

Do you think Cyberpunk came true? - steveklabnik
http://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/f6ghu/do_people_think_cyberpunk_came_true/

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dspeyer
One big thing totally didn't: the estrangement of respectable society from
high technology shrank instead of growing.

Can you imagine going to a criminal gang for cutting edge medical treatment?
Or a top-notch hacker living in a U-Store-it?

It looked plausible in the days of Woz building blue boxes while IBM and DEC
demanded engineers wear suits. The gap looked unbridgeable.

But instead of open warfare, the most relevant of the suits toppled and the
surviving elite welcomed Gates and Joy into their ranks. With some reluctance,
perhaps, but it was enough. The system was a bit more flexible and robust than
CP authors thought.

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m0nastic
I guess it depends on how we define Cyberpunk, but I would tend to think "No,
not yet."

I think the main themes in Cyberpunk center on a dystopian society where the
techno-literate are able to carve out a life among oppressive, capitalist
regimes (in most cases Corporate Nation-States).

I think much of the technology imagined in Cyberpunk has come to be, but I
don't think the technology is the important part. I think the society it
envisions is what separates it from more traditional science fiction.

That said, I actually imagine a cyberpunk future longingly (even if I don't
necessarily think it will come to be).

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kiba
I would say today is more like cypherpunk versus cyperpunk.

The rebel are more like ubermensch(in the sense they want immortality, cyber
implants, and all the ways that can improve human beings' intelligence and
body) opposing authoritarian institutions.

The ruler is more like the mishmash of elites and majority tyrants.

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motters
Most of what I read of cyberpunk came true, with the exception of consumer
level brain implants and rogue AIs.

Probably the main achievement of the cyberpunk genre was a recognition that
the future was not going to be like Star Trek, and that instead it's a
complicated mixture of old and new where social inequalities and squalor
remain unchanged and computing infrastructure is equally corruptible.

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sudont
Generally speaking, SciFi authors get the feelings right, while the minutia is
laughable in retrospect.

The rogue AI is a jetson-esque malevolence, but we are starting to see our
systems rise out of our control: automated financial institutions that run on
a paperclip maximizer ideology, crowdsourced privacy-ruiners.

But, to further your point, most cyberpunk authors have progressively limited
their scope to a more obtainable vision. Bruce Sterling’s current prediction
entails the "Favela Chic” rather than any futuristic nightmare.

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erikstarck
Cyber: yes. Punk: not quite.

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Qz
It's almost more of a Cyberbop than Cyberpunk...

