Me and my best friend jokes about how we live in a shitty cyberpunk world. We have the megacorps and social problems but don't have the cool cyberware ect.
And in all this the media continues to try to indoctrinate us that everything is fine and it is the best period in human history and so many people believe it without asking questions.
"Despite our unprecedented level of connectivity, we find ourselves more isolated than ever before" is so true. We are getting slowly detached with reality.
@@ThePartisan13 Loneliness is rampant all over the world. Small, tight-knit communities are thrown aside in favor of massive forums made of thousands to millions of strangers. The amount of true friends people have is dropping, the amount of loners with none is in the double digit percentages and rising depressingly fast. You might not feel lonely, you might not meet people who are isolated. It is because these people are not available to be met, sitting in their rooms, coming out only to do the bare necessities, whether it be for anxiety, lack of social skills or personality issues.
@@Obelg The last bit you said nearly describes me to a T. I am alone, but I am not lonely. I have a group of friends I game and talk with on discord that I wouldn't have ever met without it. Same with my gf. These are people I know and care about. The flipside is that there are people who are surrounded by others that they know from the time they get up to the time they go to bed and still feel absolutely alone. Despite what you think the introverts like myself are still in the minority.
I also disagree. Some people are losing touch with reality. Others are deeply aware of the nature of reality, and are suffering way more as a result of that.
I got into cyber punk in the 90s and never ceased interest… it’s been interesting to see how things have developed in so many ways , it’s been great mental preparation for me to understand how rich people and corporations lose their humanity
My favorite aspect of 2077 that goes over most people's heads is that it's a story about fighting for the right to chose who you are and all the characters are that way. Jackie Wells who had just done what he needed to in order to survive woke up in a hospital bed realizing how easily it can end. He would eventually chose to be a new man, deciding that being who he wanted to be for six months was better than being a person he hated for a lifetime. It was better to live as a man he wanted to be, even if each major step utterly terrified him. Yorinobu Arasaka had his life lain out before him and refused it. He refused to be a tool of domination and decided to chose who he would be. He was the sort of man who would walk in a doll house and find the living thinking woman inside. He tried to destroy his father's creation from the outside but failed, so he chose to feign submission wearing the mask of his demon family so he could destroy it from the inside. He never gave up who he was. The discovery of the Araska mass driver program, forcing Araska to murder some of the space council voting members? Clearly Yorinobu was the mole that leaked it. Panam Palmer, faced with conflict within and without her nomad family. Torn between her loyalty to those close to her and her refusal to submit and quiet her conscience. In the end her conscience won and saved all she cared for. Evelyn Parker, the living doll. A puppet for others to use. Even the Voodoo boys only saw her as a puppet to get what they really wanted. She was determined to finally cut her strings and be her own master. It was her determination to define herself against all of her oppressors that set the main plot in motion. Rogue... A woman who survived the death of Johnny by making a deal with the devil. She became jaded and used people just as she was used. In the end however, she was inspired to finally fight to break her chains and become a free agent again. And Johnny... Johnny who was so full of rage, hated and suffering bile that he went on a crusade. Instead of triumphing he woke up to realize he was the very thing he hated. He was devouring someone else self and there was apparently nothing he could do to stop it. So with great difficulty he chose to be better. Even if it would cost his life he would at least save one soul. If he could save the soul he was devouring then he could forgive and save his own. This isn't even addressing V which is a very clear and blatant "choosing who she wants to be." Story.
Yes, Cyberpunk reflects Western priorities of self-actualization and self-empowerment, promoting the notion that each individual is the center of the universe. It ultimately boils down to selfishness masquerading as human freedom. The genre vividly depicts what happens when everyone prioritizes their own interests, resulting in a dystopian hellhole of a society. Even characters like V are driven by personal motives, with no interest in helping others or contributing to society. Cyberpunk is the logical result of decades of individualism, reinforced by a neoliberal doctrine that claims competition is a healthy and virtuous way to conduct ourselves. Don't you see? Cyberpunk is more than what you described. It illustrates the social outcomes of rampant self-interest. I think you missed the fundamental point.
@@mdaniels6311 lmao you don't know what you're even talking about. Cyberpunk 2020 / red / 2077 and shadow run are ripped out of a book called necromancer. Right down to even being set in night city. William Gibson said that it was in part a RESPONSE to neo liberalism, that his world was the sort of hell that neo liberalism would take society into. A great example of this cyberpunk in film is robocop which also was a response to neoliberalism, a society where abdication of the concept of the communal welfare resulted in a permanent and worsening depression, which caused increasing crime and the response to which was increasing violence. In film robocop is manufactured to be the ultimate meatgrinder and he realizes it won't end unless he goes after the source of the problem, his own creators. Of course he quickly discovers that he can't attack the system itself not because he is involved in the system but BECAUSE HE IS THE SYSTEM. He still tries defying even self interest because victory is certain self destruction. This has serious anti cop undertones, arguing the police only exist in the form they do because of our social structures. In 2077 the figure like Murphy is yorinobu who never gave up rebelling against his father. He courts self destruction daily to fight the very system that creates people like Johnny ans v. He tried open rebellion now he seeks destruction from within. Who gave militech spies the scoop on arasakas illegal lunar mass driver program resulting in the Esa trying to vote to revoke their access to space at the start of the game? Why yorinobu. Who was set to sell the relic tech loaded with the most destructive agent of chaos arasaka had ever face to militech? Why yorinobu... The whole setting revolves around a society so absent real connections that it has become inhuman. Slowly many people lose all connections and go utterly insane, the cyberpsycho. Mike pondsnith, creator of cyberpunk said "v didn't go cyberpsycho because he was never alone, he always had Johnny right there even at the worst of it." All of the character stories are about connection. Panam is the most clear about this. Nomads about family, but not blind obedience. An example of one form of anarchy in action and siding with the nomads is largely considered the best possible ending in the game. Even Jackie wells... who didn't really crave money... he wanted to be remembered by a world that cares about no one. He faced death and asked "when I go will someone at least remember me?" In truth you can see what he was fighting for was connection. A connection to the world and the world was so utterly broken he was going to have to force that connection with a gun. That is western cyberpunk in a nutshell right there. In short you don't know crap.
In my apartment complex they've recently installed TV screens in the elevators that blast advertisements at you. Most of my neighbors thought it was cool and were pretty excited about it whereas I, being a fan of the cyberpunk genre, just shook my head in disgust.
The path to liberation is that technology is used to decrease the amount of time people spend at work, *not*, that the time they are at work is more productive. What it should be is that the work of 1 hour today reflects the work of 8 hours yesterday, and so, you are paid the same, and sent home with another 7 hours in your day. But that, wouldn't increase profit. That, wouldn't be advantageous. That wouldn't be the way to outcompete your competitors.
Indeed, that's the fundamental problem here. Technological advancement isn't being used to do the most good for people, it's being used to increase corporate profits. Instead of each minute of labour shaved from the production of an item _saving the worker a minute of labour for the same total pay_ as a just world would, it's being used to increase the amount of profit the owners extract from that worker in the same amount of work, or to cut the worker's hours and pay for the same amount of profit extracted (thus a greater profit to expenses ratio), or some combination of the two.
I believe media always prepares humanity for the future the big companies are creating, so perhaps, we will live in a cyberpunk-like future, we are just being prepared, psychologically, for it
Yes, quite a lot of movies and video games are showing what's planned in the future. I think that your theory of psychologically preparing the masses is valid.
@@Phil9874 I have come to the conclusion that there is no grandiose plan or rationale. The elites are not smarter than the average TH-camr. These are people with way too much money, and time on their hands. They have become bored with pointless hedonism and drugs. So yeah, they're "smart" but not that smart. I would rather say that they are "educated". They're not the smartest, nor the most moral, nor the best of the people, not by a long shot. They only happened to be born into wealth or high status.
That's pretty simple: we're starting to live in a cyberpunk world. AI isn't a futuristic concept anymore; virtual reality is becoming a routine; everyone has their bank accounts, passports and overall personal data online; e.t.c. In my country you can even pay taxes through the government's official website, which is convenient, but implies things that are scary af if you think about it for a while. Cyberpunk is far closer to us than we'd want to.
ai still is pretty furuturistic actually what is being called ai is actually just a really good sorting and retrieval machine it doesn't actually have intelligence on it's own though.
we live in what i call the early cyberpunk period, though that could use a better name or something. not there just yet, but give it another 30 to 50 years or so, then we'll see what happens
Err.. probably ppl like me.. I read W Gibson back then bc I thought he lifted soooo much from my Hero, William S. Burroughs.. I was correct, but I found so much more I was hooked.. Tron, The Information Super Highway, Blade Runner.. Lawnmower Man.. 16bit.. Err… I’m now 66yrs old, and enjoying the schadenfreude..😃👍
The part where you refer to the return of slave labour in Cyberpunk, was good… It comes full circle to the video title… Because the hard pill to swallow, Is that we are in that same phase of humanity, Just preliminary, Indentured servitude, That is nothing more than slavery, Rebranded, Under another name. With extra steps, If you will We will decay into this
@@jingbot1071 I don't believe we need to be physically hindrered or restrained to be in slavery ... If you don't subscribe to the idea of nescience and manipulation as slavery, though, That's understandable
It does feel like most people are subconsciously aware of the cyberpunk future we're heading to. Everyone see's it but some haven't put the connection together just yet.
Exactly, I think we will be missing the cool aesthetic but largely the thematic issues highlighted in cyberpunk are becoming true. At least I think so.
@@ifelse10110 Oh absolutely, I even expect the aesthetic of the country to kind of start shifting little by little to a more cyberpunk one. Some places in korea and china have already started looking pretty close. Regardless, I think even the most hardcore company man would admit to corps having too much power now.
I am 56 and have been a loner all my life. I have tried on numerous occasions to integrate with society without success. Tech has kept me sane and allowed me to explore art and culture past and present.
There is a lot of irony in pop culture cyberpunk. The cyberpunk games (TTRPG & videogame) tend to unintentionally reinforce some of the most negative aspects of the genre. The most fun things to do in those games is get cybered up and kill people en masse. What should be an horrific side effect of living in a world of highly advanced technology and dehumanising moral decay turns out to be the selling point of these games. I know, because I have played them and, to an extent, enjoyed them myself. The irony is similar here, where an exploration of “high tech, low life” is coupled with non-stop images generated by advanced technology which steals work from human artists, impoverishing them in the process. On a meta level, these apparently unconscious contradictions only strengthen the critiques of society that cyberpunk poses, though they bode very poorly for the future.
I was going to say. It felt weird at the start, and then it just kept going. Was going to give this creator my support, but they are contributing directly to the problem.
You’re right! He should pay royalties to Von Neumann’s family for using his computer architecture too! I bet he didn’t even wipe his mind. Think of all of the ideas he plagiarized! I bet his devices were assembled by pseudo-slave labor in China. What a dick!
We are now living in an age of what has been referred to as Late Stage Capitalism. It is very much an aspect of Cyberpunk and "High Tech - Low Life". As an example, take notice of how we have a huge surplus of everyday items like clothes, shoes and electronics, both new and used, that permeate our lives and can often be had for very little if not even free. TV's that cost $1,000 just a decade or two ago can now be bought new for half that or used for even half more or can even be had free to repair with a little electronics knowledge. Our cities, streets, alleys and dumps are filling up with this stuff, ..throw away plastics, electronics, and furniture, because no one takes the time to learn how to care, cultivate, and repair. And as we throw away and consume more and more, all corporations look at new ways to take advantage of our consumerism. And while all those little things that keep us distracted from reality pile up upon us and cost less and less, they will eventually cost more as resources dwindle. And it's actually the greater things we need that matter which are costing more and more right now. Housing, ..Utilities ..Food, ..Transportation ..and Healthcare. You often don't think about such things that much when you are young, but as soon as you get into your 30's it will become more important than ever. This is not the same world of the last century. We have consumed the planet. We are in the late stage. Government, when well structured should serve the people at the smallest costs possible, but today we face the evils of an inflated government which has begun to out-source and use privatization for some services. Many on the right seek deregulation to increase profit thinking it helps everyone but it does not. For example many corporations are buying up houses across the USA and abroad simply to make profits while families starve and suffer rents that are higher than ever before or worse, homelessness, which is on the rise in every major city. We must elect people who have the best interests for our poorest, because by that measure we know everyone above will still succeed. It is the worlds working class that allows the rich to profit. It is the masses which support the upper classes through our time and labor. We cannot continue to allow the worlds oligarchs to control every facet of our lives through their greed, abhorrent salaries, and privatization of all services, military included, which will only serve to enrich them even more and control every aspect of our lives without care or consequence. Unite the people.
You hit the nail on the head, TV's phones etc are so cheap now compareed 20 years ago. Yet, the necessities are now double the price -> give us cool tech to distract us while making society unlivable.
In the cyberpunk genre, the powers that be, are too powerful to overthrow, and doing so would spit something nastier out of the vacuum. The genres main core for characters, is usually the need for self preservation.
Incredible work, Intricate, Concise and terrifying reality.......Humanity always seems to glean it's own future, It makes me wonder if we are catching up to the light that has already travelled past us into the future and we are in slow motion fluctuating between these two realities, OR we are breaking into the collective human psychic territory?
Started watching this as i am downloading cyberpunk at the moment to play and seemed fitting 🤣But the draw for me in these kind of future's etc is my body is broken from years of abuse in the form of skateboarding etc so the idea of being able to ether replace broken parts or get a new body in general really appeals to me
More and more of my cyberpunk short stories are getting published. I bring in “urban” voice to cyberpunk; Central American and Caribbean immigrants struggling in the setting, amplifying the now surfaced child labor found in industrial meat packing (it’s been that way for a decade now) and other exploitive practices and toning down the Asian stereotypes. Plus I add heart by adding elements of family.
I recently discovered your channel and greatly enjoy your videos. Cyberpunk is something that had a profound impact on me when I first discovered it. I used to read Neuromancer once a year for a while. It's such an engrossing book. But I stopped reading it a few years ago, and it's because more and more our present is looking like the future of that novel. You could make the argument that Mr. Robot is the origins of cyberpunk as a way of life for everyone. From Mr. Robot we'll be in the world of Neuromancer in a couple of generations.
the cyberpunk genre itself definitely grew because of CD Projekt Red (cyberpunk2077) and edgerunners anime, but I think the reason why it stuck with so many people is that the genre itself is very anti-stoic in a way most other genre aren’t, in other words it’s a form of art so relatable but dystopian enough to where we can project ourselves yet remain ourselves
Good cyberpunk doesn't master end-of-history capitalism, it just makes the emotional reaction that much more relatable. It's the true literary meaning of catharsis being an intellectual engagement with harsh truths being taught by the gods of experience rather than the false idols of a better life when all that's good is absolutely dead. And that's our world and we know it.
Two reasons. The first one is that the aesthetic is just really, really appealing. Second one is the social critique and recognizability of cyberpunk in our day to day lives. I don't think people realize how much we're living in a cyberpunk world. And how close we are to to turning full blown high tech low life. Agi is on the way, extremely advanced robots are a thing, and companies are working on android like robots that can do human tasks. Brain implants, robotic limb replacement, genetic manipulation with stuff like crispr, age extension technology etc etc. It's all here or super close to being here. I recently watched a documentary called "Darwin's war" it's about a Ukrainian drone pilot whose nickname is Darwin. Darwin is 19/21 year old, and goes from bunker to bunker with a team. At those bunkers he takes out his vape, puts on some rock music and a set of VR goggles, then he flies around in FPV drones looking for Russians to blow up, while he vapes and listens to his music. Like it's a video game. We have gamer kids with VR goggles hunting living human beings with small flying drones made out of fiberglass that have improvised explosives attached to them.
I think what's so interesting and also appealing about Cyberpunk media, is that that peoples lives are hard, and they have scrape by, and survive because of high crime rates and few human interactions but there's cool cybernetics, VR Networks, super fast computers, AI that actually talk and effect things. There's also the possibility of becoming a tough merc or a highly skilled hacker. We just have that in our reality.
Back in the 90s it was cool escapism to a crapsack-y dystopia, intruiging but no more realistic than Back to the Future. Today, where we already had a Biff-presidency (and very likely will get another one) it's more like a trailer for what's to come... ...Probably without the cool music and the chrome. Because we can't have nice things, not even in the dystopian future.
One year ago I started joking about the fact that Milan is the Night City of Italy, now I'm realising it's heading towards it full send. Can't even imagine for people in actual metropolis.
It's such a problem, it doesn't just impact the big ones: NY, London, Milan , SF: smaller cities too are becoming more and more Cyberpunkish; look at Dublin for example. Tiny city with one of the highest cost of living !
@@ifelse10110 exactly, the cyberpunk effect happens in the lifestyle for most international cities Milan has the same issue life cost wise, i can’t imagine living INSIDE the city. Didn’t imagine Dublin was that affected as well tho
I never knew the cyberpunk genre was *not* popular. But then again, I have been a fan since the early 80s, and played the RPG when it came out in 86 or 87.
@@jingbot1071 Yes, I started with 2013, then moved to 2020 when it came out in 1990 or so. I basically grew up with Cyberpunk, as I was a young teen back then. No wonder I am so cynical.
Lol, I had you at 0.8x for a minute and was like 'why is this guy slow?' Turns out I was the slow one. I wrote a near-future sci-fi, which is very much in the cyberpunk genre which did not have the neon, but had many of the same themes. "We don't watch media, it watches us," is especially apt.
Really enjoyed this thought provoking piece. One thing that jumped out at me is the realisation that cyberpunk as a theme predates the name. Soylent Green in the 1970s and Metropolis in the 1920s certainly tick the relevant boxes of high tech low life corporate dystopias. I think you could even argue HG Wells' The Time Machine from 1895 shows a similar world for the Morlocks even if the main characters story diverges from the typical path we'd associate with a cyberpunk tale. I wonder if there are any older stories. 🤔
There for sure are ! But I think the definition and combination of these themes becoming its own unique genre didnt occur till the 1980's along with the visuals tied to it. You're the second person to recommend Soylent Green, I'll have to watch it ! Thanks fo the comment.
its kind of funny that cyberpunk2077 is one of the big reasons im now a punk irl. it was such an eye opening piece of art that thankfully came out around the time i came into adult hood. really put me in a whole new perspective
Simplest answer, because it's now real and the future we are headed toward. We can now see ourselves in it, because we are in it. The aesthetic is slowly emerging.
I will, I'm looking into a few other books, one video game and potentially talking about the Ethics of AI. I am a Machine Learning Engineer, so I might have unique insights into that area ! Thanks for the nice comment :)
There is one silver lining upon the bleak and that is freedom of expression being most prominent realized in cryberpunk world. It is the ultimate fantasy of cool kids dream where no limits on vulgarity and offensive gestures . Cyberpunk is in many ways the polar opposite to the authoritarian 1984. Both are dystopia in their own way, but it is interesting that in the West cyberpunk is accepted as a pliable vision of future while the 1984 model is seen as a threat you cannot compromise with. Because cyberpunk has an appeal of agency even if it’s fake or rendered irrelevant, it still is on the menu
That's a very good point, autonomy and and a sense of self is at the core of much western philosophy. So it seems as if, so long as the future still upholds this belief it is possible, but if this belief is is undermined - that future must be avoided.
Cyberpunk 2077 both feels like a more soulful world than the one I live in. But also it reminds me of the crushing soullessness of modern society where everything just feels wrong. From bad companies to bad government regulations. To just the general cost of things. The general pressure to not have too much since you usually have no hope in hell of owning anything like what your parents had. And either you kinda accept it and sorta try or maybe you grind for the best stuff. But regardless of what path you choose the reason cyberpunk Is so popular is Because life for the vast majority of young people feels like the worst most pay to win MMO ever... Without the chance to buy microtransactions
@@notwhatitwasbefore Plural my dear Sir or Madam. FolkS. And if you want examples here are some: -Flop of the ring of power due to mass critique as well as (amazon owned) IMDb 5/10 and lower opinion deleting fiasco -Cancelation of green zones in Poland due to public concern and protest -NYCP funding reduction due to blm "peaceful" demand for it to happen The complacency you presented is precisely what power that be need to progress towards high control dystopia, so please stop spreading such poisonous ideas and believe in yourself. Believe that you can make the world better. Even if not on your own. Also i do have certain goal i chase that (hopefully) will make the change for the better. It will take decades to achieve, but it is worth it.
@@notwhatitwasbefore I mean, I’ve been protesting at my university campus for the past couple of weeks as have a bunch of others and we did get them to divest for Israel. Might not be much but it is a change.
Incredibly insightful commentary and I’m happy I don’t feel alone with the whole isolated bit. While I’m grateful to have my family and friends in abundance.. sometimes this dark voice in the back of my head critiques society as if we’re doomed to this path. Maybe we’re not and the change you optimistically speak of is the truth :)
I like to call early cyberpunk films and tv shows that look cyberpunk but are missing many of the cyberpunk tropes like cyberspace, cybernetics etc films/TV like Blade Runner, Hackers and Mr.Robot as 'Proto-Punk'.They are almost the origin stories.
This is a really good video. when watching thei i realized that the meme about "Ryan Gosling being Literally me" isnt just a meme but part of our current reality with the trend of societal atomization/ And as it happens Ryan Gosling pays a lot of roles of an isolated atomized individual in a connected society making the Ryian Gosling literally all of us))
Cyberpunk as a sub-genre of sci-fi is certainly experiencing a renaissance. Science fiction had a lul (but never gone) imo, but both are bigger then ever now. As for isolation, I always felt Cyberpunk is more synonymous with "alienation", but that might be a semantic issue.
Late response but for me I read Neuromancer early on and then watched the first Ghost in the Shell and Akira animes on HBO in the early 90s. I didn't watch blade runner until much later, but I did see movies like total recall, demolition man, running man and judge dredd that seem to have a similar atmosphere.
I think the recent rise of the cyberpunk genre has alot to do with how its turned out to be an almost idealised version of our actual reality despite the intention of being closer to a dystopic warning. We live in a world ruled by the corpos just as predicted while those corpos lock down cyberspace and push this dystopia on the ever more powerless masses in a manner that makes many cyberpunk works seem prophetic the only things we are lacking from most of these works is the cool augmentations. Not that cutting off your limbs to get a replacement is actually cool but being super human does have a certain attraction when being a regular human doesn't seem to be enough anymore, yet more accurate prediction. Most weeks as I'm reading the news or catching up on some tech inovation I see something that might well be new and novel to the masses yet seems familiar to me through the cyberpunk genre. While those masses seem to miss the point about where the risk is in such advances or even that there is a risk at all I can see that pattern and direction is the same as many authors imagined decades ago. The current tech illiterate spewings around machine learing and its obfiscation with the term AI and in some cases even AGI is so on the nose I do wonder if the people pushing much of this (not the scientists but the corpos that control them) have actually read a bunch of cyberpunk works and took it as a road map not a warning. Popular fiction is often something that seems to mirror reality which in the 2020s is the dystopic warning of the 1980s/90s, If films like Jonny Mnemonic were released in 2021 (the year its set) instead of 1995 it would of been much easier for the mass market to grasp and would perhaps be seen as a bit too obvious even lazy. I imagine Musk might even try to sue the production for being negative propaganda against neuralink. Even that name neuralink is almost perfectly cyberpunk just change the A to an O and its there, I just googled that to check it wasn't a Willam Gibson term and I was just having a mental blindspot. I wrote this at the start of your video and its nice to see thats its not that far from where you went with it
Almost point for point we agree on it ! I think it's so interesting how so many in the comments have similar views, but differ slightly. I think the most interesting one stated that cyberpunk is our world just 'more interesting and fun'; which is sad but true.
Arguably it has never been really gone. More like it's rediscovered by a younger audience. There were shows and movies in the eighties and nineties both good and bad. Strange Days and Matrix around 2K. Regular pen and paper tabletop gaming releases in multiple franchises. We had gaming franchises like Deus Ex. Any place on earth I went there was either a movie or a game or a pulp novel in the bargain bin. And it was big in Japanese entertainment. I don't remember Cyberpunk being off the picture because we edged ever closer to that dystopian future. Maybe most of us don't live in dirty Bladerunner-esque slums and we don't have malware in our brains or full-sensory-cyberspace. But many of us feel modern lifestyle dehumanized us. Instead of interacting with humans or sitting on a mountain in nature we are doomscrolling and posting tiktoks. We work shitty jobs and our political views and private lives are manipulated by unseen algorithms and megacorporations. We feel like AI will steal our jobs soon with diseases and war on the horizon. Yeah I get why Cyberpunk is getting more relevant by the year.
We just don't have robot limbs and implants.. well most don't anyhow. Body part and organ replacement is a little rudimentary at this time, but we're well on our way to the less flashy aspects of a cyberpunk dystopia.
Is it “capitalism” when 600 corporate monopolies payoff daddy government to not enforce antitrust (anti monopoly) legislation that’s been around for over 100 years Or Is it fascism - where daddy government and corporations collude in a symbiotic relationship to own and control everything? What we have is market failure when you nolonger have competition and there goes innovation as well… Worse: You’re forced to be apart of the problem by buying from or working for the very corporations that hate all of us. This is why they rebranded themselves as “stakeholders” so your typical adhd “cool story bro” types never look at the collusion happening What do you think Davos and the WEF and our state department is all about?
As long as the economy is taking advantage of the individuals and their level of productivity, any technology that helps people aquire more abilities and skills will make them slave more to work than before, to the benefit of the corporations. The more powers people gain, the more the system will ask them to do for the same or less benefits as competition always keeps growing.
I think we should name the current technological/societal era the Cyberpunk Era, from web 2.0 to probably the AI singularity. (in line with the paleolithic, Chalcolithic, bronze age and so on) It has all the trappings of what we call cyberpunk. Only the physical corporate violence is mostly at the margins in under developed countries.
To what extent does cyberpunk today feed our isolation and apathy by offering us a dream world where the isolated individuals can fight and damage the oppressor.
CP2077 was never a renaissance, it was final accord for Cyberpunk, because its no more about the future, its about reality. There is nothing new that cyberpunk can offer
We look for cyberpunk in a westernised context while people in places like South Africa and Brazil are pretty close to experiencing it directly. I mean, you wanna see a face off between a fully equipped and jacked up police officers and a kid in sandals with a machine gun. You can have it.
Cyberpunk is like every dystopia in that it doesn't predict the future because instead it reflects the present. It's just filtering the problems of the day through the lens of fiction. Cyberpunk is just now with cool technology and without the mask for corporate greed. Just satire that shows the truth.
Don't forget Skynet. I would argue that the Terminator movies are examples of cyberpunk. In them the AI achieved self awareness and determines humans to be a threat to it and takes action. The same concept drives the Matrix movies. Both are examples of AIs taking the concept of agency to its logical conclusion. Humans not wanting to go extinct fight back. The big difference between the two franchises.In the Matrix, the AIs have achieved a form of control of its human population, The AIs actively "farm" them.
When all other genres have been systematically ruined whats left that still has relevance to our society? What futures do we actually have? This is it.
Cyberpunk has always had climate change in the background. If you melt those ice caps where does all that water go? There's a reason it's always raining in the future...
For clarification and reference, Karl Popper wrote about "new tribalism", implying how this, as opposed to "globalization", would be the future society. ❤
I'm not sure what we're mirroring in our world right now, but I honestly don't think it's Cyberpunk-esqe. Even Deckard met up with arms dealers and contacts in real space right? V Still had to sit down with Dex to do a job. Elliot's crew don't exist in some encrypted back channel, they all gather in a run down arcade which is def less secure than proper encryption messaging. You could wave these things away as just an issue of translation with the visual medium, but I think that they demonstrate something else, namely what I said before. What we're going through isn't a mirror of cyberpunk. And the comparisons that we can draw, like corps being greedy for money and power, that's just a universal truth, across time, political systems etc. I'm not 100% sure what I'm even trying to get across here. I think there's a missing element to this entire convo (and every variant of this convo) and I can't put my finger on it.
Because those people are doing exciting things. People who do exciting things IRL still meet up and do those things in meatspace. There's probably a ton of people shouting at each other online in these various works, we just don't spend any time with them because that makes for an extremely boring story.
in cyberpunk 2077 it's not about saving the worl d, it's about saving yourself.
BURN
CORPO
SHlT
That’s cyberpunk in general.
Which is something we could do with more of
@@thrash2429 I second this. It's the point of the ENTIRE genre.
I've been playing that game recently (not even done with it yet) and now I can't stop seeing the inevitable future happing all around me.
Me and my best friend jokes about how we live in a shitty cyberpunk world. We have the megacorps and social problems but don't have the cool cyberware ect.
I say this all the time lol
"We live in the stupidest of all possible cyberpunk dystopias."
True!
You'd think they'd at least let us bring neon lighting back but nope, can't even have that
@@SpoopySquid we're starting to have neon lights, especially in Asia. We just have to wait and start the trend of neon lights
What Is Driving The Cyberpunk Renaissance? The fact that people are realizing we are already living in the early stages of a cyberpunk dystopia.
And in all this the media continues to try to indoctrinate us that everything is fine and it is the best period in human history and so many people believe it without asking questions.
I wish we could at least have neon
@@ThatAutisticGuy2005who knows? Our aesthetics are changing from the standards of the 20th century
"Despite our unprecedented level of connectivity, we find ourselves more isolated than ever before" is so true. We are getting slowly detached with reality.
I disagree.
@@ThePartisan13 Loneliness is rampant all over the world. Small, tight-knit communities are thrown aside in favor of massive forums made of thousands to millions of strangers. The amount of true friends people have is dropping, the amount of loners with none is in the double digit percentages and rising depressingly fast.
You might not feel lonely, you might not meet people who are isolated. It is because these people are not available to be met, sitting in their rooms, coming out only to do the bare necessities, whether it be for anxiety, lack of social skills or personality issues.
We are connected, but the world wide web has become like a spiderweb, with megacorps at the center and we can't break free.
@@Obelg The last bit you said nearly describes me to a T. I am alone, but I am not lonely. I have a group of friends I game and talk with on discord that I wouldn't have ever met without it. Same with my gf. These are people I know and care about. The flipside is that there are people who are surrounded by others that they know from the time they get up to the time they go to bed and still feel absolutely alone. Despite what you think the introverts like myself are still in the minority.
I also disagree. Some people are losing touch with reality. Others are deeply aware of the nature of reality, and are suffering way more as a result of that.
Cyberpunk is blowing up RN because it’s a relevant critique of our current society taken to its extreme.
It’s a great Genre to reflect on.
Spot on !
This
Finally the mainstream is starting to gain *some* self-awareness
basically lol
Love this comment
I got into cyber punk in the 90s and never ceased interest… it’s been interesting to see how things have developed in so many ways , it’s been great mental preparation for me to understand how rich people and corporations lose their humanity
My favorite aspect of 2077 that goes over most people's heads is that it's a story about fighting for the right to chose who you are and all the characters are that way. Jackie Wells who had just done what he needed to in order to survive woke up in a hospital bed realizing how easily it can end. He would eventually chose to be a new man, deciding that being who he wanted to be for six months was better than being a person he hated for a lifetime. It was better to live as a man he wanted to be, even if each major step utterly terrified him.
Yorinobu Arasaka had his life lain out before him and refused it. He refused to be a tool of domination and decided to chose who he would be. He was the sort of man who would walk in a doll house and find the living thinking woman inside. He tried to destroy his father's creation from the outside but failed, so he chose to feign submission wearing the mask of his demon family so he could destroy it from the inside. He never gave up who he was. The discovery of the Araska mass driver program, forcing Araska to murder some of the space council voting members? Clearly Yorinobu was the mole that leaked it.
Panam Palmer, faced with conflict within and without her nomad family. Torn between her loyalty to those close to her and her refusal to submit and quiet her conscience. In the end her conscience won and saved all she cared for.
Evelyn Parker, the living doll. A puppet for others to use. Even the Voodoo boys only saw her as a puppet to get what they really wanted. She was determined to finally cut her strings and be her own master. It was her determination to define herself against all of her oppressors that set the main plot in motion.
Rogue... A woman who survived the death of Johnny by making a deal with the devil. She became jaded and used people just as she was used. In the end however, she was inspired to finally fight to break her chains and become a free agent again.
And Johnny... Johnny who was so full of rage, hated and suffering bile that he went on a crusade. Instead of triumphing he woke up to realize he was the very thing he hated. He was devouring someone else self and there was apparently nothing he could do to stop it. So with great difficulty he chose to be better. Even if it would cost his life he would at least save one soul. If he could save the soul he was devouring then he could forgive and save his own.
This isn't even addressing V which is a very clear and blatant "choosing who she wants to be." Story.
That was very well written and poignant.
Yes, Cyberpunk reflects Western priorities of self-actualization and self-empowerment, promoting the notion that each individual is the center of the universe. It ultimately boils down to selfishness masquerading as human freedom. The genre vividly depicts what happens when everyone prioritizes their own interests, resulting in a dystopian hellhole of a society. Even characters like V are driven by personal motives, with no interest in helping others or contributing to society.
Cyberpunk is the logical result of decades of individualism, reinforced by a neoliberal doctrine that claims competition is a healthy and virtuous way to conduct ourselves. Don't you see? Cyberpunk is more than what you described. It illustrates the social outcomes of rampant self-interest. I think you missed the fundamental point.
@@mdaniels6311 lmao you don't know what you're even talking about. Cyberpunk 2020 / red / 2077 and shadow run are ripped out of a book called necromancer. Right down to even being set in night city. William Gibson said that it was in part a RESPONSE to neo liberalism, that his world was the sort of hell that neo liberalism would take society into.
A great example of this cyberpunk in film is robocop which also was a response to neoliberalism, a society where abdication of the concept of the communal welfare resulted in a permanent and worsening depression, which caused increasing crime and the response to which was increasing violence. In film robocop is manufactured to be the ultimate meatgrinder and he realizes it won't end unless he goes after the source of the problem, his own creators. Of course he quickly discovers that he can't attack the system itself not because he is involved in the system but BECAUSE HE IS THE SYSTEM. He still tries defying even self interest because victory is certain self destruction. This has serious anti cop undertones, arguing the police only exist in the form they do because of our social structures.
In 2077 the figure like Murphy is yorinobu who never gave up rebelling against his father. He courts self destruction daily to fight the very system that creates people like Johnny ans v. He tried open rebellion now he seeks destruction from within. Who gave militech spies the scoop on arasakas illegal lunar mass driver program resulting in the Esa trying to vote to revoke their access to space at the start of the game? Why yorinobu. Who was set to sell the relic tech loaded with the most destructive agent of chaos arasaka had ever face to militech? Why yorinobu...
The whole setting revolves around a society so absent real connections that it has become inhuman. Slowly many people lose all connections and go utterly insane, the cyberpsycho. Mike pondsnith, creator of cyberpunk said "v didn't go cyberpsycho because he was never alone, he always had Johnny right there even at the worst of it."
All of the character stories are about connection. Panam is the most clear about this. Nomads about family, but not blind obedience. An example of one form of anarchy in action and siding with the nomads is largely considered the best possible ending in the game.
Even Jackie wells... who didn't really crave money... he wanted to be remembered by a world that cares about no one. He faced death and asked "when I go will someone at least remember me?" In truth you can see what he was fighting for was connection. A connection to the world and the world was so utterly broken he was going to have to force that connection with a gun. That is western cyberpunk in a nutshell right there.
In short you don't know crap.
Original comment is incredibly well written, almost poetic. mdaniels6311 in comparison is trying WAY too hard to be clever and failing.
@Carfilliot Even though mdaniels is correct in every way? They made some really strong points.
In my apartment complex they've recently installed TV screens in the elevators that blast advertisements at you. Most of my neighbors thought it was cool and were pretty excited about it whereas I, being a fan of the cyberpunk genre, just shook my head in disgust.
The path to liberation is that technology is used to decrease the amount of time people spend at work, *not*, that the time they are at work is more productive.
What it should be is that the work of 1 hour today reflects the work of 8 hours yesterday, and so, you are paid the same, and sent home with another 7 hours in your day.
But that, wouldn't increase profit. That, wouldn't be advantageous. That wouldn't be the way to outcompete your competitors.
Indeed, that's the fundamental problem here. Technological advancement isn't being used to do the most good for people, it's being used to increase corporate profits. Instead of each minute of labour shaved from the production of an item _saving the worker a minute of labour for the same total pay_ as a just world would, it's being used to increase the amount of profit the owners extract from that worker in the same amount of work, or to cut the worker's hours and pay for the same amount of profit extracted (thus a greater profit to expenses ratio), or some combination of the two.
I believe media always prepares humanity for the future the big companies are creating, so perhaps, we will live in a cyberpunk-like future, we are just being prepared, psychologically, for it
Yes, quite a lot of movies and video games are showing what's planned in the future. I think that your theory of psychologically preparing the masses is valid.
the bourgeoise are smart but not that smart. Most of them have about as much forsight for planning as a cat.
@@Phil9874 I have come to the conclusion that there is no grandiose plan or rationale. The elites are not smarter than the average TH-camr. These are people with way too much money, and time on their hands. They have become bored with pointless hedonism and drugs. So yeah, they're "smart" but not that smart. I would rather say that they are "educated". They're not the smartest, nor the most moral, nor the best of the people, not by a long shot. They only happened to be born into wealth or high status.
That's pretty simple: we're starting to live in a cyberpunk world. AI isn't a futuristic concept anymore; virtual reality is becoming a routine; everyone has their bank accounts, passports and overall personal data online; e.t.c. In my country you can even pay taxes through the government's official website, which is convenient, but implies things that are scary af if you think about it for a while. Cyberpunk is far closer to us than we'd want to.
ai still is pretty furuturistic actually what is being called ai is actually just a really good sorting and retrieval machine it doesn't actually have intelligence on it's own though.
we live in what i call the early cyberpunk period, though that could use a better name or something. not there just yet, but give it another 30 to 50 years or so, then we'll see what happens
Thank you for acknowledging Mr. Robot, it’s so underrated
Err.. probably ppl like me.. I read W Gibson back then bc I thought he lifted soooo much from my Hero, William S. Burroughs..
I was correct, but I found so much more I was hooked..
Tron, The Information Super Highway, Blade Runner.. Lawnmower Man.. 16bit..
Err…
I’m now 66yrs old, and enjoying the schadenfreude..😃👍
The part where you refer to the return of slave labour in Cyberpunk, was good…
It comes full circle to the video title… Because the hard pill to swallow, Is that we are in that same phase of humanity, Just preliminary, Indentured servitude, That is nothing more than slavery, Rebranded, Under another name. With extra steps, If you will
We will decay into this
You know that the suits don't have cyberware yet, right?
@@jingbot1071 I don't believe we need to be physically hindrered or restrained to be in slavery
... If you don't subscribe to the idea of nescience and manipulation as slavery, though, That's understandable
@@ShreddedSteel Certainly. This only amplifies my point.
If servitude is the only option, why not avenge yourself?
@@jingbot1071 the Tree of Liberty has been looking very dry lately
It does feel like most people are subconsciously aware of the cyberpunk future we're heading to. Everyone see's it but some haven't put the connection together just yet.
Exactly, I think we will be missing the cool aesthetic but largely the thematic issues highlighted in cyberpunk are becoming true. At least I think so.
@@ifelse10110 Oh absolutely, I even expect the aesthetic of the country to kind of start shifting little by little to a more cyberpunk one. Some places in korea and china have already started looking pretty close. Regardless, I think even the most hardcore company man would admit to corps having too much power now.
I am 56 and have been a loner all my life. I have tried on numerous occasions to integrate with society without success. Tech has kept me sane and allowed me to explore art and culture past and present.
there's something deeply ironic about all the AI art used here
There is a lot of irony in pop culture cyberpunk. The cyberpunk games (TTRPG & videogame) tend to unintentionally reinforce some of the most negative aspects of the genre. The most fun things to do in those games is get cybered up and kill people en masse. What should be an horrific side effect of living in a world of highly advanced technology and dehumanising moral decay turns out to be the selling point of these games. I know, because I have played them and, to an extent, enjoyed them myself.
The irony is similar here, where an exploration of “high tech, low life” is coupled with non-stop images generated by advanced technology which steals work from human artists, impoverishing them in the process. On a meta level, these apparently unconscious contradictions only strengthen the critiques of society that cyberpunk poses, though they bode very poorly for the future.
I was going to say. It felt weird at the start, and then it just kept going. Was going to give this creator my support, but they are contributing directly to the problem.
are you sure it's AI? It looks like mostly pretty good drawings to me, which ones are AI?
You’re right! He should pay royalties to Von Neumann’s family for using his computer architecture too! I bet he didn’t even wipe his mind. Think of all of the ideas he plagiarized! I bet his devices were assembled by pseudo-slave labor in China. What a dick!
@@Karl_Marksman probably AI based upscaling on some, though none of them looked purely generated to me
I’d say cyberpunk is becoming so popular because it’s starting to become reality
I was around for the first wave. The joke for years has been that we're already living in the prequel to Bladerunner
We are now living in an age of what has been referred to as Late Stage Capitalism. It is very much an aspect of Cyberpunk and "High Tech - Low Life". As an example, take notice of how we have a huge surplus of everyday items like clothes, shoes and electronics, both new and used, that permeate our lives and can often be had for very little if not even free. TV's that cost $1,000 just a decade or two ago can now be bought new for half that or used for even half more or can even be had free to repair with a little electronics knowledge. Our cities, streets, alleys and dumps are filling up with this stuff, ..throw away plastics, electronics, and furniture, because no one takes the time to learn how to care, cultivate, and repair. And as we throw away and consume more and more, all corporations look at new ways to take advantage of our consumerism. And while all those little things that keep us distracted from reality pile up upon us and cost less and less, they will eventually cost more as resources dwindle. And it's actually the greater things we need that matter which are costing more and more right now. Housing, ..Utilities ..Food, ..Transportation ..and Healthcare. You often don't think about such things that much when you are young, but as soon as you get into your 30's it will become more important than ever. This is not the same world of the last century. We have consumed the planet. We are in the late stage.
Government, when well structured should serve the people at the smallest costs possible, but today we face the evils of an inflated government which has begun to out-source and use privatization for some services. Many on the right seek deregulation to increase profit thinking it helps everyone but it does not. For example many corporations are buying up houses across the USA and abroad simply to make profits while families starve and suffer rents that are higher than ever before or worse, homelessness, which is on the rise in every major city. We must elect people who have the best interests for our poorest, because by that measure we know everyone above will still succeed. It is the worlds working class that allows the rich to profit. It is the masses which support the upper classes through our time and labor. We cannot continue to allow the worlds oligarchs to control every facet of our lives through their greed, abhorrent salaries, and privatization of all services, military included, which will only serve to enrich them even more and control every aspect of our lives without care or consequence. Unite the people.
You hit the nail on the head, TV's phones etc are so cheap now compareed 20 years ago. Yet, the necessities are now double the price -> give us cool tech to distract us while making society unlivable.
In the cyberpunk genre, the powers that be, are too powerful to overthrow, and doing so would spit something nastier out of the vacuum. The genres main core for characters, is usually the need for self preservation.
Incredible work, Intricate, Concise and terrifying reality.......Humanity always seems to glean it's own future, It makes me wonder if we are catching up to the light that has already travelled past us into the future and we are in slow motion fluctuating between these two realities, OR we are breaking into the collective human psychic territory?
Started watching this as i am downloading cyberpunk at the moment to play and seemed fitting 🤣But the draw for me in these kind of future's etc is my body is broken from years of abuse in the form of skateboarding etc so the idea of being able to ether replace broken parts or get a new body in general really appeals to me
Renaissance? Cyberpunk has never left!.
Amen
(Break)
More and more of my cyberpunk short stories are getting published. I bring in “urban” voice to cyberpunk; Central American and Caribbean immigrants struggling in the setting, amplifying the now surfaced child labor found in industrial meat packing (it’s been that way for a decade now) and other exploitive practices and toning down the Asian stereotypes. Plus I add heart by adding elements of family.
I recently discovered your channel and greatly enjoy your videos. Cyberpunk is something that had a profound impact on me when I first discovered it. I used to read Neuromancer once a year for a while. It's such an engrossing book. But I stopped reading it a few years ago, and it's because more and more our present is looking like the future of that novel.
You could make the argument that Mr. Robot is the origins of cyberpunk as a way of life for everyone. From Mr. Robot we'll be in the world of Neuromancer in a couple of generations.
the cyberpunk genre itself definitely grew because of CD Projekt Red (cyberpunk2077) and edgerunners anime, but I think the reason why it stuck with so many people is that the genre itself is very anti-stoic in a way most other genre aren’t, in other words it’s a form of art so relatable but dystopian enough to where we can project ourselves yet remain ourselves
Anti-stoic. I like that and I didn't think of it this way, I'll certainly review this in the next cyberpunk themed book I cover. Thanks !
Good cyberpunk doesn't master end-of-history capitalism, it just makes the emotional reaction that much more relatable. It's the true literary meaning of catharsis being an intellectual engagement with harsh truths being taught by the gods of experience rather than the false idols of a better life when all that's good is absolutely dead. And that's our world and we know it.
Two reasons. The first one is that the aesthetic is just really, really appealing. Second one is the social critique and recognizability of cyberpunk in our day to day lives. I don't think people realize how much we're living in a cyberpunk world. And how close we are to to turning full blown high tech low life. Agi is on the way, extremely advanced robots are a thing, and companies are working on android like robots that can do human tasks. Brain implants, robotic limb replacement, genetic manipulation with stuff like crispr, age extension technology etc etc. It's all here or super close to being here. I recently watched a documentary called "Darwin's war" it's about a Ukrainian drone pilot whose nickname is Darwin. Darwin is 19/21 year old, and goes from bunker to bunker with a team. At those bunkers he takes out his vape, puts on some rock music and a set of VR goggles, then he flies around in FPV drones looking for Russians to blow up, while he vapes and listens to his music. Like it's a video game. We have gamer kids with VR goggles hunting living human beings with small flying drones made out of fiberglass that have improvised explosives attached to them.
The genre is representing our most likely future now
I think what's so interesting and also appealing about Cyberpunk media, is that that peoples lives are hard, and they have scrape by, and survive because of high crime rates and few human interactions but there's cool cybernetics, VR Networks, super fast computers, AI that actually talk and effect things. There's also the possibility of becoming a tough merc or a highly skilled hacker. We just have that in our reality.
Thoughtful video! The theme of isolation despite being entertained (or perhaps just preoccupied) resonated with me. Cheers!
Thank you :) Glad you enjoyed it
Back in the 90s it was cool escapism to a crapsack-y dystopia, intruiging but no more realistic than Back to the Future. Today, where we already had a Biff-presidency (and very likely will get another one) it's more like a trailer for what's to come...
...Probably without the cool music and the chrome. Because we can't have nice things, not even in the dystopian future.
Honestly, at this stage we should just go for it, aesthetic and all !
The nice music exists, it's just not mainstream.
Man I should rewatch bladerunner
Cyberpunk used to be "20 minutes into the future", but nowadays, we're already 5 minutes in. The show's already started.
2.0 and the dlc means a lot to you and me. We like to feel powerful and have fun. Video should be over in 20 seconds
One year ago I started joking about the fact that Milan is the Night City of Italy, now I'm realising it's heading towards it full send. Can't even imagine for people in actual metropolis.
It's such a problem, it doesn't just impact the big ones: NY, London, Milan , SF: smaller cities too are becoming more and more Cyberpunkish; look at Dublin for example. Tiny city with one of the highest cost of living !
@@ifelse10110 exactly, the cyberpunk effect happens in the lifestyle for most international cities
Milan has the same issue life cost wise, i can’t imagine living INSIDE the city.
Didn’t imagine Dublin was that affected as well tho
I never knew the cyberpunk genre was *not* popular. But then again, I have been a fan since the early 80s, and played the RPG when it came out in 86 or 87.
88.
At least that's when 2013 came out.
Can you imagine a more confusing sentence lol?!
@@jingbot1071 Yes, I started with 2013, then moved to 2020 when it came out in 1990 or so. I basically grew up with Cyberpunk, as I was a young teen back then. No wonder I am so cynical.
@@grr-OUCH I was a little later than you. About two decades.
Doesn't seem like much changed, choom.
Lol, I had you at 0.8x for a minute and was like 'why is this guy slow?' Turns out I was the slow one. I wrote a near-future sci-fi, which is very much in the cyberpunk genre which did not have the neon, but had many of the same themes. "We don't watch media, it watches us," is especially apt.
Cyberpunk is, at least to me, the genre that embodies punk in this age.
Great video, now excuse me but I have a city to burn
Wake up samuri
1:10 No? It's almost entirely the latter. There's nothing fundamentally space-like about the network architecture at all lol.
that is because cyberpunk is becoming our reality in the 2020's
back in the 80s it was dismissed as sci-fi,not anymore
Really enjoyed this thought provoking piece. One thing that jumped out at me is the realisation that cyberpunk as a theme predates the name.
Soylent Green in the 1970s and Metropolis in the 1920s certainly tick the relevant boxes of high tech low life corporate dystopias. I think you could even argue HG Wells' The Time Machine from 1895 shows a similar world for the Morlocks even if the main characters story diverges from the typical path we'd associate with a cyberpunk tale.
I wonder if there are any older stories. 🤔
There for sure are ! But I think the definition and combination of these themes becoming its own unique genre didnt occur till the 1980's along with the visuals tied to it. You're the second person to recommend Soylent Green, I'll have to watch it ! Thanks fo the comment.
its kind of funny that cyberpunk2077 is one of the big reasons im now a punk irl. it was such an eye opening piece of art that thankfully came out around the time i came into adult hood. really put me in a whole new perspective
Simplest answer, because it's now real and the future we are headed toward. We can now see ourselves in it, because we are in it. The aesthetic is slowly emerging.
Really excellent videos. Thank you.
Thanks :)
Love your videos man. I love this style of presentation. Will you be making more of this type of video and about similar topics?
I will, I'm looking into a few other books, one video game and potentially talking about the Ethics of AI. I am a Machine Learning Engineer, so I might have unique insights into that area ! Thanks for the nice comment :)
There is one silver lining upon the bleak and that is freedom of expression being most prominent realized in cryberpunk world. It is the ultimate fantasy of cool kids dream where no limits on vulgarity and offensive gestures . Cyberpunk is in many ways the polar opposite to the authoritarian 1984. Both are dystopia in their own way, but it is interesting that in the West cyberpunk is accepted as a pliable vision of future while the 1984 model is seen as a threat you cannot compromise with. Because cyberpunk has an appeal of agency even if it’s fake or rendered irrelevant, it still is on the menu
That's a very good point, autonomy and and a sense of self is at the core of much western philosophy. So it seems as if, so long as the future still upholds this belief it is possible, but if this belief is is undermined - that future must be avoided.
We are in cyberpunk just without the ✨aesthetics✨
Cyberpunk 2077 both feels like a more soulful world than the one I live in. But also it reminds me of the crushing soullessness of modern society where everything just feels wrong. From bad companies to bad government regulations. To just the general cost of things. The general pressure to not have too much since you usually have no hope in hell of owning anything like what your parents had. And either you kinda accept it and sorta try or maybe you grind for the best stuff.
But regardless of what path you choose the reason cyberpunk Is so popular is Because life for the vast majority of young people feels like the worst most pay to win MMO ever...
Without the chance to buy microtransactions
The only difference between full blown cyberpunk and what we have goin irl is the fact that common folks still have some power.
No they don't.
If you disagree use your power as a common folk to change something. Anything
@@notwhatitwasbefore Plural my dear Sir or Madam. FolkS. And if you want examples here are some:
-Flop of the ring of power due to mass critique as well as (amazon owned) IMDb 5/10 and lower opinion deleting fiasco
-Cancelation of green zones in Poland due to public concern and protest
-NYCP funding reduction due to blm "peaceful" demand for it to happen
The complacency you presented is precisely what power that be need to progress towards high control dystopia, so please stop spreading such poisonous ideas and believe in yourself. Believe that you can make the world better. Even if not on your own.
Also i do have certain goal i chase that (hopefully) will make the change for the better. It will take decades to achieve, but it is worth it.
@@notwhatitwasbefore I mean, I’ve been protesting at my university campus for the past couple of weeks as have a bunch of others and we did get them to divest for Israel. Might not be much but it is a change.
Incredibly insightful commentary and I’m happy I don’t feel alone with the whole isolated bit. While I’m grateful to have my family and friends in abundance.. sometimes this dark voice in the back of my head critiques society as if we’re doomed to this path.
Maybe we’re not and the change you optimistically speak of is the truth :)
I like to call early cyberpunk films and tv shows that look cyberpunk but are missing many of the cyberpunk tropes like cyberspace, cybernetics etc films/TV like Blade Runner, Hackers and Mr.Robot as 'Proto-Punk'.They are almost the origin stories.
This is a really good video. when watching thei i realized that the meme about "Ryan Gosling being Literally me" isnt just a meme but part of our current reality with the trend of societal atomization/ And as it happens Ryan Gosling pays a lot of roles of an isolated atomized individual in a connected society making the Ryian Gosling literally all of us))
Grerat point, im going to try sneak that meme into a video one day on blade runner !
@@ifelse10110 Cant wait)))
Another great video ! Will you ever explore anything other than cyberpunk ?
the culture of the times plays into the stories of the real world that’s what.its no longer fiction it’s becoming fact more each day. 0:28
Cyberpunk as a sub-genre of sci-fi is certainly experiencing a renaissance. Science fiction had a lul (but never gone) imo, but both are bigger then ever now.
As for isolation, I always felt Cyberpunk is more synonymous with "alienation", but that might be a semantic issue.
Also there's the Ai being used to replace people's artistic skills.
Cyberpunk and it's anime clearly dragged it back into the mainstream
The general vibes of Night City are just cool as fuck.
Just reinstalled it, honestly I get lost in that game. It's a problem !
@@ifelse10110 Me too. And I’ve rewatched Edgerunners way too many times, somehow expecting it to end happily and being crushed each time.
Late response but for me I read Neuromancer early on and then watched the first Ghost in the Shell and Akira animes on HBO in the early 90s.
I didn't watch blade runner until much later, but I did see movies like total recall, demolition man, running man and judge dredd that seem to have a similar atmosphere.
The new Judge Dredd movie 'Dredd' and by new I mean 2010's is very good. I would recommend it.
Awesome analysis!
Thank you :)
I think the recent rise of the cyberpunk genre has alot to do with how its turned out to be an almost idealised version of our actual reality despite the intention of being closer to a dystopic warning.
We live in a world ruled by the corpos just as predicted while those corpos lock down cyberspace and push this dystopia on the ever more powerless masses in a manner that makes many cyberpunk works seem prophetic the only things we are lacking from most of these works is the cool augmentations. Not that cutting off your limbs to get a replacement is actually cool but being super human does have a certain attraction when being a regular human doesn't seem to be enough anymore, yet more accurate prediction.
Most weeks as I'm reading the news or catching up on some tech inovation I see something that might well be new and novel to the masses yet seems familiar to me through the cyberpunk genre. While those masses seem to miss the point about where the risk is in such advances or even that there is a risk at all I can see that pattern and direction is the same as many authors imagined decades ago. The current tech illiterate spewings around machine learing and its obfiscation with the term AI and in some cases even AGI is so on the nose I do wonder if the people pushing much of this (not the scientists but the corpos that control them) have actually read a bunch of cyberpunk works and took it as a road map not a warning.
Popular fiction is often something that seems to mirror reality which in the 2020s is the dystopic warning of the 1980s/90s, If films like Jonny Mnemonic were released in 2021 (the year its set) instead of 1995 it would of been much easier for the mass market to grasp and would perhaps be seen as a bit too obvious even lazy. I imagine Musk might even try to sue the production for being negative propaganda against neuralink. Even that name neuralink is almost perfectly cyberpunk just change the A to an O and its there, I just googled that to check it wasn't a Willam Gibson term and I was just having a mental blindspot.
I wrote this at the start of your video and its nice to see thats its not that far from where you went with it
Almost point for point we agree on it ! I think it's so interesting how so many in the comments have similar views, but differ slightly. I think the most interesting one stated that cyberpunk is our world just 'more interesting and fun'; which is sad but true.
Where’s all the sick artwork from in this video??
Arguably it has never been really gone. More like it's rediscovered by a younger audience. There were shows and movies in the eighties and nineties both good and bad. Strange Days and Matrix around 2K. Regular pen and paper tabletop gaming releases in multiple franchises. We had gaming franchises like Deus Ex. Any place on earth I went there was either a movie or a game or a pulp novel in the bargain bin.
And it was big in Japanese entertainment. I don't remember Cyberpunk being off the picture because we edged ever closer to that dystopian future.
Maybe most of us don't live in dirty Bladerunner-esque slums and we don't have malware in our brains or full-sensory-cyberspace. But many of us feel modern lifestyle dehumanized us. Instead of interacting with humans or sitting on a mountain in nature we are doomscrolling and posting tiktoks. We work shitty jobs and our political views and private lives are manipulated by unseen algorithms and megacorporations. We feel like AI will steal our jobs soon with diseases and war on the horizon.
Yeah I get why Cyberpunk is getting more relevant by the year.
Great video man, and incredible illustrations! Have you realized them with an AI? The quality seems handrawn pictures...
A new piece of work introduced to the genre is Scott Snyder’s CLEAR. You will not regret it!
It’s because we can all clearly see our society speedinggggg towards this future
the world of cyberpunk is terrifying. I hope we're smart enough to not fall that deep
So true
We're already there
We fell that deep, merely lack some of the tech.
We just don't have robot limbs and implants.. well most don't anyhow. Body part and organ replacement is a little rudimentary at this time, but we're well on our way to the less flashy aspects of a cyberpunk dystopia.
Of course we won't! We fall into low life, low tech world, hehe!
Popular culture is representative of our current state of mind. Our fears and dreams.
do you make your own graphics for the videos or use already existing?
Great Video btw
simple capitalism is squeezing the working class hard and we're getting fed up with it.
Is it “capitalism” when 600 corporate monopolies payoff daddy government to not enforce antitrust (anti monopoly) legislation that’s been around for over 100 years
Or
Is it fascism - where daddy government and corporations collude in a symbiotic relationship to own and control everything?
What we have is market failure when you nolonger have competition and there goes innovation as well…
Worse:
You’re forced to be apart of the problem by buying from or working for the very corporations that hate all of us.
This is why they rebranded themselves as “stakeholders” so your typical adhd “cool story bro” types never look at the collusion happening
What do you think Davos and the WEF and our state department is all about?
As long as the economy is taking advantage of the individuals and their level of productivity, any technology that helps people aquire more abilities and skills will make them slave more to work than before, to the benefit of the corporations. The more powers people gain, the more the system will ask them to do for the same or less benefits as competition always keeps growing.
Awesome video, dude. High Tech-Low Life, guilty as charged...
Its because we live in a corporate dystopia already why not just change the aesthetic.
Where have did you find all these comic book style Images, Did you create them or are these comics already? Or AI? Very cool video 👨💻
I think we should name the current technological/societal era the Cyberpunk Era, from web 2.0 to probably the AI singularity. (in line with the paleolithic, Chalcolithic, bronze age and so on) It has all the trappings of what we call cyberpunk. Only the physical corporate violence is mostly at the margins in under developed countries.
Of course people in cyberpunk are isolated. It makes us easier to control and dependent.
Good point, the corrporations need to seperate people to keep them from banding together. This of course, keeps the corporations in power.
To what extent does cyberpunk today feed our isolation and apathy by offering us a dream world where the isolated individuals can fight and damage the oppressor.
we are living it so
CP2077 was never a renaissance, it was final accord for Cyberpunk, because its no more about the future, its about reality. There is nothing new that cyberpunk can offer
Solid analysis and argument. Unfortunately, I agree more than disagree.
Thank you !
We look for cyberpunk in a westernised context while people in places like South Africa and Brazil are pretty close to experiencing it directly. I mean, you wanna see a face off between a fully equipped and jacked up police officers and a kid in sandals with a machine gun. You can have it.
dindt expect a video this good when I clicked on it !
Thanks :)
@@ifelse10110 I'm really looking forward to the next video cya
Cyberpunk is like every dystopia in that it doesn't predict the future because instead it reflects the present. It's just filtering the problems of the day through the lens of fiction. Cyberpunk is just now with cool technology and without the mask for corporate greed.
Just satire that shows the truth.
the interpretation of Cyberpunk as a possible futuristic outcome == materialistic determinism.
Great video, can you tell me the name of the source of the image in 14:38? Thanks
Great Vid yo
Thanks :)
@@ifelse10110 subscribed
Don't forget Skynet. I would argue that the Terminator movies are examples of cyberpunk. In them the AI achieved self awareness and determines humans to be a threat to it and takes action. The same concept drives the Matrix movies. Both are examples of AIs taking the concept of agency to its logical conclusion. Humans not wanting to go extinct fight back.
The big difference between the two franchises.In the Matrix, the AIs have achieved a form of control of its human population, The AIs actively "farm" them.
Personally love the Matrix, will say though we're a long way off that level of AI haha
this AI art is well put together, how long did it take you to tweak it?
Kinda gutted Deus Ex didnt get a mention.
That was the first proper cyberpunk game that i ever played.
The increase in people choosing Van Life could link to Cyberpunks' nomads
We live there already but lack body mods of any worth. We’ve been ripped off
Great video!
Does Warhammer 40K fall into the cyberpunk genre?
Time to party like it’s 2023
I just love that 1980's retro futuristic distopian vibe.
You ever watch Dredd ? Amazing movie, with that exact vibe.
@@ifelse10110 Bro, I absolutely love that movie! I love the Judge Dredd comics too.
When all other genres have been systematically ruined whats left that still has relevance to our society? What futures do we actually have? This is it.
If you listen to elo’s 70’s album Time I think you will hear the musical version of cyberpunk: loneliness and nostalgia in a tech future
Cyberpunk has always had climate change in the background. If you melt those ice caps where does all that water go? There's a reason it's always raining in the future...
For clarification and reference, Karl Popper wrote about "new tribalism", implying how this, as opposed to "globalization", would be the future society. ❤
I'm not sure what we're mirroring in our world right now, but I honestly don't think it's Cyberpunk-esqe.
Even Deckard met up with arms dealers and contacts in real space right? V Still had to sit down with Dex to do a job. Elliot's crew don't exist in some encrypted back channel, they all gather in a run down arcade which is def less secure than proper encryption messaging.
You could wave these things away as just an issue of translation with the visual medium, but I think that they demonstrate something else, namely what I said before. What we're going through isn't a mirror of cyberpunk. And the comparisons that we can draw, like corps being greedy for money and power, that's just a universal truth, across time, political systems etc.
I'm not 100% sure what I'm even trying to get across here. I think there's a missing element to this entire convo (and every variant of this convo) and I can't put my finger on it.
Because those people are doing exciting things. People who do exciting things IRL still meet up and do those things in meatspace. There's probably a ton of people shouting at each other online in these various works, we just don't spend any time with them because that makes for an extremely boring story.