If you know where to look, the cyberpunk is def a thing. I have friends with chip implants, friends that race drones through the city, and friends build robots for fun. Meshtastic is pretty cool. We have open source 3d printers and vr projects. Shits pretty cool if youre a nerd. The mainstream is bleak but the underground is doing some really cool.stuff
Even in ready player one and night city, the corpo tech was enshittified to all hell and back. I definitely dont trust IOI any more than Meta or Neuralink
Which is exactly why I mentioned having only the shitty corpo netanats and none of the rest of the stuff we might call cool but is just an extension of living in a technodystopic world of wild disparity.
Thats what im saying though. In a lot of sci-fi the cool stuff that is usable and not controlled by a mega corp is basically opensource and is being developed by the (usually revolutionary) underground that you as the player happen to link up with. Its the same in our world. You just need nerdier friends or a more vital questline lol
from the popular hit series, Please For The Love of All That is Holy Don’t Build the Torment Nexus
as a reminder. Zaphod Beeblebrox is meant to be understood to be a villain in Hitchiker’s Guide. he’s a dumb, drugged out, psuedointellectual who’s allowed far too much leeway because he’s both rich and famous
Oddly enough, for all the lolz, some deep wisdom from those books stuck with me for life. The lines about how the kind of people who want to and can get themselves elected to such-and-such office, how that capability and desire also makes them de facto the precise kind of person you never want running things. That idea remains honestly one of the most profound things I’ve ever read, you see it reflected in ~every politician who walks the earth.
In many ways it feels like every other problem we have as humans is downstream from that contradiction (but of course, I’m oversimplifying / overgeneralizing hugely).
Silly books for sure, super silly, but not only silly, def agree.
Hey to be fair they’ve been hard at work facilitating cyber-psychosis as well, just without the cool implants (talking about ai if anyone was wondering)
It’s literally a cyberpunk dystopia only less cool.
And none of the cyberpunk. Just the shitty corpos controlling everything.
If you know where to look, the cyberpunk is def a thing. I have friends with chip implants, friends that race drones through the city, and friends build robots for fun. Meshtastic is pretty cool. We have open source 3d printers and vr projects. Shits pretty cool if youre a nerd. The mainstream is bleak but the underground is doing some really cool.stuff
That’s cyberpunk as a niche hobby, not a cultural norm. We’re nowhere near Night City, Blade Runner or even Ready Player One.
Yeah, the shit is pretty cool, but it isn’t cyberpunk as an inescapable culture.
Even in ready player one and night city, the corpo tech was enshittified to all hell and back. I definitely dont trust IOI any more than Meta or Neuralink
Which is exactly why I mentioned having only the shitty corpo netanats and none of the rest of the stuff we might call cool but is just an extension of living in a technodystopic world of wild disparity.
Thats what im saying though. In a lot of sci-fi the cool stuff that is usable and not controlled by a mega corp is basically opensource and is being developed by the (usually revolutionary) underground that you as the player happen to link up with. Its the same in our world. You just need nerdier friends or a more vital questline lol
The people with the resources to change things took those stories as guidebooks… “Ooh sick robots!”
and we don’t even have those sick robots
They really failed on every front
They only succeeded in building the torment nexus
from the popular hit series, Please For The Love of All That is Holy Don’t Build the Torment Nexus
as a reminder. Zaphod Beeblebrox is meant to be understood to be a villain in Hitchiker’s Guide. he’s a dumb, drugged out, psuedointellectual who’s allowed far too much leeway because he’s both rich and famous
Oddly enough, for all the lolz, some deep wisdom from those books stuck with me for life. The lines about how the kind of people who want to and can get themselves elected to such-and-such office, how that capability and desire also makes them de facto the precise kind of person you never want running things. That idea remains honestly one of the most profound things I’ve ever read, you see it reflected in ~every politician who walks the earth.
In many ways it feels like every other problem we have as humans is downstream from that contradiction (but of course, I’m oversimplifying / overgeneralizing hugely).
Silly books for sure, super silly, but not only silly, def agree.
that’s on purpose! Douglass Adams was primarily motivated to write them by how offensive he found Apartheid South Africa to his existence as a human
I could certainly tell it was on purpose lmao, ya don’t accidentally blow my mind by telling jokes lol.
Had no idea about it being a response to his revulsion to that, great tidbit thanks!! I’ll have to look for the parallels next time I pick em up.
that’s on purpose! Douglass Adams was primarily motivated to write them by how offensive he found Apartheid South Africa to his existence as a human
Hey to be fair they’ve been hard at work facilitating cyber-psychosis as well, just without the cool implants (talking about ai if anyone was wondering)