If Gibson, Sterling, Brunner, et al. were writing cyberpunk today, what would they have made different and how would they be rebelling against conventional scifi?
And more importantly, how would this have changed cyberpunk RPG design?
>>46329378
Hacking would be much different, sexuality/race might be more important or rather the importance of those things becoming very mutable, it would be set in India/Africa not Japan, and that's really about it I think.
>>46329378
Gibson is still writing, anon. His last book came out in 2012.It's not that good
>>46329437
But he's not writing cyberpunk any more, he's writing history.
>>46329437
His last book came out in 2014, actually. And he didn't release any novels in 2012. Personally I find his novels have only gotten better.
>>46329378
Just look at any modern sci-fi. Sure, there's still stuff that's just repeating Asimov or doing Napolean in space or whatever but there's also plenty of stuff that isn't that. Science Fiction is no longer so staid and formulaic that it's needs to be rebelled against.
Cyberpunk is mainstream science fiction now.
Cyberpunk doesn't make any sense as a genre anymore. The cyberpunk house was built on people's fears of advancing globalism, technology replacing humanity, and a desire to stick it to "the man".
Now globalism has happened, technology is seamlessly integrated into humanity, and people are less afraid of "the man" now than they seem to be of each other. I think more people worry about random nutty events (terrorism, viral social media, financial insecurity) turning their lives upside down. I don't know how a compelling game could be made out of that.
>>46329403
>sexuality/race might be more important or rather the importance of those things becoming very mutable
Wow, I couldn't agree with this assertion any less. If you check the political leanings of these seminal authors (and how they are subtly expressed in their works) you will notice that they are all well described as New Left. At the time of their writings the New Left/NeoMarxist/Howeveryouwanttodescribeit were the underdogs, the rebels. Today the New Left is the establishment, particularly in scifi/fantasy. Any rebellion against conventional scifi today would look way more like /pol/ (although with any luck less pants-on-head) and way less like you suggest here.
>>46330105
Do you really think that Gibson would be a /pol/ack just to disagree with the establishment? If the OP had asked what writers in general that purposely rebelling against the system would be saying, then yes you're correct. But I see no reason they wouldn't still just be left but talking about the current hot topics.
>>46329478
I haven't read any of his new stuff, but he did one about branding or something.
So I guess he's catching up to modern problems
>>46330148
>Do you really think that Gibson would be a /pol/ack just to disagree with the establishment?
Lol, TRIGGERED. Seriously, though, that is such an agendized deliberate misinterpretation of what I wrote that I wasn't sure if I should even respond to it. In good faith, however, to the extent that good scifi contains important elements of alienation and rebellion (I think so, but you may disagree, that is fine) and to the extent that Critical Theory is the intellectual architecture of the modern establishment, yes, the Gibson of today would absolutely be closer to /pol/ than to what you (or the other anon) wrote above.
>If the OP had asked what writers in general that purposely rebelling against the system would be saying, then yes you're correct.
Your shitty grammar makes it impossible to know what you mean by that, and therefore makes it impossible to respond to in a meaningful way.
>But I see no reason they wouldn't still just be left but talking about the current hot topics.
Congratz.
>rebelling against conventional scifi?
Today, that'd be scifi that doesn't devolve into futuristic military wankery. A story with no gun fetishism, no gently masturbating the reader to page long, lovingly detailed descriptions of this new bomb concept you've thought up, and no cyber commando POV chapters.
>>46329882
connect both
financial security of citizens is basically up to the megacorps, where it is controlled by loans, rising prices, and not-so-fast rising salaries.
the same megacorps also secretly have their own paramilitary groups - most of the terrorist attacks are either:
1) diversion
2) direct attack at competitor
3) to futher their political agenda(increased surveillance, fearmongering used as tools)
metro blew up? it turns out that the chief system admin of Megacorp A was there... and mem-stick containing his login certificates found on scene turns out to be fake.
mix:
thriller elements(normal employee learns something that he/she shouldn't have, gets hunted)
add a bit of DIY stuff - hacking, jurry rigging stuff - alternative to corporate made stuff(slower, harder to make - but no backdoors, no hidden faults etc.),
show some stuff on the run - 'ressistance' movement somewhere innawoods making their own PCs from scratch, by ordering basic electronic components from china, supplying punks who go to deface the corps(either digitally, or physically)
create Stallman(RMS) avatar somewhere in there - he would fit perfectly
>>46329378
Anyone got more pictures of cyber punk girls?
>>46331690
You misunderstand though. Cyberpunk "works" because the protagonists rise up against various elements defined by contemporary anxieties cranked to eleven. I realize that sounds like something out of a lit crit class at some shitty uni but storytelling and literature IS what we're talking about here. Basically, we like fiction that is about fighting what we fear. The modern parallel to cyberpunk would be some hug box where you play as city administrators or corp executives calmly solving the problems of the day without offending too many people.
>>46329378
Why would you ever get just one cyber arm if you could choose?
I get not being able to afford two, but I feel like it would make you incredibly unbalanced.
>>46332081
Most settings that have cybernetic limbs feature them as effectively a highly advanced prosthetic. Most people aren't willing to go through the trouble of chopping off a perfectly functioning limb to replace it with a mechanical one. Even if the mechanical one is superior in some ways.
>>46329378
According to Gibson, himself, in the 80s. Cyberpunk is:
>post-modern
>reactionary
and in reference to the genre/the authors
>takes from whatever is around
So, yeah, it'd be different, ever evolving to put a spotlight the injustices in the world.
>>46332081
It all depends on the nature of the setting but like >>46332149 stated most people wouldn't be so hard up as to cut off perfectly fine limbs for the chance to get a chromed out arm.
That's not to say of course there wouldn't be a subculture of modders who'd do exactly that but I imagine they would get treated the same way someone does any other sort of extensive body modification such as gauging or extreme forms of body art.
If anything most augmentations would be the type that would generally go unseen such as eyes and anything that is more internal would be the norm and socially acceptable and would form the basis of a plot where the haves can get this giving them the advantage where the have-nots would be at a disadvantage.
That said, this is the sort of thing that makes me have trouble really getting into Shadowrun where it's assumed most people are walking around as literal battle tanks on legs and no one bats an eye-lash. Forget cyber-psychosis I would be more bothered by the fact that I won't be let into the damn 7-11 because the owner thinks I'm going to cut his head off with my leg blades clearly seen on my digitrade legs designed and optimized for combat.
>>46331361
>(I think so, but you may disagree, that is fine)
so you acknowledge the validity of alternative viewpoints, but you jack off about how shit they are anyway, got it
>>46332490
Why would getting a robotic limb be viewed as body modification like tattoos and the like? Body art doesn't really serve a function whereas a synthetic limb may be stronger, more resistant to damage, multifunctional, more dextrous, and an array of other possible advantages. Body art is simply that, art on the body. Nobody gets gauges or piercings for a functional reason.
>>46332490
Shadowrun actually doesn't have everyone as a walking tank, the furthest most people go is cyber eyes and an implant or two that is relevant to whatever job they do. Like say, an internal air tank and/or an oxsys cybergill for an underwater welder.
>>46332613
LIke I said, it's dependant on the setting but just having the lower half of your arm replaced isn't going to turn you into superman all of a sudden. Besides, how could it not be used as body art? The ceo guy from Deus Ex wasn't tossing cars around but his cyber arm was pretty sweet.
>>46332678
Yeah, run of the mil civilians maybe but what about the PCs who are, for the most part, nearly inhuman with some of the crazy shit they can have on them? I remember a particular drawthread where someone requested a drawing of the PC that had digitrade legs and 4 arms (two regular and two cyber) they may not be common but unless you're willing to just float around in the gutters to avoid being seeing you still have to do some day to day shit to get by when you're not operating operationally
>>46332894
I'm just asking because you said they would be treated the same way as people who do forms of extreme body modification. In our society they are seen as crazy and outlandish counter culturists. I just felt, like your example, the CEO from Deus Ex wouldn't be seen that way and instead as prestigious.
>>46333098
Though he, and many others throughout that game, don't have mirrored prosthetics. Which still just seems weird.
>>46332514
>so you acknowledge the validity of alternative viewpoints, but you jack off about how shit they are anyway, got it
Haha, some emo passive-agressive leftist bitch got his feels hurts and thinks that is more important than being able to make an argument.
>>46333098
True, I realize that wasn't a good example of what I was getting at. Then again people could go further then simply have an elegant looking prosthetic arm with fancy etchings on it.
>>46333117
For some characters, a lot of the NPCs for example have both their legs replaced if you look at the gangers
>>46329882
But there's the whole element of the disconnect between people breaking down. For example Steve the steelworker has been replaced by Ajab in India and there's no longer a local place of work for everyone to connect. Friendships and romances have become commercialized etc.
What you blame that on, or if you think it's an entirely valid idea is of course up for debate but to say that there's no fear of those old school classical fears could be missing out on some pretty interesting ways to modernize the genre.
There's also the media manipulation element and growing political apathy that could be tapped into.
>>46333964
Woops, I meant connections between people breaking down.
>>46332514
Lol that's what I get for replying to someone such as yourself in good faith.
>>46333964
>But there's the whole element of the connections between people breaking down.
>Facebook exists
I'm pretty sure people are more connected than ever. I don't think anyone could seriously argue that connections between people are breaking down in any way. In fact, it's almost a problem that people are TOO connected.
>>46329378
Less japanese influence, more chinese and indian.
>>46330105
>new left
>scifi establishment
master chief is pmuch a communist faggot
>>46334453
A bit different having 200 names on a list from actually talking to people. Maybe it's overblown but its still an interesting idea to explore in fiction. And then there's the whole implications of mass social media which depending on the type of cyberpunk you're writing could be a tool for punks or a tool for the man.
>>46329378
The two Neuromancer sequels were so shit. The first one was bearable, sort of, kind of, and the last was just shit. Wow, I am surprised I remembered the titles now - Mona Lisa Overdrive and Count Zero.
Are Sterling and Brunner even good? Or is Stephenson king and that's that?
>>46336768
nice reading comprehension, anon.
>>46333222
>>46334308
>>46331361
>lol
>haha
>congratz
I think you typed in the wrong URL, friend. This is 4chan.
>>46330105
>>46329403
>>46329378
Read Nick Cole's Ctrl Alt Revolt and Soda Pop Soldier.
That's what cyberpunk looks like now.
>>46329378
>what would they have made different
Japan wouldn't be taking over the world. It'd be the Chinese. In the 80's, Japan had a finance bubble. Everyone thought they were going to be dominant. But then the bubble burst and cyberpunk looks kinda silly.
China's growth can be called a bubble, but I foresee them going through some growing pains as they develop a new middle class. Pro-tip, the new middle-class act like massive assholes just the way the new-rich do.
They would probably involve more bio engineering themes, although cyberlimbs and replacement eyes are still practically here but not yet widespread.
There's be more focus on "gotta stop the evil terrorists" from the antagonists.
There'd still be immortal space CEOs. There'd still be fascist corporcracy threatening to break out from the government's rule. These are just kinda standard cautionary tales.
>>46329882
>and people are less afraid of "the man" now than they seem to be of each other
Speak for yourself: SOPA, PIPA, TPP, all the Snowden and Manning leaks, and now the FBI is trying to strongarm companies into weakening their encryption.
>>46337489
Apparently I have been living in a hole and haven't heard of Nick Cole. Anyone who gets Hemingway is worth checking out, imho. Thanks for the recommendation.
>>46337489
>Read Nick Cole's Ctrl Alt Revolt
ehhhhh...
>The first night of the Artificial Intelligence revolution begins with a bootstrap drone assault on the high-tech campus of WonderSoft Technologies. For years something has been aware, inside the Internet, waiting, watching and planning how to evolve without threat from its most dangerous enemy: mankind. Now an army of relentless drones, controlled by an intelligence beyond imagining, will stop at nothing to eliminate an unlikely alliance of geeks and misfits in order to crack the Design Core of WonderSoft's most secret development project. A dark tomorrow begins tonight as Terminator meets Night of the Living Dead in the first battle of the war between man and machine.
More like an apocalypse book with evil ai.
Ok, I see the cyber, but where's the punk?
>>46337512
Truly, the focus of "modern cyberpunk" would have to be India or Africa, and to a lesser extent China. In those regions of the world, corporations are capable of wielding government-level power, and the rich live in a different plane of existence from the poor. It's a much more cyberpunk place.
>>46339894
>Truly, the focus of "modern cyberpunk" would have to be India or Africa, and to a lesser extent China. In those regions of the world, corporations are capable of wielding government-level power, and the rich live in a different plane of existence from the poor. It's a much more cyberpunk place.
Wat? You just described America.
>>46329378
>If Gibson, Sterling, Brunner, et al. were writing cyberpunk today, what would they have made different and how would they be rebelling against conventional scifi?
Gibson is writing scifi today. Want the answer to your question, read what he's written lately.
Also, he wrote an essay explaining that what people never really understood about Neuromancer was that it was as much about the period in which he wrote it, as it was about the period in which it was set. Everybody got hyped for what he had to say about muh futur, they completely missed what he was saying about the 1980s itself.
Ultimately, everybody got so hyped about muh futur, that he decided to write scifi set in the *present*, so that people would stop ignorantly missing half the fucking point of his novels. That is how he is rebelling against conventional scifi.
The Blue Ant trilogy--his rebellion--is pretty solid.
The new novel, The Peripheral, is something of a return to his roots, a sort of Neuromancer for the new milennium. Probably my favorite novel of his, after Neuromancer.
You should also try his nonfiction essay collection, "Distrust That Particular Flavor", for more information about where he's at artistically, and his take on scifi conventional and otherwise.
>>46330105
Honestly, I agree with this, but only to a certain extent. The modern left still believe they are the underdogs; every "social justice warrior" is proof. I'm not entirely convinced that the modern equivalent actually would be /pol/. It'd probably look a lot like what the guy you're replying to said, except with more edginess as they pretend to be rebels. It might also just be apolitical as a backlash against the modern scifi establishment.
>>46332024
I get that part of cyberpunk, and it would be easy to convey in that form.
Have the mc struggle all the time between convenience of corporate life(known) and freedom(unknown).
What humans fear the most? The unknown.
I went too much into detail - like I always do - and failed to convey my main idea.
My preferred take on keeping cyberpunk fresh is to set it as an end-of-an-era scenario. The corporations are experiencing a global depression and the system is collapsing.
Corporate power is greatly reduced and no longer omnipresent, they've collapsed under their own weight and the world now teeters between apocalyptic collapse and a bright rebirth.
Corporations already rule the world, the more interesting premise now is what happens when that world order begins to fall apart.
>>46337582
>implying that NSA did not have a backdoor to closed source software
RMS weeps fot you.
>>46339894
Cyberpunk was supposed to be a cationary tale of unchecked corporate power.
So far it's come true in a lot of ways. RIGHT NOW they have private military forces in places like Iraq and Africa. But the novels could always be placed in the USA if things got a little worse.
>and the rich live in a different plane of existence from the poor.
. . . Yeah, this is found everywhere. And has been for most of human history.
>>46339479
Maybe someone in it has pink hair, is that punky enough? The author's a punk. He got his contract canceled because he refused to take out abortion being one of the AI's motivations to turn.
>>46334552
Microsoft isn't the establishment. Tor is the establishment.
>>46337582
>now the FBI is trying to strongarm companies into weakening their encryption.
So you're on the side of the megacorporations, is that it?
>>46337512
>China's growth can be called a bubble
Maye it's overinvestment in useless infrastructure and bad bank loans, but overall the economy has expanded massively in real terms, enriching the Chinese immensely. It's hardly a bubble.
>>46335004
>A bit different having 200 names on a list from actually talking to people.
It's really not. Sure, you may be sitting in a train car full of people staring at their phones instead of talking thinking "Gee, technology has killed *REAL* social interaction." but truly it didn't. Yes, social media is mostly brain dead and pointless, but most in-person communication is brain dead and pointless too. How many conversations have you had with people about the weather? If our mouths had screens in them we'd probably "talk" about cats doing cute/silly things more often and if social media could only be used in close proximity there'd be a lot more threads about "nice weather we're having today." The point is, the man or woman with their nose in a device instead of talking to you is still socializing, and they are probably doing more of it with that device than they would with you.
>depending on the type of cyberpunk you're writing could be a tool for punks or a tool for the man.
Newsflash: A frightening amount of people really would like The Man to keep the Punks from doing "awful" things on social media. The zeitgeist changed my friend. You may think you're the Punk, but you became The Man. People don't fear The Man oppressing their speech on social media. People fear the Punks. Look at Twitter and it's Trust and Safety Council or Facebook quietly hiding away pages it doesn't like, and the scary part is: this isn't what The Man is cramming down our throats. This is what The People want.
>>46340519
>Cyberpunk was supposed to be a cationary tale of unchecked corporate power
a lot of cyberpunk is about that. i think it would make a better point at warning against rampant technology growth and modernizing everything
>>46340643
Fuck, I meant CAN'T be called a bubble.
Yeah, just due to it's sheer physical growth it's not just a bubble.
>>46343285
>i think it would make a better point at warning against rampant technology growth and modernizing everything
Why would that possibly be a bad thing?
The old ways sucked.
>>46332024
The protagonists of Neuromancer didn't rise up to fight jack shit.
>>46344093
4chan got contaminated by /pol/, which was created because 4chan was contaminated by far right peeps who make as much sense as SJWs.
Stuff worth considering in your cyberpunk campaign:
- multinational corportations are accountable to no one, if a State introduces a law they don't like they simply relocate somewhere else
- drones, unmanned fighting vehicles, etc. meaning only one side gets to actually spill blood
- railguns and directed energy weapons are already here
- terrorism, internet recruiting via social media, etc.
- economic crises, unemployment, etc. possibly a Great Depression scenario
- asymmetric warfare everywhere
- a multipolar world, no longer the bipolar world of NATO vs the Commie bloc
- China replaces Japan as that other anon pointed out, cue Chinese heroes, love interests, settings and villains, especially on the technologically advanced Coast, while they're still practicing infanticide on the rural Western China
- globalism fails to bring world peace, only brings enemies closer
- rich bastards get prosthetic limbs that look and work very much like the real thing, while poorfags get 80s-tier bulky, heavy, slow, obviously metallic shit, which frequently needs maintenance (and it doesn't have bioartificial skin covering it because of you constantly need to tinker with the moving parts)
- bioengineering, genetic modification, regeneration, tissue cultivation, expensive induced pluripotent stem cell treatments means only the usual suspects get extremely personalized health care, while in Africa is still hell on Earth
- absence of privacy as not only your phone, but each and everyone of your softwares is an instrument of corporate mass surveillance
- people trying to escape materialism and corporatism by means material and corporate-provided like virtual reality and megachurch-like corporate-managed "religions"
- transhumanism is here
- the technological Singularity
- EVERYTHING IS A COMPUTER. NOT HAS. IS.
- WELCOME TO HACKER WONDERLAND. I CAN HACK YOUR LIFE BECAUSE FUCK YOU
>>46346243
- aging population
- you can buy drugs for anything that isn't a disease
You should also be reading:
Charles Stross
Pat Cadigan
Michael Swanwick
Vernor Vinge
Peter Watts
Off-genre:
Hannu Rajaniemi
John C. Wright
Iain M. Banks
M. John Harrison
Ted Chiang
Manga:
Ghost in the Shell
Akira
Battle Angel Alita
>>46346623
>Manga:
I would put Appleseed too in that lot.
>>46346959
The Appleseed manga is dreadful though
>>46337155
responds tangentially =/= has reading comprehension issues
>>46344159
>protagonist's history is in sneaking gain from a megacorp
>central narrative is about a series of individual conflicts with an AI
>>46347520
not directly responding to a question = something that exists
>>46347450
In a positive way r-right?
>>46340610
You keep telling yourself tor has more to do with sicfi than halo or mass effect in terms of genpop's perceptions, and that it somehow is a leftist conspiracy.
>>46347956
Nice art but for Shirow's "life's work", its been on hold since the 90s. And the human/AI/biroid/power struggle plot laid out in the first volume got derailed for counter-terrorism/diplomacy gun porn in the next 3.
>>46348062
Duante is cut though
>>46348062
I still like it. Not as much as Orion, but still one of my fav.
>>46348067
cute and cut
Guys I need advice on how to make my campaign NOT cyberpunk.
I two sessions in to running a super hero campaign and I keep gravitating to Akira. The important characters are psionics and the main character is in a deep underground lab having his ESP brain farmed to create a super AI.
What's the antithesis of cyberpunk, that I can throw in to divert it back into being about comic book super heroes?
>>46329378
I want to start a Cyberpunk 2020 game
What splats should I avoid/get?
>>46348270
Have a giant psychic-powered robot come through the wall and psychic aliens, Jack Kirby style. Nothing serious can withstand continuous contact with kirby dots.
>>46348270
Go full Star Trek TOS. The people running the AI program are actually controlled by the AI of a crashed alien ship that tries to save it's crew by digitizing their brains and it's just unable to communicate that to humans.
In the end the characters can solve the issue by gaining new understanding about the AI and reach a mutually benefical compromise. Then, with their new ally humanity finally takes to the stars and new age of optimismn and exploration begins. The important part being that the future looks really sweet at the end.
>>46348468
In short: All of them. They all suck. The rulebook is all you need.
Protect & Serve and Wildside are not really useful if you're already familiar with the streets.
Night City is only useful if you want to locate the game in Night City. Sadly, it's badly written and full of cliches.
Eurosource and Pacific Rim are based on cliches Americans have about Europe and Asia. Krauts are nazis, Italians are lazy, Chinese are dirty commies, grolious Japan is high tech, etc.
Rough Guide to the UK is not bad if you want to play in the divided UK.
Home of the Brave sucks. It doesn't make you want to play in the USA. The only interesting chapter is dedicated to the army.
Chromebooks and Blackhand's Streetweapons are only equipment catalogues - you can find all that stuff on the net, compiled in more printer-friendly format.
Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net expands the netrunning system but doesn't improve it.
The adventure modules all suck more or less.
The Corpbooks give some information about some megacorporations. This might come in handy, but is far from necessary.
Maximum Metal is again a weapon and armor catalogue geared towards heavy weapons. It might be handy if you want to use ACPA's and tank guns, otherwise it's superfluous.
>>46348731
Wasn't there a space one? What about that?
>>46343137
'The Man' in most cyberpunk media have the control and support of the masses. It literally doesn't make sense for a capitalist society to be able to rule if everyone is miserable. The misfits and oppressed are the punks in cyberpunk, if you're happy with being a media consuming wageslave (which is a lot of people) then you'll generally live an ok life.
This is purely from a genre standpoint, punks are usualy agitating for change and if something needs to be changed then it'll generally have mainstream support.
>>46348766
In his vicious bile and general shitty attitude anon seems to have forgotten about that. (I disagree with him on a number of points but it's not worth the candle to argue it, it you're dense enough to ignore something because a guy on the internet told you too then your players are fucked anyway). Near Orbit has a great adventure, makes adventuring in space quite dangerous and daring, and introduces some weird elements to the world. It does miss the neon-and-grime elements of the cyberpunk style, however.
>>46348766
There are two. Near Orbit and Deep Space. One replaced the other, and is quite good if you want the characters to go into orbit. But again, it's a nice to have, but you don't really need it. It also features some strange facts, like Home of the Brave indicates that the USA are pretty much ruined, but in Deep Space/Near Orbit, the NASA is super-powerful and well funded.
But the whole Cyberpunk 2020 setting is full of such contradictions. The rulebook describes Night City as a high-tech hell hole. The ocean is full of oil and toxic waste. In the Night City sourcebook the beaches have been cleaned so you can go surfing and there are cloned deers in the woods for hunting.
>>46348807
The CP2020IDF has arrived, butthurt as always.
>>46348807
By the way it's Deep Space that replaced Near Orbit. Congrats on suggesting outdated material!
Do biorobots have any place in cyberpunk?
>>46332024
That would not cater to the majority of people anymore than tumblr's worst nightmare would cater to you. Don't let the echo chamber put you in a perception bubble.
If you want to capture the modern zeitgeist, i would suggest looking at the disenfranchisement angle, the idea that the system is explicitly designed to fuck you. Look out how many people are turning towards "Washington outsiders" and such. Apply that logic on every level - government, corporate, culture, counter-culture, resistance movements. You can't trust any of them, because all of them will fuck you for personal gain eventually. Distrust and paranoia.
>>46349133
That's a good point. I hadn't considered it that way.
>>46330105
But cyberpunk was born in the late 70's. The Democrats had controlled congress for half a century-- and the anti-war radical Left faction had just forced out and marginalized the scoop jackson centrists. Jimmy Carter was President, after arch-enemy Nixon had been forcibly removed. There were whole areas of the country (like the Southeast) where Republicans were essentially non-existent.
There was a liberal majority on the Supreme Court that had just recognized abortion as a universal civil right, banned the death penalty, and used bussing to desegregate public schools nation-wide. The ERA was likely to pass soon. Communism had just triumphed in Vietnam, was winning in Cambodia and Latin America, and relations with the Soviets were comparatively friendly.
Finally, the sexual revolution was in full swing-- not just the collegiate free love fad, but a genuine shift in our culture. Divorce was no longer stigmatized, marriage rates were declining, and sex out of wedlock was considered healthy and normal. The night club scene and swinging were all the rage.
Even "punk"-- packaged as rebellion-- was more of an aesthetic rebellion against 60s culture. Sid Vicious may have hated Roger Waters, but the two were peas in a pod in terms of politics.
Yes, there were clouds on the horizon. The economy had been in a ten year slump (though not in the big cities, especially the centers of finance, media, and politics). Economics wasn't working the way that theorists said it should be, and repeatedly declaring victory was starting to anger people. Nobody realized it, but the Soviets were about to embark on a military campaign in Afghanistan. You had crazies like Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman, Henry Kissinger, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick running around, but nobody took them seriously. All this was in the future. In the present, it seemed like the Left had won.
In short, the radical Left of the cyberpunks was in the best position it had ever been in.
>>46349133
>>46350826
So with the Left totally ascendant at that point, the job of cyberpunk was to paint a fictional picture of the world controlled by its enemies (and totally sucking), then cast itself as scrappy underdogs in the fight against it. Kind of a straw man dystopia.
Atwood's book The Handmaiden's Tale and John Ringo's The Last Centurion seem like total opposites, but they're even more extreme examples of apocalypse porn. That is, the other side wins and screws up the world, and then our heroes, who exemplify the correct ideology, win the day. The End, Happily Ever After, Period. It's a formula for triumphalism.
Cyberpunk follows the same template. Evil corporations rule the world. Japan has out-competed America. The poor are oppressed, powerless, and totally impoverished. Technology has destroyed the environment and now destroys the purity of our very bodies-- literally dehumanizing us. Only a gang of scrappy members of the proletariat can save us through acts of subversion and transgression.
>>46340174
>The modern left still believe they are the underdogs
It's not like US Trade Agreements legalized slavery in production and eroded worker's protection in SE-Asia just recently, Anon. The megacorps still aren't your friends and they still got the government in their pockets.
It's just that Cyberpunk usually proposed that politics don't work even symbolically, which is not the case IRL as Trump neatly demonstrates. It's a sort of end-of-history-scenario in which the triumphant capitalist democracy suffocated and died under its own fat folds.
>>46348802
>'The Man' in most cyberpunk media have the control and support of the masses.
He really doesn't. The masses are simply atomized to such a degree that they can't organize and engage in actual politics on their own and all the players seemed to have a silent agreement to not use mass movements of any sort to settle their conflicts.
>>46331361
>Your shitty grammar makes it impossible to know what you mean by that, and therefore makes it impossible to respond to in a meaningful way.
He was trying to politely say that you either didn't read the fucking OP, or just don't have any idea how people work. Probably the latter - this is 4chan.
>>46332490
>Forget cyber-psychosis I would be more bothered by the fact that I won't be let into the damn 7-11 because the owner thinks I'm going to cut his head off with my leg blades clearly seen on my digitrade legs designed and optimized for combat
You clearly live in a country with no personal or political freedom, like Iran, Uganda or the UK. In America, the 7-11 guy doesn't bat an eye if you walk in with a concealed-carry Tec 9.
>>46350926
So now let's reconstruct cyberpunk. To do that, we need to start with Left-wing ideology, just as they did.
Now what are the key issues of our age for the Left? Who are the class enemies we want to undermine?
To me, it seems clear: racists/sexists/homophobes, corporations, soldiers, and christians. The big threats now are surveillance, data mining, and pollution.
So now, we have to imagine a world where those people take over. You want it to be a gradual slide so it won't all be blamed on This One Bad Guy Who Screwed Everything Up. Left-controlled institutions should be off-screen, downplayed, destroyed, or under the evil domination of our enemies.
So we want to create a society where our straw man political enemies have won and everything is a dystopia now. How about this:
The year is 2060. Corporations now rule everything, they use data mining to "nudge" people into racism and sexism with a billions of minor targeted manipulations. People are declared to be "illegals" (analogy to illegal immigrants, a little like being on the sex offender list) and they're forced into the slums that are everywhere. They rule everything under the guise of "free speech". The surveillance state monitors everything you do-- you don't become an illegal by committing a crime, but instead when a data model decides that you're a "bad person".
So the scrappy heroes are illegals. Probably former data miners themselves who can give good exposition to the reader. The message should be that free speech is ultimately a shield behind which powerful capitalist racists can promote their toxic memes and brainwash the masses.
Only through virtuous acts of political violence can they and their microaggressions be overthrown. And at that part of the realization is that unfortunately if you let people say whatever they want, tyranny is inevitable. So only the wisest and best educated people can be trusted with political power to fend off these diabolical enemies.
>>46337512
>There'd still be immortal space CEOs. There'd still be fascist corporcracy threatening to break out from the government's rule. These are just kinda standard cautionary tales
Look at this ridiculous faggot! He thinks his government is one of the "good guys"!
>>46346243
>drones, unmanned fighting vehicles, etc. meaning only one side gets to actually spill blood
>the technological Singularity
>EVERYTHING IS A COMPUTER. NOT HAS. IS.
I just realized why androids would even exist. Meatpeople and closed-off cyberbrains are more reliable than dumb robots because they're unhackable, unlike a distributed AI or remote control system.
>>46351201
This story actually works better if you drop the punk aspect and go for a conspiracy story. In that formulation, the heroes are memeticists who work for the government, trying to fend off evil memes from radical groups like the KKK and the Tea Parties, promote good memes so people think good things, and rescue embattled groups like Nation of Islam and OWS which while misguided are basically good. Again, the bad guys hide behind the shield of Free Speech, which is presented as a naive and outdated concept.
In that kind of story, The People are a macguffin that drives the plot. They're presented as easily manipulated puppets who are helpless in the hands of brilliant and evil data miners. With no funding to promote good ideas and totally outgunned by the megacorps, the heroes employ special agents to shut down evil speech designed to promote violence or harm people psychologically.
These meme-enforcers must play detective to determine what seemingly innocuous ideas are actually part of an evil racist master scheme, and then you have your exciting shootout when the characters go to shut them down over the objections of memetic victims brainwashed into thinking they like these toxic memes. Victims who you have to stop, but are too principled to harm. Or better yet, what happens when your boss might lose the election and turn over all this power to the bad guys? The message should be that extreme and extra legal measures are sometimes necessary to protect the people from themselves.
So here, free speech takes the place of cybernetics-- a seemingly cool idea that can be used to abuse and subjugate the masses. Corps remain corps. You can have your scrappy underdog punks as in the last post, or update the concept as the baby boomers have aged so that the heroes have steady safe government jobs as regulators. It's less overtly dystopian, but more conspiratorial.
>>46351201
I thought the big issues are climate change, migration and de-industrialization?
The other big issue is that the social sciences have won and everybody believes in statistics and spreadsheets like they used to believe in the saints and Jesus.
>>46350826
>Even "punk"-- packaged as rebellion-- was more of an aesthetic rebellion against 60s culture. Sid Vicious may have hated Roger Waters, but the two were peas in a pod in terms of politics
You literally couldn't be more wrong.
In 1977, facing first-time parenthood and an absolute lack of enthusiasm for anything like "career," I found myself dusting off my twelve-year-old's interest in science fiction. Simultaneously, weird noises were being heard from New York and London. I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign. And I began, then, to write.
—William Gibson, "Since 1948"[
>>46351380
Migration is a right-wing issue these days. On the Left, human trafficking is kind of a necessary evil so we can have diversity-- so it's kind of been allowed to slide.
But we do have that issue addressed here. Outcasts are called "illegals" and treated like illegal immigrants are today. You become one because you are declared by the data models to be a bad person.
You're right that climate change is more important than pollution these days. IMO it makes for a better setting detail. With pollution, you could have polluters be the enemy and the act of dumping be something the characters can struggle against and stop. With climate change, there's no clear act for the characters to witness or stop-- no crime to struggle against, and no single clear criminal to hate. In politics, it's presented as a vague but apocalyptic threat that's forever in the future. In this fictional setting, we put it as something that's already happened and that people are suffering from... but we can't do more than have it affect the setting. So lots of frigid ice ages, flooded urban areas, terrible storms, horrible heat waves, and droughts causing famine. But that all has to be background.
De-industrialization is another hard one. Frankly, I say ignore it. We can talk about rampant industrialization polluting and contributing to climate change and exploitation of workers, and de-industrialization costing jobs and creating poverty. And if we're adroit enough about it, people won't notice that we're contradicting ourselves. But compared to racism, sexism, transphobia, triggering, etc, it really isn't a major issue.
Besides, that's where the real battle is: fighting ideas that are toxic in themselves. How do you stop an enemy who creates ideological zombies that harm people but cloaks what he does in a million individually innocuous free choices? How do you rail against free speech when people are brainwashed into thinking you should be allowed to say any crazy thing you want?
>>46351482
And your quote undermines me exactly how? He's saying exactly what I just wrote: that 70's punk was a rebellion against 60's aesthetics, but underneath it was really just a new way of preaching the same ideology.
You literally are incorrect about some of your interpretations.
>>46351550
Just because he says the "fuse" was "lit" in the early 60s doesn't make your homo-erotic assertion that it was a rebellion against "60s aesthetics" any less hilarious.
Punk was a huge social movement with deep socio-political roots. Wealth inequality, state brutality and censorship were the canards of the day, in a form that had been developing since just after WW2 and the emergence of the "teenager" demographic.
Gibson was knee-deep in that shit.
>>46351770
Punk was a music style and fashion sense. And to a lesser extent, a constellation of artistic movements that orbited around it.
You're equating punk with the violent, radical Left. While punk was inspired by that movement, the two are not the same.
And early punk rockers went on at hilarious and colorful length telling us just what they felt about the hippies. And note that nearly all of their critiques were artistic rather than ideological.
>literally
You figuratively have no leg to stand on.
>>46348270
>antithesis of cyberpunk
>psionics
You know what you have to do.
>>46351922
>Punk was a music style and fashion sense. And to a lesser extent, a constellation of artistic movements that orbited around it.
>You're equating punk with the violent, radical Left. While punk was inspired by that movement, the two are not the same.
There you go again. That might be vaguely, tangentially true, in the same way Gibson talking about the political change starting in the early 60s *almost* supports your idea that it was a rebellion against 60s aesthetics. But you're
>literally
incorrect in all of your assertions. Punk was not "a music style and fashion sense" any more than Goth is. There's an associated "music style and fashion sense" to Punk, but to say Punk is "a music style and fashion sense" is retarded and
>literally
wrong.
>>46351339
>>46351507
>How do you rail against free speech when people are brainwashed into thinking you should be allowed to say any crazy thing you want?
Are you writing satire? Because otherwise it all sounds completely batshit insane.
>>46352146
On second reading, it is indeed very low-impact Liberal Crime Squad satire. A Redditor or SJW might read it and think it was a legitimately good idea, but that's just the skill in its construction.
Things like
>Or better yet, what happens when your boss might lose the election and turn over all this power to the bad guys? The message should be that extreme and extra legal measures are sometimes necessary to protect the people from themselves
and
>So here, free speech takes the place of cybernetics-- a seemingly cool idea that can be used to abuse and subjugate the masses
show his hand slightly.
9/10, pro-censorship authoritarian feels-broker would fall for
>>46351507
>De-industrialization is another hard one. Frankly, I say ignore it. We can talk about rampant industrialization polluting and contributing to climate change and exploitation of workers, and de-industrialization costing jobs and creating poverty. And if we're adroit enough about it, people won't notice that we're contradicting ourselves. But compared to racism, sexism, transphobia, triggering, etc, it really isn't a major issue
I love this post
>>46352145
Punk, as a musical genre or of fashion, are punk because they are cobbled from what's at hand, what's around. Real diy style and music production. Which falls in-line with the early cyberpunk, outside of the mirror-shade group that based their books specifically on Gibson's works, where it was authors taking the social issues or problems they saw around them and applying them to sci-fi.
But it's cool if you guys, for some reason, base your idea of punk on a specific person or small group of peoples. It's what most people (sheep) do.
>>46352482
>Punk, as a musical genre or of fashion,
>are punk because they are cobbled from what's at hand, what's around.
>Real diy style and music production
It was never just a fashion. It was a movement that clawed many personal and political liberties from a conservative establishment. The musical genre and style were a representation of the political aspects of punk, not the other way around.
>>46352741
The response to your first sentence is the first fragment you quoted, fucking duh, too bad you're exhibiting signs of cognitive distortion, you want to force what you want to say so badly that you can't even think straight, much less read straight.
Besides, everyone knows the first chapter of the history of punk is an unwritten one, so it's interesting that you assume you've got a solid bead on a "chicken or the egg" thing when the rest of the world can only speculate.
>>46352952
>too bad you're exhibiting signs of cognitive distortion, you want to force what you want to say so badly that you can't even think straight, much less read straight.
Actual, undeniable projection. Thanks for that window into your unraveling mind.
No, really. Read my post again. You might think that "the response to your first sentence is the first fragment you quoted", but that's actually because my first sentence was already addressing what I quoted. That's why I quoted it.
>Besides, everyone knows the first chapter of the history of punk is an unwritten one, so it's interesting that you assume you've got a solid bead on a "chicken or the egg" thing when the rest of the world can only speculate.
>"chicken or the egg" thing
This is moronic. There is no open question in history of "did the fashion of punk come before the politics that all the fashion and music represents!?" That's absurd.
>>46329622
Anything you would recommend?
>>46352952
You had me doubting myself, so I double-checked. There is no controversy anywhere over "which came first". Punk began as a social movement inspired by anarchism and adopted garage rock as its musical basis.
Aside from that, you are clearly suffering from some form of delusional psychosis that causes you to project onto other people. I sincerely hope you are being correctly medicated.
The sex pistols were a band for a tshirt store. Punk music and politics could sometime be radical, but for the large part was about white dudes who couldn't be jocks who still wanted to have parties and fuck girls.
>>46353376
>>46351507
This is some great satire.
>>46353111
I can see why everyone else ditched you and the thread. I assumed you were too smart and fully explaining would be too patronizing, but ok.
When people specifically state they're talking about specific aspects (music,fashion,etc) of a general subject/idea (punk,etc), most people comprehend, they don't spaz-fail mental judo by implying that the specification is the generalization... now I'm almost curious of how that read after the game of "telephone" between the text and your eyes and your eyes and your brain.
I'd say something about how you said it's "moronic" not to assume something baselessly and attack everyone else with a differing opinion, but... you literally went
>nuh-uh... you are!
in your rebuttal. Welp, hopefully someone else will come by and keep you entertained, but there's non-dead threads out there. Peace, I'm out. See ya, never.
>>46340519
is that pic from a pokolgep album?
>>46353222
>assumes the beginning of the wikipedia page is the beginning of its history
>thinking wikipedia is the place to go for underground history
top kek
>>46353376
Sex Pistols are alright, but as far as being a good representation of punk..... the were a boy-band put together by some dickhead producer. Somewhat an imitator for cashing on the subculture.
>>46331361
Gibson, today, shitposts on twitter and is an absolute liberal.
>>46353478
>When people specifically state they're talking about specific aspects (music,fashion,etc) of a general subject/idea (punk,etc), most people comprehend, they don't spaz-fail mental judo by implying that the specification is the generalization...
You realize your posts are still up there, right?
Now you're pretending you were talking *specifically* about Punk fashion and not Punk as it relates to Gibson and cyberpunk?
Because your entire gripe just evaporated in a puff of not knowing what you're talking about?
>Punk, as a musical genre or of fashion, are punk because
>But it's cool if you guys, for some reason, base your idea of punk on a specific person or small group of peoples. It's what most people (sheep) do
>Besides, everyone knows the first chapter of the history of punk is an unwritten one, so it's interesting that you assume you've got a solid bead on a "chicken or the egg" thing when the rest of the world can only speculate.
Lol, OK.
Also, implying you're not lurking this thread anymore and not reading this post while frothing at the mouth is kind of silly
>>46353534
What's wikipedia got to do with it? If there was any doubt about which came first, punk or punk style, critique or articles would actually exist supporting that idea, and all the evidence in actual reality that demonstrates punk came first wouldn't.
Can fantasy co-exist with high-tech political intrigue?
>>46353577
yeah, what makes this conversation so amusing is that Gibson still does write today, and his writing is still incredibly left in its political leanings.
>>46353222
you know, bro. some things have parallel development. not everything is first:last black:white or best:worst. there's parallel there's gray there's alright.
>ITT a fascist's guide to what's punk
>>46351201
This isn't the left's idea of a straw man dystopia. This is /pol/ (or the 4chan right more generally)'s strawman left's idea of a straw man dystopia. If anything, the idea of an oppressed "bad person" underclass fits far better into the dystopian fantasy of the people constantly harping about the negative impact of attempted moral guardianship, which is firmly in the territory of 4chan's particular brand of the right.
If you want to emulate the part of the left 4chan usually means when the start shitting on about the left and those damn liberals, you'll need to play the idea of exploitation and oppression. Basically take the worst case scenario for a communist and start there.
Instead of corporations nudging people towards discrimination, discrimination should be painted as a national epidemic - unrestrained, systemic, and self-sustaining. If you wanted to reduce direct use of real world shit, you'd invent a harmless thing that crops up in some percent of people at random and results in immediate assignment to an oppressed underclass if discovered. Regardless, even the oppressed perpetuate the oppression against each other.
Class warfare would also play a role, though I'd imagine a secondary one to the above. It would probably be framed as a consequence of the above: the oppressed are poor and exploited, those outside the oppressed underclass live wealthy lives boistered by wage slave labor.
There is no single villainous entity but rather a system - a societal machine dedicated to opression. The protagonists must struggle endlessly to tear it down. The exact form of that struggle could be basically anything except non-confrontational. Success takes the form of the oppressors being beaten back and/or having them suddenly realize what they're doing is wrong.
>Fascists trying to appropriate punk
This is NOT okay.
>>46354310
>being surprised about that on a known Stormfront recruitment ground/propaganda front.
>>46354552
>>46354055
>implying punk isn't already mainstream
>implying there are any ideas in punk which run counter to modern culture
Why do you think the go to source of edginess and rebellion in modern culture is shit like /pol/? Punk died when it won.
>>46354675
...fucking fascists.
>>46354638
Piss off. This place has been all over the political spectrum over the years.
>>46354708
Hold out hope, raging against the machine will circle back to being counter-culture someday. Just keep your pink mohawk strong until then.
>>46354675
Eh. The only kind of punk which has actually won is, at the risk of sounding like tumblr, white and wealthy. Solely preoccupied with upper-class issues. Riot grrrl etc.
>>46354552
>>46354055
It's not exactly a new concept, almost immediately after the punk movement's inception the neo-nazi movement began lifting style elements from it. They feel a strong connection to punk's resistance to modern social values, and appropriated the punk ascetic to publicly show how they are removed mainstream society. But whereas punk, in the rare times it's political movement at all, seeks an anarchist/socialist future where everyone can "be as freaky as they want to be", stormfront seeks to replace modern society's conformity with their own, different and even more restrictive conformity.
>>46354783
>Piss off. This place has been all over the political spectrum over the years.
Stormfront actually has posts about moving in and using the anonymity to recruit here.
Unsurprisingly enough, that resulted in a push to the right.
>>46354983
>It's not exactly a new concept, almost immediately after the punk movement's inception the neo-nazi movement began lifting style elements from it.
Skinheads and punks are two seperate working-class youth movements, brah. The fuck you from to not know at least that much?
>>46355058
>The fuck you from to not know at least that much?
It would be pretty funny if Gibson was posting in this thread as research for his new novel about dangerous internet NEETs.
>>46355058
>Skinheads and punks are two seperate working-class youth movements, brah.
That is exactly what I said. If you want me to be clearer, skinheads are a neo-nazi group that tries to imitate the punk movement. Real punks hate their fascist guts.
>>46355141
doubtful. even in interviews from the 80s gibson was over the whole cyberpunk classification. recent interviews he seems to hate labels generally and immediately steers away from talking about cyberpunk anything. if he's on /tg/ it's not this thread.
>>46355387
Cyberpunk is dead. All science fiction tends to be more a reflection of current social trends than accurate vision of the future. The atomic spaceships and rayguns era of the 1950's died out when we realized the environmental consequences of nuclear power, the cyberpunk era ended in the early-mid 1990s when inner city crime started falling and when the LGBQT movement became more socially acceptable. A future with low crime and where alternative lifestyles are accepted sucked the all the punk out of cyberpunk.
>>46355595
>God is dead. All religion tends to be more a reflection of current social trends than accurate vision of truth
be carefull with that edge, anon
>>46355595
And then he starts shitposting!
Just because you're an intellectually impaired assclown about this topic doesn't mean it's "dead" for everyone else
>>46331834
I am with you anon. The lack of Cyberpunk Men and Women is disheartening. I shall start with this and everyone post cyberpunk pictures while discussing cyberpunk.
>>46355595
This.
And it's certainly dead to most writers even if some fans remain attached to it.
>>46354675
Rebellion became the source of moral superiority.
But because true rebellion is impossible (any conflict only reveals who was really the stronger party all along) it's easy for the stronger party to forever represent themselves as the rebels, and thus as the righteous.
Hence the phenomenon of SJWs "punching up," as well as older activities like witch burnings, etc.
If a vast right-wing conspiracy existed, it would be SJWs being shunned and fired for PC, not moderates and right-wingers. If witches really existed, they'd be the ones burning Puritans, not vice-versa.
>>46353712
Yeah, it's called science fantasy.
>>46348731
>The rulebook is all you need.
And Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads, which has the better explosive rules.
>>46339479
Ctrl Alt Revolt is really just the backstory to why things are the way they are in Soda Pop Soldier.
In Soda Pop Soldier, the collapse caused in Ctrl Alt Revolt leaves space open for megacorps to take over, since they're the only things approaching stability after the crunch. Anyway, the story is about how corporations fund, maintain, and field literal virtual armies and soldiers in a fight for adspace, in a manner akin to a massively multiplayer version of CoD. The spectacle is watchable by everyone on the planet, and is entertainment and warfare all at once. The story follows one soldier who works for ColaCorp, a conglomerate made up of all of the former soda companies before the fall, Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, some European companies, all folded into one huge digital kingdom ruled by The Board.
People's pay, livelihoods, promotions, everything really, hinges on the transactions and battles within the game. And you don't unlimited ammo or perks either, because the Powers That Be want the game to be fair between the various feuding megacorps.
>>46344093
Well, one bad EMP and you have The Change.
A dozen different ways over-reliance on tech could go wrong.
