3 ms·
It feels like the last remaining promise of cyberpunk is widespread cybernetic augmentation. The rest of the genre is not really fiction anymore.
by pennomi 3mo ago
It feels like the last remaining promise of cyberpunk is widespread cybernetic augmentation. The rest of the genre is not really fiction anymore.
- fooqux 3mo agoI got a flier in the mail last week, offering a subscription service for ambulance rides. It was the most cyberpunk thing I'd seen personally.
- everyone 3mo agoThe most Cyberpunk thing imo is the bird's nests made using fibre optic cable from Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/bird-nests-fibre-optic-cables-show-wars-impact-ukraine-2026-06-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/bird-nest...
- fluoridation 3mo agoIt's not really any more cyberpunk than, say, a crow collecting expended ammo casings because they're shiny. Just involving electronics technology doesn't make something cyberpunk.
- cgannett 3mo agoDisagree, corvids collecting bullet casings because they are shiny is heavily Shadowrun/WoD/Hellboy coded aesthetically. Regular birds gathering fiber optic cables for nests is EXTREMELY CYBERPUNK are you kidding? The image evokes so much: capitalist excess, tech waste involving computers/internet/cybernetics, war bad, environmental degredation etc... the only part about this concept that isnt heavily cyberpunk is that the bird isn't sick, dying, or dead and is somehow happy to find such a workable and durable nest building material.
- fluoridation 3mo ago>capitalist excess ...What? It's waste from expended munitions. The Ukranian war isn't a corporate war, it's a war between sovereign nations. The drones were produced by and bought from corporations (I assume) but the result of the arms race for better measures and countermeasures would have been the same if each country had produced its own gear. >tech waste involving computers/internet/cybernetics Again, something doesn't become cyberpunk just because it involves computers or electronics. >war bad I don't think cyberpunk is anti-war as a central feature. It's certainly compatible with that message, but you could write a cyberpunk story that is pro-war, as long that war is to counter the power of corporations. >environmental degredation etc. All in all, discarded fibers are more of a nuisance to people than to the environment, I think.
- mandolingual 3mo agoIt's aesthetically extremely cyberpunk.
- fluoridation 3mo agoCyberpunk is a genre of fiction.
- mandolingual 3mo agoAnd an aesthetic. You can google it if you're unfamiliar!
- fluoridation 3mo agoI'm very much familiar. It's just incorrect.
- mandolingual 3mo agoSo it is decreed! 'Cyberpunk aesthetic' is hereafter an incoherent concept! Well done, sir. Objective truth is defended.
- loudmax 3mo agoIncidentally, here's a recent article about how the economics of ambulances are broken in the US: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-american-ambulance-rides-are https://davidoks.blog/p/why-american-ambulance-rides-are If municipal emergency services in yout area don't cover ambulance rides, that subscription service might not be a bad idea.
- PurpleRamen 3mo agoWe do have some degree of it, but it's more on the realistic side of performance. The remaining body has to handle them after all, so it's hard to enhance performance beyond human limits for real. Maybe with some more decades of development. But we've also learned that we don't need to change the body itself, when we can just enhance the tools we use. Smartphones are already seen as some sort of half-step towards humans becoming cyborgs. Similar have we now Exoskeletons, which are probably more practical than replacing a full limb.
- ajmurmann 3mo agoNIMBYs have managed to "safe" us from the architecture.