3 ms·

I think to focus on Neuromancer's use of Japanese culture is to stay at the surface level. The background of Neuromancer is one of income inequality, human dest

I think to focus on Neuromancer's use of Japanese culture is to stay at the surface level. The background of Neuromancer is one of income inequality, human destruction, and almost-absent government and community (partly caused by a ubiquitous global information network that seems to have broken everything.) We don't have brain-computer interfaces today and Chiba City isn't the center of the tech world (maybe that's Shenzen now ;) but we sure have the income inequality and broken societies. I was a sci-fi fan growing up, and Neuromancer wasn't the first cyberpunk novel along these lines (I would definitely recommend The Shockwave Rider for that) but it was one of the most striking spec-fi books I read that presented a realistic future that could be traced to our own world and critically: that wasn't better than it. Ironically, reading Neuromancer in my older age, the main observation I have is how optimistic it is. The seas aren't rising and the climate seems to be doing just fine.

XorNot 5y ago
Gibson has been pretty adamant that interpreting the Sprawl setting as a dystopia is not quite understanding it: the Sprawl is a quality of life upgrade for a lot of Earth's citizens today.
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  Neal Stephenson gives a spicier take on this in Snowcrash: "... the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity."
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    Neal Stephenson gives a spicier take on this in Snowcrash: "... the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity." I don't get it. What does being Pakistani have to do with anything?
    - jmyeet 5y ago
      Stephenson is referencing the effective slavery that is brick kilns in the subcontinent in particular [1]. It also applies to India and possibly Bangladesh. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/10/21/the-spiralling-debt-trapping-pakistans-brick-kiln-workers https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/10/21/the-spiralling...
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Ironically, reading Neuromancer in my older age, the main observation I have is how optimistic it is. The seas aren't rising and the climate seems to be doing just fine." Gibson has gone on record multiple times in saying that he doesn't write about the future nor does he try to predict the future, but sees himself as always writing about the present.
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  He writes about the present in the same way that a winemaker deals in grape juice.
brimble 5y ago
So many mega corps being Japanese is a product of anxiety about Japan at that time—maybe not even Gibson's anxiety, exactly, but if you were around then and projected which mega corps were gonna be prominent in your nearish-future setting, you'd really be swimming against the current if you didn't make a lot of them Japanese. Much of the rest of it, though, isn't about Japanese culture, corporate or otherwise, but seems to me like taking AnCaps like Friedman seriously. Many elements are straight out of that kind of, ah, thought.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  Name three japanese mega corporations with significance in the story of neuromancer
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    Ono-sendai, Mitsubishi-Genentech, and Hosaka.
    - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
      ok, those exist, but none of them have significance. There is a point that in the 80s much electronic tech came from Japan and that both Ono-Sendai and Hosaka are named as top of the line cyberdeck manufacturerers, but that is pretty much it, they have no relevant part in the story. I think people are trying to forcefully over-fit that 80s japan craze they read about in an attempt to seem like sophisticated literary critics. Maybe i can't see it because i am not american and my national pride isn't being triggered by jokes like "Mitsubishi Bank of America" and by the idea that globalism may not mean hegemony of the USA. Major roles in Neuromancer are given to companies like Sense/Net, Maas Biolabs, Tessier-Ashpool and the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, yet people cling to side notes about hardware brands because they are offended with the first chapter playing a Chiba City Blues instead of some New York City Jazz.
themadturk 5y ago
Gibson has always said he regards his futures as ultimately optimistic, because we're still here, not having been destroyed in a nuclear war that looked all too possible in the time it was written.

XorNot 5y ago

Gibson has been pretty adamant that interpreting the Sprawl setting as a dystopia is not quite understanding it: the Sprawl is a quality of life upgrade for a lot of Earth's citizens today.

matthewdgreen 5y ago
Neal Stephenson gives a spicier take on this in Snowcrash: "... the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity."
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Neal Stephenson gives a spicier take on this in Snowcrash: "... the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity." I don't get it. What does being Pakistani have to do with anything?
  - jmyeet 5y ago
    Stephenson is referencing the effective slavery that is brick kilns in the subcontinent in particular [1]. It also applies to India and possibly Bangladesh. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/10/21/the-spiralling-debt-trapping-pakistans-brick-kiln-workers https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/10/21/the-spiralling...

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Ironically, reading Neuromancer in my older age, the main observation I have is how optimistic it is. The seas aren't rising and the climate seems to be doing just fine." Gibson has gone on record multiple times in saying that he doesn't write about the future nor does he try to predict the future, but sees himself as always writing about the present.

matthewdgreen 5y ago
He writes about the present in the same way that a winemaker deals in grape juice.

brimble 5y ago

So many mega corps being Japanese is a product of anxiety about Japan at that time—maybe not even Gibson's anxiety, exactly, but if you were around then and projected which mega corps were gonna be prominent in your nearish-future setting, you'd really be swimming against the current if you didn't make a lot of them Japanese. Much of the rest of it, though, isn't about Japanese culture, corporate or otherwise, but seems to me like taking AnCaps like Friedman seriously. Many elements are straight out of that kind of, ah, thought.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
Name three japanese mega corporations with significance in the story of neuromancer
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Ono-sendai, Mitsubishi-Genentech, and Hosaka.
  - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
    ok, those exist, but none of them have significance. There is a point that in the 80s much electronic tech came from Japan and that both Ono-Sendai and Hosaka are named as top of the line cyberdeck manufacturerers, but that is pretty much it, they have no relevant part in the story. I think people are trying to forcefully over-fit that 80s japan craze they read about in an attempt to seem like sophisticated literary critics. Maybe i can't see it because i am not american and my national pride isn't being triggered by jokes like "Mitsubishi Bank of America" and by the idea that globalism may not mean hegemony of the USA. Major roles in Neuromancer are given to companies like Sense/Net, Maas Biolabs, Tessier-Ashpool and the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, yet people cling to side notes about hardware brands because they are offended with the first chapter playing a Chiba City Blues instead of some New York City Jazz.

themadturk 5y ago

Gibson has always said he regards his futures as ultimately optimistic, because we're still here, not having been destroyed in a nuclear war that looked all too possible in the time it was written.