Thanks McDonalds. Your new uniforms confirm the dystopian future is upon us.
Good game McDonalds… Perhaps you could have them wear masks to dehumanise them further?!
That isn’t how it works anymore. Corps are all about Diversity now. The empty smile is the mask.
It’s sort of weird sometimes seeing how cyberpunk works dealt with the relationship between people, corporations, and government. I always figure it say some interesting things about people’s politics when you see how they construct their cyberpunk world.
One of the weird things I always notice is the status of the government? Do they still exist? Are they overtly weaker than the corporations? Being your marxist inspired leftist, I always sort of feel a failure of verisimilitude when corporations overtly take over. The corporation doesn’t want to do the things that government has to do. It’s great when the government breaks up a riot or strike and the corporation can have clean hands, publicly chastising the government while benefiting from the social order it creates.
Then there’s the issue of mercenaries, the corporate security forces that are ubiquitous in these settings. I always figure them as having the same problems that Machiavelli identified, namely that mercenaries are shit that will desert you if things go bad and you really need them. They’re fine for quashing protests, but if it’s devolved to the point of full-scale war, I wouldn’t count on them. To have them be dominant or unstoppable just seems strange.
Finally, there’s the old joke about sufficiently large corporations becoming central planning. If it’s large enough it conducts a lot of it’s business itself, it basically becomes a command economy with all the interesting issues that has. That’s especially the case for some works where basically everyone works for one corporation.(Although that’s more in weird dystopia than cyberpunk per se.)
But, those issues at one point made me think of something that I can only describe as a syndicalist-inspired megacorporate cyberpunk world. It’s what you might get as corporations realize they have to take up the slack of governments fully. You can think of it as if, rather than “Germany”, the region becomes “United German Carmakers” and the ideology and culture of the entire country are bent towards car production. It would control the ideological institutions, having media and schools tell people that prosperity of the entire nation/corporation is dependent on making cars, basically an attempt to build actual loyalty to a company rather than just the corporation being something you join to pick up some cash. It could have elections, perhaps using a principle like employee-ownership model but with the problems of
bourgeoisie
democracy heightened, as your prosperity is linked to that of your department and boss and those are manipulated to keep certain policies on top. It could become regionless, where you live next to citizens of other corporation/nations and yours basically negotiates the status of citizen-employees with other corporations in a sort of polycentric legal order.
You would be born into the corporation and would be expected to die there. I could expect something like a jobs-guarantee, although the jobs at the bottom will probably be shit. There are all sorts of weird things that you can see as corporations have to take control of issues of legitimacy and defense rather than just inheriting them from the government. I would expect the corporation itself to become more democratic, even though there may be less democracy in total due to the lack of external government.
And the thing is, I sort of see shades of this in our world. I chose German carmaking for a reason, Germany’s national pride and economic future is tied to it’s cars at this point and it is very defensive of this industry. And corporations do try and build loyalty beyond simply paying people, I’ve seen retail establishments do what basically amount to loyalty chants and pledges of allegiance, and it was in the news awhile ago that Amazon was basically doing self-criticism sessions that were likened to Maoism.
I sometimes see bits and pieces of everywhere, and actually the real “Cyberpunk” works seems to have bits and pieces of this type of thing. It’s actually the cyberpunk-adjacent works that are the worst, those that use a generic corporate future merely as set dressing for their story. But I still see this type of work do things that just seem wrong or impossible, and I do a double-take.
cyberpunk, cyberfolk, cybernumetal
By total coincidence, this squidpost happens to be relevant to what I’m up to now.
Unfortunately, I cannot go into more detail, as segments describing more of the workings of the Pacific Metropolitan Collective Corporation, Outer Hong Kong Metropolity have yet to be posted. However, I do believe that some of those workings would satisfy @collapsedsquid, at least in terms of not being just “lol corps took over k”.
amazing how no one is fat in the dark cyberpunk future
dark cyberpunk future, Neo-Tokyo, neon, sun never comes out, black leather, mirrored shades, jacking in to the matrix, corporations, syndicate, retro phones,
No no no you’re missing the plan here.
The megacorporations license you a gene mod which keeps you skinny so you can fit the image their advertising sells, and it boosts your metabolism so that you must eat more food to survive, helping to sell you large amounts of highly-branded junk food while you take on more and more debt.
In the cyberpunk future, the Coca-Cola™ flowing through your veins is the only thing keeping you alive.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s plan to turn Ellis Island into “casual, inspired living, minus the usual big-city clamour.” July 30, 1961.
Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1954 by Ed Emshwiller
This is inaccurate, of course. The government required a substantial reduction in metal content because they were too resistant to bullets. Now it’s just the base chassis and the rest relies more on plastic. (Cyborgs are, naturally, exempt from these rules because of the 2nd amendment.)
The algorithm matching an article about police using facial recognition software with ads for face-obscuring bandanas: That’s Pretty Cyberpunk
The algorithm matching an article about police using facial recognition software with ads for face-obscuring bandanas that declare your support for the police: That’s Pretty 2017
you can’t fool me that’s a lanternfish
This is transhumanist.
No. Toolmaking is just humanist. Transhumanism is a fantasy genre that looks like hard scifi to people autistic enough to think the no-cloning theorem couldn’t possibly apply to consciousness.
I mean, Transhumanism isn’t just upload civilizations. It’s also robot arms.
And we already have robot arms, so it’s likely just a matter of time before they exceed regular arms.
Singulitarianism, on the other hand…
Actually, I’m reminded that the Ranma ½ anime is chock full of filler, and I’d love to see it get a gritty cyberpunk reboot, because I’m an evil person.
if a bunch of celebrities feel emboldened by Trump’s victory and decide to run for office tho
Sounds extremely cyberpunk. This is what will happen.
At least it will be entertaining, non?
Anonymous asked:
cyberpunkpixeljunk answered:
Nah, just make sure the women in the setting fit the setting. Plus, what do we know about this game? It could be just fine.
Ugh…
Transhumanism destroys gender/sex binaries by enabling mass alteration of bodies, sex, and gender.
Done properly it will be “Post-Feminist” because Transhumanism massively weakens the boundaries around what the term “woman” even means, and fundamentally alters the mechanics of human reproduction. (I mean, just take the idea of artificial wombs by itself and you’ll get big changes.)
Feminism itself is already struggling to adapt to the world it has created with only modern technology levels. The “Feminists” of 2065 (or whatever) will likely be very different from the ones of 2017.
WE USED TO HAVE A GENDER BINARY
This assumes that the gender binary isn’t something many people want (on some level or another). Considering that clothes often up being gendered, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if bodies become even more gendered among a significant portion of the population. We already have this to a certain extent. After all, men don’t get breast implants even though (unless you count transwomen or related things). Even if you could trans people, then number of ciswomen getting breast implants and cismen getting breast reduction out-numbers them (I think, I am not sure where to look for stats about this.)
Even women shaving legs while men generally don’t could be seen as a evidence that give the opportunity to make the gender differences even greater, people will.
Absolutely. Go on Second Life and you’ll see muscle mountains posing as men.
What I’m expecting however, is mass defection from a significant contingent of men, and a smaller counter-part group among women, into something new.
SAN FRANCISCO—In an effort to reduce the number of unprovoked hostile communications on the social media platform, Twitter announced Monday that it had added a red X-mark feature verifying users who are in fact perfectly okay to harass. “This new verification system offers users a simple, efficient way to determine which accounts belong to total pieces of shit whom you should have no qualms about tormenting to your heart’s desire,” said spokesperson Elizabeth James, adding that the small red symbol signifies that Twitter has officially confirmed the identity of a loathsome person who deserves the worst abuse imaginable and who will deliberately have their Mute, Block, and Report options disabled. “When a user sees this symbol, they know they’re dealing with a real asshole who has richly earned whatever mistreatment they receive, including profanity, body-shaming, leaking of personal information, and relentless goading to commit suicide. It’s really just a helpful way of saying to our users, ‘This fuck has it coming, so do your worst with a clear conscience and without fear of having your account suspended.’” At press time, Twitter reassuredly clarified that the red X was just a suggestion and that all users could still be bullied with as little recourse as they are now.
