• Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
    221·
    1 month ago

    The entire reason the cyberpunk genre was invented was to reflect what modern society looks like, and the inevitable outcome if technology improves, but government policy and power dynamics stayed the same.

    The counter genres to cyberpunk are solarpunk (merging society and nature together) and sci-fi (Star Trek being the main example here, being a socialist, post-scarcity society)

      • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        12·
        1 month ago

        Science fiction usually carries with it a desire to rationalize and explain the technology it’s built upon, to try and paint a world plausible from a scientific standpoint. You see this a lot with the technobabble in Star Trek.

        Cyberpunk has a lot of overlap with science fiction, but usually dives more into the social commentary on society and capitalism, using the technology within as a vehicle to amplify those criticisms. Some cyberpunk works seek to explain their technology and make it seem grounded in the same way sci-fi does, but that is usually secondary to the social and political themes.

        • Donebrach@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 month ago

          Cyberpunk is not separate from Science Fiction. It is literally a genre of science fiction. citing the DEFINITION of it, available from a simple google search: 1. a genre of science fiction set in a lawless subculture of an oppressive society dominated by computer technology.

          • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            11·
            1 month ago

            You’re being prescriptive and not descriptive with the definitions. Superficially it is the case, and people have created a neat little categorical hierarchy you can keep pointing back to, but I’m telling you that a lot of cyberpunk creative work is sci-fi in the same way that people say Star Wars is sci-fi (it’s a space opera, at least the movies are)

            • Donebrach@lemmy.world
              1·
              1 month ago

              and I am telling you you are wrong because the genre of cyberpunk is literally science fiction. Stories, it turns out, can cross genres. That doesn’t change the definition of said genres.

              • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                11·
                1 month ago

                Cyberpunk is considered a sub genre of sci-fi because a bunch of people got together and said that’s what it is. Doesn’t make it a 100% hard set rule. You just like putting things in boxes. A piece of creative work is what it contains, not whatever categories you shove it into.

                I accept that the intersubjective framework of literary genres exists, but have my disagreements with it. You can do that. It doesn’t make you wrong, just unpopular.

    • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      This is actually kind of funny when you consider a lot of infrastructure refuses to use newer or better technology in the goal of maximizing profit, which the government also supports via lack of legislation.

      Cyberpunk always shows some cool stuff around public transport, yet here we still are in 10 lane highway congested traffic with inefficient SUVs and Trucks since they even killed off sedans.

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        Cyberpunk public transport usually only exists because most people can’t afford cars though, and the routes pretty much exclusively go to the general locations of major employers, sometimes only being available to employees of those companies (they still have pay a fare too of course)

  • beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    151·
    1 month ago

    I don’t get everyone’s obsession with cybernetic implants. If I needed a replacement, sure. But could you imagine today’s enshittified corporate structure making a cyberlimb? 100% a massive up front purchase and a hefty subscription, especially if it’s not a functional replacement.

    Personally I want a functional metaverse. Full dive computing.

    • greenskye@lemm.eeEnglish
      102·
      1 month ago

      Yep cyberpunk still perpetuates the idea that corporations are highly competent and innovators, which just doesn’t seem to be true in our current reality. The MBA/financial people have taken over and people that actually want to make cool stuff are no longer in control

        • aesthelete@lemmy.world
          4·
          1 month ago

          I had lunch with a co-worker that spoke with a stupid grin about shaving a couple of cents off of their production units in the manufacturing process. Our products costed hundreds to even thousands of dollars.

          I can’t believe there are people alive that are proud of this kind of stuff. He didn’t even have a stock compensated position, or work in manufacturing. He was just a capitalist creep that loved the very concept of being a cheap dumpster fire.

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyzOP
            2·
            1 month ago

            Its to the point they have cut the corners so much that the table is round and now they are eyeing up the legs. “Surely we don’t need all those legs, right?”

      • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
        101·
        1 month ago

        I have several RFID and NFC implants. I use them for several things: I have a payment implant so I can pay contactless with my hand (the payment implant is sold by DT’s partner Walletmor), I open doors, start my car without keys, share my contact information, log into my computers and I use my one cryptographic implant for 2FA.

        It’s not Ghost in the Shell by any stretch of the imagination, but those little implants that you can get today really do make life better and more convenient.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyzOP
          131·
          1 month ago

          Ah yes what boring times, we get cybernetics and what do we do with it? Run faster? Punch bricks? Jump super high?

          Nope, pay for your coffee without a wallet. But hey at least you are still tracked and logged.

          • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
            1·
            1 month ago

            But hey at least you are still tracked and logged.

            So are you, each time you pull out your payment card to pay for something, because it’s exactly the same thing. Or all the time when you carry your cellphone around.

            What’s your point?

              • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
                3·
                1 month ago

                If you tell me where one can get real cyber implants that give you the superhuman abilities you mentioned, I’ll get them rightaway.

                But unfortunately, RFID / NFC implants and sensing magnets are the best you can get if you’re interested in human augmentation. it’s a bit pathetic, yes, but nobody is working on anything more sophisticated because no doctor will touch operating on healthy human beings for voluntary augmentation with a ten-foot pole.

                I want my tiny piece of the future and I got it with my boring implants. Sorry to be so disappointing to you.

                • M0oP0o@mander.xyzOP
                  2·
                  1 month ago

                  Yeah those would be cool and I would also like to know where to get them. Its too bad we live in a boring dystopia and not the cool one.

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 month ago

      You can buy them already, but they’re at least 10 times as expensive as regular cars and you need a piloting license too. Meanwhile regular cars and the normal driving license are already getting pretty expensive for people.

      Flying cars also need a runway, a heliport or a wide open space. eVTOLs and other flying cars are usually not small and need more space than a car for taking off or landing, especially in non-ideal weather.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
    41·
    1 month ago

    If you want the neon aesthetic, you have to go to Hong Kong.

    And also technically speaking, we do have cool cybernetic implants. I mean we also have uncool cybernetic implants, too, but, like, have you seen modern prosthetic limbs? Shits practically sci-fi levels of usefulness; it just doesn’t have a sense of touch like they do in the fiction. Shit even cochlear implants are kinda cool, in so far as they can make someone who is deaf or close to deaf able to hear again.