6 ms·

I dunno, it was grim then and it still is. We did end up in substantially better future, all things considered.

by varjag 6y ago

helios_invictus 6y ago
Did we?
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Unless you figure you'd be privileged enough to live in Freeside, I'd say so.
  - jerf 6y ago
    I'd say give us another 5-20 years before saying we dodged it.
    - mcv 6y ago
      It might still be headed our way. Corporations might have a friendlier face, but that's mostly so we'll happily trust them with our data.
- varjag 6y ago
  I mean, one major character there is a World War 3 veteran who had been turned into a computer drone.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Cyberpunk is already here, it's just not very evenly distributed, yet.
Apocryphon 6y ago
'80s cyberpunk is still grim, but I think what they failed to capture is the dissonant tone of our modern dystopia. Classic cyberpunk was all dark sprawling streets and neon-lit seedy underbellies, led by shadowy faceless corporate execs of austere zaibatsu. Whereas the malefactors of great wealth in our present did not forget the average consumer and instead manipulates our emotions with cutting-edge marketing, algorithmic analysis of our deepest desires, and use of primary colors and comfy fonts. The copy is nonthreatening or hip language. The reality is grim, but the appearance isn't. More Brave New World and less 1984. More Disney, filtered through Banksy. I think most Gibson cyberpunk failed to capture the banality of the future, because they were fixated on the romantic cowboy-gangster hackers outlaws who lived on the fringes. Among the big names, Neal Stephenson did a great job of it with Snow Crash and The Diamond Age because he remembered that the megacorps had to sell to someone at the end of the day, and had to have shiny customer-facing dross.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "what they failed to capture is the dissonant tone of our modern dystopia" I just reread Neuromancer and Count Zero, and the main thing I was struck by that Gibson didn't predict was today's omnipresent surveillance. The people in his novels don't voluntarily carry around tracking devices and recoring devices. What they read and watch isn't tracked, and neither are their preferences or the opinions they express. They tend to have much more privacy than most people do today. In this respect, I find today's society closer to 1984 than to Brave New World. It's 1984, complete with Newspeak, doublethink and Two Minutes of Hate for the boogeyman of the day, telescreens that combine televisions with security cameras and microphones what monitor what you do. It's interesting that Gibson chose not to incorporate such dystopian themes in his books, and opted for what is in many ways a more optimistic dystopia.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    You make a good point about surveillance, but I'd argue it's still more Brave New World, a dystopia built on consumerism, hedonism, and the compliance of the willingly oppressed over 1984's brutal, spartan, war economy. The citizens of Oceania may choose to buy into propaganda and nationalism, but they're also forced to by an all-powerful police state. The inhabitants of Huxley's World State certainly are subject to an oppressive state and brainwashing, but they also do so under far more comfortable circumstances. 1984 is motivated by pain, Brave New World is motivated by pleasure- I'd consider the latter to be closer to modern consumerist society. I would assume Gibson simply didn't consider the technological ramifications of ubiquitous surveillance, or it's just his setup of a decentralized oppressive world of feuding megacorps and criminal super-gangs would have less thematic use for it than 1984's setup of one (or three) totalitarian governments able to monitor everyone.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      That perspective is a bit Eloi; plenty of people are not doing well.
      - 6y ago

I dunno, it was grim then and it still is. We did end up in substantially better future, all things considered.

by varjag 6y ago

I dunno, it was grim then and it still is. We did end up in substantially better future, all things considered.

helios_invictus 6y ago

Did we?

bigbubba 6y ago
Unless you figure you'd be privileged enough to live in Freeside, I'd say so.
- jerf 6y ago
  I'd say give us another 5-20 years before saying we dodged it.
  - mcv 6y ago
    It might still be headed our way. Corporations might have a friendlier face, but that's mostly so we'll happily trust them with our data.
varjag 6y ago
I mean, one major character there is a World War 3 veteran who had been turned into a computer drone.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
Cyberpunk is already here, it's just not very evenly distributed, yet.

Apocryphon 6y ago

'80s cyberpunk is still grim, but I think what they failed to capture is the dissonant tone of our modern dystopia. Classic cyberpunk was all dark sprawling streets and neon-lit seedy underbellies, led by shadowy faceless corporate execs of austere zaibatsu. Whereas the malefactors of great wealth in our present did not forget the average consumer and instead manipulates our emotions with cutting-edge marketing, algorithmic analysis of our deepest desires, and use of primary colors and comfy fonts. The copy is nonthreatening or hip language. The reality is grim, but the appearance isn't. More Brave New World and less 1984. More Disney, filtered through Banksy. I think most Gibson cyberpunk failed to capture the banality of the future, because they were fixated on the romantic cowboy-gangster hackers outlaws who lived on the fringes. Among the big names, Neal Stephenson did a great job of it with Snow Crash and The Diamond Age because he remembered that the megacorps had to sell to someone at the end of the day, and had to have shiny customer-facing dross.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"what they failed to capture is the dissonant tone of our modern dystopia" I just reread Neuromancer and Count Zero, and the main thing I was struck by that Gibson didn't predict was today's omnipresent surveillance. The people in his novels don't voluntarily carry around tracking devices and recoring devices. What they read and watch isn't tracked, and neither are their preferences or the opinions they express. They tend to have much more privacy than most people do today. In this respect, I find today's society closer to 1984 than to Brave New World. It's 1984, complete with Newspeak, doublethink and Two Minutes of Hate for the boogeyman of the day, telescreens that combine televisions with security cameras and microphones what monitor what you do. It's interesting that Gibson chose not to incorporate such dystopian themes in his books, and opted for what is in many ways a more optimistic dystopia.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  You make a good point about surveillance, but I'd argue it's still more Brave New World, a dystopia built on consumerism, hedonism, and the compliance of the willingly oppressed over 1984's brutal, spartan, war economy. The citizens of Oceania may choose to buy into propaganda and nationalism, but they're also forced to by an all-powerful police state. The inhabitants of Huxley's World State certainly are subject to an oppressive state and brainwashing, but they also do so under far more comfortable circumstances. 1984 is motivated by pain, Brave New World is motivated by pleasure- I'd consider the latter to be closer to modern consumerist society. I would assume Gibson simply didn't consider the technological ramifications of ubiquitous surveillance, or it's just his setup of a decentralized oppressive world of feuding megacorps and criminal super-gangs would have less thematic use for it than 1984's setup of one (or three) totalitarian governments able to monitor everyone.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    That perspective is a bit Eloi; plenty of people are not doing well.
    - 6y ago