Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/01/comic-about-how-were-living.html
…
2 Likes
Seems the ultimate truth denied by so many books is that cyberpunk dystopia is really kinda boring if you’re not rich. Or friends with the rich. Or maybe whaling on the rich.
7 Likes
I’d bring back whaling if it meant throwing explosive harpoons at the rich.
8 Likes
I´ve been saying it for a while that we´re living in a cyberpunk dystopia, only in a wacky version of it.
3 Likes
Funny thing is pretty much everyone who tries to sell the “we’re living in a cyberpunk dystopia” line has never read any of the relevant texts. That and most of em were born post Cold War 1 so they don’t get the context anyway.
2 Likes
“Second Life” was basically a pitch-perfect version of the MetaVerse from Snow Crash but it turns out most people realized it wasn’t very exciting once they actually had a chance to go there.
9 Likes
Same could be said for reading Snow Crash…
(Yes I know this isn’t the unpopular opinion thread)
4 Likes
This is why William Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy feels even more weird than the Sprawl trilogy, as the future caught up to the sorts of stories he was telling all the time. As he himself said: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
3 Likes
Never ask for the House Special Sauce.
3 Likes
I’ve been saying this since at least Google Glass coming out, and the hits just keep on coming. Snow Crash comes to mind, mostly, but also a few other works, especially Gibson.
I mean, really, after the election hacking by Russia, the backstory of Neuromancer (i.e. major information/ground war with Russia that lasts like two weeks until everyone’s computers are fried) felt pretty much imminent.
This is the problem with cyberpunk daydreaming - the fiction is always going to be cooler than the reality. IRL, no matter how cool things are when they’re new and edgy, eventually they become common and mundane. Think about how cool any of our gadgets were when we first heard about them vs how cool you perceive them now. Sure, you can objectively say that they are useful, but you likely take them for granted. You don’t feel edgy using them. You’re just living your life.
4 Likes
That’s a real guy. He was really like that.
Looks like he still is.
Max Headroom, probably.
2 Likes
Cyberpunk was more fun when it was just shadowrun on Fridays.
2 Likes
This. I’m almost afraid to go back to D&D or World of Darkness games, for fear that that’s what’s NEXT!
3 Likes
D&D I could live with. WoD? NOPE! Noooope.
All the Nopes in a nope world from its nope core to its nope sky orbeting a nope sun in a nope solar system in a nope galaxy flying through a universe of Nope.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
