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Talking about cyberphunk / cyberpunk culture, why does it feel that the popular definition and approach nowadays is a defeatist (or sometimes even glorifying) a

Talking about cyberphunk / cyberpunk culture, why does it feel that the popular definition and approach nowadays is a defeatist (or sometimes even glorifying) attitude to an unavoidable future of megacorporations and post-industrial dystopia, instead of celebrating the punk side of it? Or am I just checking out the wrong corners like /r/cyberpunk?

walterbell 10y ago
Because paid speech is now pervasive on social networks, especially on topics with commercial consequences, from a variety of competing actors with deep pockets and diverse agendas. Punk stakeholders likely cannot compete in either paid speech or mass audience reach for subversive lyrics. Readers will gradually learn how to select writers with independent perspectives, filtering out groupspeak, as they have learned to do with advertising. Edit: manually curated Twitter whitelists, connected to Flipboard, can provide an efficient view of reader-prioritized, coherent perspectives. We need better whitelist support on discussion services.
- knowaveragejoe 10y ago
  Can you quantify what "pervasive" means in this sense?
  - walterbell 10y ago
    "Pervasive" is within the context of high-profile topics. One academic study was "Grassroots for Hire", https://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-Democracy/dp/1107619017 https://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-... For DIY quantification, create a spreadsheet of userids, threads and manually tagged perspectives from your favorite social network or discussion forum. Then apply open-source tools for social network graph analysis of node interactions. With this data, apply exclusion filters to targeted clusters of userids, then re-read the "mass opinion". Palantir has proprietary software for network influence analysis, but many algorithms and OSS tools are available from academia.
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  This is why I want content addressed social networking, with cryptographic identities. https://roamingaroundatrandom.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/a-decentralized-hash-chained-discussion-system/ https://roamingaroundatrandom.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/a-dec...
knowaveragejoe 10y ago
I wonder the same thing. The attitudes really do seem pervasive as you suggest, both here and on reddit. Rarely do I see otherwise.
shmerl 10y ago
It's both. Post-industrial dystpoia is a possible outcome of current trends, which at the same time is countered with cyberpunk resistance.

walterbell 10y ago

Because paid speech is now pervasive on social networks, especially on topics with commercial consequences, from a variety of competing actors with deep pockets and diverse agendas. Punk stakeholders likely cannot compete in either paid speech or mass audience reach for subversive lyrics. Readers will gradually learn how to select writers with independent perspectives, filtering out groupspeak, as they have learned to do with advertising. Edit: manually curated Twitter whitelists, connected to Flipboard, can provide an efficient view of reader-prioritized, coherent perspectives. We need better whitelist support on discussion services.

knowaveragejoe 10y ago
Can you quantify what "pervasive" means in this sense?
- walterbell 10y ago
  "Pervasive" is within the context of high-profile topics. One academic study was "Grassroots for Hire", https://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-Democracy/dp/1107619017 https://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-... For DIY quantification, create a spreadsheet of userids, threads and manually tagged perspectives from your favorite social network or discussion forum. Then apply open-source tools for social network graph analysis of node interactions. With this data, apply exclusion filters to targeted clusters of userids, then re-read the "mass opinion". Palantir has proprietary software for network influence analysis, but many algorithms and OSS tools are available from academia.
Natanael_L 10y ago
This is why I want content addressed social networking, with cryptographic identities. https://roamingaroundatrandom.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/a-decentralized-hash-chained-discussion-system/ https://roamingaroundatrandom.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/a-dec...

knowaveragejoe 10y ago

I wonder the same thing. The attitudes really do seem pervasive as you suggest, both here and on reddit. Rarely do I see otherwise.

shmerl 10y ago

It's both. Post-industrial dystpoia is a possible outcome of current trends, which at the same time is countered with cyberpunk resistance.