Now -this- is Cyberpunk.

+
Maybe we won't be killed by Skynet after all. We just need to improve our robot porn.

What makes you think Skynet is interested in robot porn? It wouldn't have used those nicely-muscled male bodies for Terminators for no reason!
 
Aahahah! Cyberpunk - many of the people in it, especially - -is- pretentious! Are you kidding? People buy tech-hair because a mere dye job isn't enough. They get their limbs replaced because it's more fashionable! They have visible logos on their prosthetic eyes so all their friends know Kiroshi Optics did them!

Cyberpunk, the part of it that is Style over Substance, is super pretentious. It's part of the fun!
Cyberpunk deals with petentious. Sprawl Trilogy, Snowcrash, Robocop etc are not pretentious. Gibson, Sterling are not pretentious. 7hs long, badly shot, b/w movie that gets destroyed after being shown, never to be seen again. That is as pretentious as it gets. But everything's for people.
 
This looks like a fantastic thread to spam some futuristic realism/slice of tomorrow nonsense.

Like this: You ever wonder what flying cars would look like from the ground? Why not let Chinese lanterns help you out?


Or what about an industrialized moon? If we're going to colonize Luna, we're gonna have to get used to such a sight.

 
This looks like a fantastic thread to spam some futuristic realism/slice of tomorrow nonsense.

Like this: You ever wonder what flying cars would look like from the ground? Why not let Chinese lanterns help you out?


Or what about an industrialized moon? If we're going to colonize Luna, we're gonna have to get used to such a sight.

At school we had books and periodicals from the 50s/60s and a lot of the covers showed how we'd be living on the moon by 1980. What the hell happened to that?
 
At school we had books and periodicals from the 50s/60s and a lot of the covers showed how we'd be living on the moon by 1980. What the hell happened to that?

Oh we are. It's just that there is a control group (you people) locked into VR in a 1990s-plus kind of setting. Explains some things, doesn't it?
 
Last edited:
At school we had books and periodicals from the 50s/60s and a lot of the covers showed how we'd be living on the moon by 1980. What the hell happened to that?
They vastly overestimated our potential technological capability, and the fact we had a sort of Antiquity of space exploration thanks to '69 thru '72 didn't help at all. I call that era "Space Antiquity" because it really was the era where we displayed the ability to do what we wanted to do, but we didn't realize how far we were from being able to capitalize on it. Just like how, in historical Antiquity, the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Chinese were able to build steam engines, construct and program analog computers, drill for oil, and even create death rays, but we had no concept of technological progression and the socioeconomic factors of the day meant there was no point of moving forward so we never built off of these things.
In our case, Space Antiquity was driven entirely by the Cold War. Don't believe what all the propaganda tells you about how the space race was all about moving mankind into the stars and fulfilling JFK's dream of putting a man on the moon— it was solely to prove to the Soviets that we could put nuclear weapons and anti-ICBM systems in space to counter their own arsenal and spy on them more effectively. The Soviets actually won the space race's most meaningful victories— there's a funny graphic explaining how the only real American victory was that we put a man on the moon.

And in truth, the Soviets were doomed to fail regardless because they never had any once central space agency while the USA had NASA. So even though we lost most of the race, we technically did win in the end because the Soviet system became too inefficient by the mid to late '70s. Coincidentally, that's exactly when space exploration seemed to taper off.
That the US was behind is entirely why the space race was a thing at all. Reagan's Star Wars initiative would never have been canceled if the Soviets were still ahead of us. The space shuttle would have been just one of a fleet of different earth-to-space vehicles. The Soviets never could have done so by the '80s without a spectacular and costly military and government reform.
But despite all that, I still can't see any realistic situation where either superpower managed to construct a sustained lunar colony. I can't even begin to explain to you just how expensive it would have been to actually start a lunar colony in the 1970s. Especially considering it would not have been able to pay for itself in any way, shape, or form. We didn't have the technology at all. We weren't even close.

The absolute bare minimum we need to colonize another celestial body? High speed internet + additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing) + some level of semi-intelligent automation. Actually, the new rule of thumb spreading around space exploration circles is that sending humans as a vanguard party is quite possibly the dumbest move you could make and is essentially a hold-out from the more romantic image of space pioneers a la the pilgrims moving to America or settlers taming the wild west. In actuality, if you want to colonize another planet, you're going to have to send machines there first to construct the initial infrastructure. Then you send people there when it's finally safe to do so.
I can definitely see there being extensive colonies by 2050. It's just that, for every human, there will likely be 50 machines.
 
Last edited:
There is nothing Cyberpunk about that movie or how it is being presented. That's what stuck up people call "Art".

If you shot 720 hours of city workers painting over graffiti, you might have an argument. OR someone could rip a copy and seed it on the net. Destroy it before it gets viewed. Replace the film with 720 minutes of anit-war protests caught on film. There are hundreds of things that would make that CP af but as is right now? Nah, not even close.

Not sure where you got your rules from either. They're in the wrong order also, you forgot the first rule.

High-Tech, Low-Life.

If you want to see what Cyberpunk is go hang out on a rough corner in LA, NJ, NY, Detroit or Miami. Those people aren't trying to do anything but save themselves and that is as CP as it gets.
 
Last edited:
Not sure where you got your rules from either.

Cyberpunk 2020. That game that 2077 is based on. Surprised you didn't know that.

And High-tech, Low-life isn't a rule, it's a descriptor. It's also not the sole descriptor.

Not everything in CP is graffiti and guns and grit. High fashion and beautiful ridiculousness is a big part as well. Riviera in Neuromancer built his career on appealing to the ridiculousness of the beautiful rich.
 
From the brilliant Warren Ellis' newsletter, to which I subscribe proving I am better than everyone who does not..


THE TRAILER IS SEVEN HOURS LONG.
Ambiancé is 720 hours long (30 days) and will be shown in its full length on a single occasion synchronised in all the continents of the world and then destroyed. Ambiancé will be the longest film made that doesn't exist.​
Yes, a 30 day, one showing only movie that is then destroyed. THAT is Cyberpunk.

So here are the 4 Main Rules, but there are extra, like The Future Is Disposable and The Street Finds It's Own Uses For Things.

1) Style over substance
2) Attitude is everything
3) Always take it to the edge
4) Break the rules

Anyone else have any real-world examples of Cyberpunk in life? Remember, avoid real world politics by specifics.

My thoughts in respects to the above...

Who is Warren Ellis?

720 hours long...why?

What point is there in creating something to destroy it? This is Cyberpunk?

If the 4th rule is to break the rules, why are there 3 preceding rules?

Hmm real-world examples of Cyberpunk in life...

When I was a kid, I poured water down my own gaming console in protest of something that my sibling did that pissed me off...so let's see...

The console was the future of my technological enjoyment and I disposed of it. Check.
I found a way to get revenge and made use of a cup water and an electronic device. Check.
I wish I didn't pour water down my console but I thought I looked like a badass. Style over substance. Check.
Don't mess with me, I'll fuck shit up! My own shit...but still kinda badass right...no? ...sigh. Attitude is everything. Check.
Cross me and I'll destroy my own expensive equipment just so you can't use it. Taken to the edge. Check.
The console wasn't the future...it was used and an old NES... Rule #1 broken...Check.
I got revenge on myself and destroyed something I valued. Rule #2 broken. Destroy something you value. Check.
I was on the edge of something but not edgy or something I don't know. Rule #3 broken. Check.
I kept the rules and I broke the rules... Rule #4 Umm draw maybe...no idea.

I hope this isn't cyberpunk because I feel like I really enjoy cyberpunk and I don't enjoy this...gonna stop thinking about it now.

If it's not obvious and it very well may not be, this is my attempt at humor.
 
Last edited:
Cyberpunk 2020. That game that 2077 is based on. Surprised you didn't know that.

And High-tech, Low-life isn't a rule, it's a descriptor. It's also not the sole descriptor.

Not everything in CP is graffiti and guns and grit. High fashion and beautiful ridiculousness is a big part as well. Riviera in Neuromancer built his career on appealing to the ridiculousness of the beautiful rich.

I did know that.

Any edgerunner worth their weight wouldn't call that style or substance. For either to apply it has to matter. Something that doesn't exist doesn't matter. There'd be a rockerboy mob at every screening, trying to get people to riot or protest the whole thing. Cyberpunk isn't limited to the 2020 version of the genre either. Numerous other works would call that movie something only people who didn't live in the real would be interested in.

If the film was stolen and played on every screen in the whole eastern section of Night City to protest all of the corporate adverts, yeah.

There is a world of high fancy in the genre but as viewpoints go the main characters are not supposed to be part of that world. There are characters they interact with that are those people but not the MC, not the reader, not us. Even outside of fiction its pretentious and petty. Film isn't meant to be lost or destroyed. 720 hours of nonsense screened only to a select number of people that can afford to watch its entirety? What a monstrous waste that is. That isn't film, it isn't even art. Its a shame.
Post automatically merged:


I think within the genre of Cyberpunk there are two different worlds. There's the rough side, that being real Cyberpunk.

The other side is all the same tech, city, world, colors, and lights but nothing goes wrong there. Not really, anyway. Its more of an...eh...outrun kinda vibe. Nice car, nice guy driving and a nice girl in the side seat with the top down and all the money in the world to keep the car gassed up forever.

Its the CEOs of the Mega Corps, the boards of the Zaibatsu, the Meths, and the "jocks". The punks, low-lifes, and greasers have their own side of the tracks and don't cross them. The privileged can go flirt with danger if they want but it all works out for them in the end.

I think the latter is where a 720 hour movie about sepia and vague whatsits in a desert might have a place.

Anyway, trashing your console was badass. To hell with the rules, these are my laws. CP as hell.
 
Last edited:
Every time I go to modern day Hong Kong I think it is one major crisis (with resulting civil disorder) away from Night City :cool:

But it is far too well-behaved at the moment
Post automatically merged:

Cyberpunk 2020. That game that 2077 is based on. Surprised you didn't know that.

And High-tech, Low-life isn't a rule, it's a descriptor. It's also not the sole descriptor.

Not everything in CP is graffiti and guns and grit. High fashion and beautiful ridiculousness is a big part as well. Riviera in Neuromancer built his career on appealing to the ridiculousness of the beautiful rich.

THIS!

Some of the punk in cyberpunk is gritty low-life punk on the chipped-in mean streets... but high end punk-couture is just as much as part of the genre. The genre is about fabulous wealth as well as cyber-enhanced gang-bangers
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom