cyberpunk was the shock-value of blending different cultural trends together into fashion-blasting body modifications. Now it seems practically everyone has a tattoo. Take the old image of the mercenary "street samurai" for instance. Back in the early eighties, in California, sushi was still strange. Sure, you could go out and find it, but it wasn't anything like it was going to be in the near future... when Japanese megacorps owned the most of the Pacific Ocean. In the future, everybody was going to be eating with chopsticks... living in coffin-flats... riding in bullet cars... working in corporate secrets... in either some "ultra-violent" de-militarized zone or a sterile wage-slaving arcology. And see - I see none of that as integral to cyberpunk. It was always about things being ubiquitous - so ubiquitous and so constantly shifting that you didn't even get a chance to adjust. Forget cyber-psychosis - that's just some idiot thing made up for RPGs. It always was, and is, a constant state of Cultureshock and Futureshock bombarding everyone 24/7. You don't even have a chance to get cyberpychosis, that'd be like suddenly being afraid to get in the plane after you've gotten jet-lag from the trip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted May 2, 2011 Report Share Posted May 2, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? One of the things that amazed me with updating Kazei 5 from 4th Edition to 6th Edition was accounting for the changes in the real world. We'd gone from science fiction to science fact. And there were things I hadn't even thought of (no one had) in common use all around me. WiFi and USB drives were two of the most obvious, along with the entire social networking scene and things as simple as Google. I even note in the book that Kazei 5 is a 'retro' take on the future, being an updated 80s look at the future with modern elements tossed in. And it also includes quite a bit of trans- and post-humanism, what with the genetic upgrades, replicates, and esper weapons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted May 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Nothing wrong with retrotech. I do love me some long cables, giant green screens, and big hair/mullets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 3, 2011 Report Share Posted May 3, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? My where I sit - part of the problem with 'cyberpunk' today (especially Gaming Cyberpunk which always manages to get my hackles up) is that we're still trying to envision it through a 1980s lense. Which is why it appears 'dead' - all the good Cyberpunk writers stopped doing that about the time Snowcrash was published. And then literary wonks want to keep relabeling it 'post-cyberpunk' and anytime I see "post-" anything I want to get an axe and make the speakers next thought posthumous. There's plenty of Cyberpunk right now, looked at from the right angle. We don't need faceless corporations when we have an even more sinister Faceless Social Network. May not work very well for gaming, very hard to do a Corporate Raid on someone's twitter account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steamteck Posted May 3, 2011 Report Share Posted May 3, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? Nothing wrong with retrotech. I do love me some long cables' date=' giant green screens, and big hair/mullets.[/quote'] I actually prefer Retrotech for gaming lets you edit out the elements of more modern tech which make your chosen genre harder to keep believable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted May 4, 2011 Report Share Posted May 4, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? anytime I see "post-" anything I want to get an axe and make the speakers next thought posthumous. I always feel that way about "post-modern." Either "post modern" means "still in the future" or it's a meaningless concatenation of syllables. Lucius Alexander If I compose the palindromedary tagline after the rest of the message, is it post-post? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? And see - I see none of that as integral to cyberpunk. It was always about things being ubiquitous - so ubiquitous and so constantly shifting that you didn't even get a chance to adjust. . Ehn? Things are always ubiquitous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted May 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? So, yeah...my initial question about man/machine: valid at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? I guess what I mean by that is that there is no 'shock-value' in culture blending, it's specifically Not Shocking. It just is, and changes so fast that you can't even be "shocked" by it. Or, on the other hand, you're so "shocked" by it that you don't even have time to react the whole thing, you just got to find a niche, stick into it and put blinders up. Shock sort of implies at some point there will be an adjustment period where "everyone has a tattoo" eventually means nothing, but it never does - the human condition is just incapable of either being shocked or accepting of any given culture mash. You're simultaneously constantly out of place, and comfortable with the whole thing. I'm not sure this makes any sense at all... Cyberpunk isn't about the culturemashing, that's just the brick wall the photograph was taken against for the cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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