So everyone seemed to love Matrix, more people remember other Cyberpunk classics like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and even some have some classic cyberpunk novels like neuromancer. However my love for cyberpunk goes a bit beyond some cheeze series like "Automan" and movies like Videodrome.
For the people that is not completely related to what cyberpunk is, first is to know the difference between cyberpunk vs future science fiction, or mechanical sci fi. Cyber has to do with data, so there doesnt need to be incredible AI or robot wars. Really cyberpunk has to do with data, which is most of the times something very hard to reproduce, since the data is for all, invisible. Cyberwars are fought everyday nowadays between countries with no news reporting on them, and data has to do with inteligence.
Large governmental institutions like the NSA opressing freedom fighters that tries to push information into the wild. Some might think of Wikileaks as a first great war on cyberspace that was actually gather the mainstream attention, with a wildcard like Julian Assange liberating papers regarding information on the military, the banks and of course government spying on other governments, which makes it something of a whistleblower.
Lately it has been all about Russia and China hacking US based databases and other organizations around the world.
But what are these weapons of mass destruction, these super hacker teams and what is the technology about it. Although cyberpunk novelists might be more excited about infrastructure viruses being smuggle into a nuclear facility like the late Stuxnet being engineered by the US to attack some nuclear program in the middle east, all to have it backfired.
Even the recent MrRobot about hacking companies after companies all to make it into ECorp and bringing a mega-monopoly to its knee, makes me think of Cyberpunk classics where real code is written and exchange in a malware battle.
Reality has more to do with a things like fighting troll, bots, script kiddies, and DoSS attacks. Sure there is other attacks like defacing, XSS, and other type of attacks. However real communities experience different nature of attacks beyond code itself. It goes into social engineering, identity theft, and in a centralized environments, reports, and just pushing it out of the network "twitter suicide".
However for me, cyberpunk or the cyberpunk I want has to do with more of the internal impact of technology in humanity. Basically the way that humans rely on technology to a mental, philosophical and even emotional level. Let's first look at all three:
Cyberpunk for me is about culture and life. Why not automate things in real life like a coder will write a script to automate some things like creating money, and working. Can we apply all this to normal life, like taking care of kids, dealing with the spouse and outside family. From ideas such as Tim Ferris "4 hour work week" about outsourcing life to people that will buy flowers for our wives after a fight.
Once we start learning about the intimate relationship between humans and technology to the point that humans act like software and not only software acting like humans, is really the real reason cyberpunk want to discover and break new ground. Not just blinking lights all over us. Actually cyberpunk is no difference than dealing with brain drugs, and other type of addictions until it becomes a way of life. Not to say cyberpunk is bad, but rather saying about how can new rules of society are evolving, or could evolve.
What are your thoughts about cyberpunk? Is it about robots, androids, and super dense cities with technology beyond our imagination or just a futuristic way of predicting new tech?
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About me:
Steemer, crypto fan, like to listen to 90s hip hop, and loves to chat about Linux Python and Free software. Runs a local Tech club in sunny Cancun, and enjoys hoping on planes and landing somewhere else.
