It's a warning to the people but it's a utopia for corpos.
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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- [Meme]
- [Movie]
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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."
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.
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.
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There were definitely a few Lockheed ass mfs who completely missed the point of Horizon: Zero Dawn
Years after I saw an article about a company working on fueling machines with animals.
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.
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.
I will never tire of this meme. I wish it would stop being relevant, though.
The people behind this and 'Leopards Eating People's Faces' are visionaries
"Orphan Crushing Machine" completes the trilogy.
Enshittification belongs in this club, too.
The OCM is my favorite, especially because it is expendable both when confronting fascists and the others (for their inaction, masked as good will).
Earlier today the LEPF made the difficult decision to order a temporary reduction of the Orphan Crushing Machine to 20% of normal operating speed, so as to facilitate the high boot demands of the brand new Torment Nexus.
"While we can not crush their bodies with this new approach, we can crush their spirits incredibly effectively." said Oligarch Extraordinaire and infamous Tech Mogul, our friend Mueter Eel.
OMG new continuity just dropped. The Enlightened Centrist party is sure that the answer is to establish a happy balance between the Orphan Crushing Machine and the Torment Nexus.
And this dude is tweeting on the torment nexus despite its nazi owner making money when people use it
It was no more Nazi-owned than any other publicly traded company
I am re-reading peak Stephenson cyberpunk (Snow Crash, Diamond Age) and it just hits different when you feel like you’re reading from inside the prequel.
Diamond Age is pretty optimistic in the efficacy of automated education yet is centered around the existential threat of print-at-home nukes. I feel like weʼll get the print-at-home nukes long before at-scale education of government-raised babies works out.
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Shit, I started the diamond age audio book a long time ago and never finished it. Thanks for the reminder
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
Cyberpunk's also a manual, but to break the megacorp machinations, not comply with'em.
"but all the corporate espionage will be sooo cool"
the problem is william gibson's seedy underworld does genuinely seem cool. but i take that to mean cool people will always do cool shit. punks will always resist authorities. but the technoligarchs had a different takeaway: "we need to bring about this nerdy tech future because it's cool"
they don't notice nuance, subtlety, or context
This isn't just limited to the game. Tech Bros seem either incapable of interpreting the nuance, subtlety, or context and any of the cautionary tales of science fiction.
My favorite example is how Elon Musk often cites Isaac Asimov's Foundation series as a major influence on his worldview, especially regarding the way in which he uses his wealth to promote his own beliefs about what the long-term goals for humanity should be. It seem like he hasn't actually finished the series, or at the very least, didn't understand its message. While the first 2 books set up the idea of saving civilization through authoritarian rational planning and scientific foresight, the rest of the series explicitly challenges and ultimately rejects the idea that one person (or system, for that matter) should guide humanity’s destiny.
The series does not end with an endorsement of Elon's belief in central planning or empire-building, but with a clear message that we should move toward a more collective society. It directly contrasts and critiques the manipulative tactics of the first two books. The final conclusion couldn't be a more clear rebuke of top-down technocracy and the idea that a singular genius can or should steer the course of civilization.
When Musk points to Foundation as a model for how he wants to guide humanity, he is missing the point (based on his actions, at least). The series ends with the realization that societies dominated by control and order are ultimately limited and dangerous. The series isn't meant to be a roadmap for becoming a galactic engineer of society (building the torment Nexus), but a cautionary tale warning humanity against one person or system guiding all of humanity.
If Musk stopped reading after the first or second book, then his actions make sense. However, if he DID finish the series and STILL walked away with his shitty takeaway, then it’s hard not to believe that he didn't get it or didn't read the other books. I feel that, just as with his actions surrounding The Age of Exile, he’s more interested in promoting his own brand of genius than the burden of actually understanding the philosophical message of the series.
He cherry-picks the Nazi stuff even in Asimov.
I don't think Musk reads books. I think he's stupid. Intellectually deficient. Maybe he read a couple pages, then got bored and read half the wikipedia summary.
dude claims douglas adams as his biggest influence. douglas adams would hate the world's richest dickhead
Dude also claimed that Adams coined the term grok, which was coined in 1961 by Robert Heinlein when Douglas Adams was 9 years old.
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See also: "I liked Star Trek before it was woke."
That's why I subscribe to !aboringdystopia@lemmy.world That is the message that should sent about the drift we are experiencing.
1984 wasn't intended as a manual
I see it more like it's Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. The Internet is Soma and we're all addicted. Trading our data (our Collective Digitised Souls) CDS for a chance at fame, or clout, or genuine human connection while they strip-mine our planet for resources and commit ecocide.
We're having both!
https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic-2/
"Stuart McMillen’s webcomic adapts (and updates) Postman’s famous book-length essay, Amusing Ourselves to Death, which argues that Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future in Brave New World was ultimately more accurate than the one proposed by George Orwell in 1984."
So, I was correct.
Well I'll not get in a dystopia measuring competition with you.
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Just want to add, Musk's Grandad, the enlightened scientist and leader of the technocratic movement, was a chiropractor. They're all crooks.
As suspected, society falling apart really boils down to a bunch of shit heels with poor reading comprehension.
Cyberpunk is a description of the 80s through a techno-futurism lens. It is a warning about now
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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.
Plantir
Yeah, Peter Thiel didn't even try to hide his agenda. He just straight up announced himself as Sauron.
To be fair (🎶), the palantíri were made by the elves, and only later used for evil after falling into the wrong hands.
(hey, something to think about the next a government wants to place backdoors in encryption protocols)
The elves are better humans, ubermenschen if you want. It makes even more sense.
Am I the only one who cannot manage to feel sympathetic towards elves in any fantasy? In LOTR even the Uruk-hai see more of my sympathy than, say, Legolas.
I know though that I am not fantasy literature material. The only fantasy movie I like is Dragonslayer and I really never could finish a fantasy book.
I'm glad there are people like you to defend the benefit of the doubt. As it is, he's criticized the eleves. He's done all but come out and praise Sauron.
Yeah, that's a hard line in the sand for me, too. I wonder if they'll tell us when they try to do that.
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