Gregory's Serverit's only cyberpunk if it's punk
otherwise it's just sparkling dystopia
Irenes (many)
25 comments
Irenes (many)
@xgranade damn right. we'd been trying for a while to come up with a pithy slogan to that effect, our friends helped.
Irenes (many)
@uep :D we hoped that angle on it would be at least, like, suggested, though we didn't want to spend words calling attention to it 
Irenes (many)
@serge punk is of course a broad category; at its best, it does have some strong ideals
Serhii
@irenes That's right, they're expressed usually in the form of resistance to the oppression and defiance of the status quo, but the movement often lacks a hopeful vision of the future. Steampunk suffers from that too, it's like "What if we had the same authoritarian capitalist opression of people... but with Victorian-era technology!"
Irenes (many)
@serge it's... we think from a distance, people often have trouble seeing how taking an honest look at the structural forces that exist today IS a thing that's ultimately motivated by hope - because if there's no hope, why try?
Irenes (many)
@serge sure, that political stuff is unpleasant and it would be more fun to imagine futures where none of it exists. but if we are imagining the future, at least in part, to create it, we NEED to consider the root causes of the problems we have today or else we can't study how to solve them.
Irenes (many)
@serge there's a place for imagining what our ideal society would be like, but there's also a place for imagining how we get there from here.
Serhii
@irenes Cannot agree more! I think the critique of the current system is very much needed, but many people are so trapped in it that they don't see how we can do things differently. That's for me where solarpunk really shines, as most solarpunk fiction isn't a vision of a distant future but rather how we can build a more just and sustainable world with what we've got now, including both the technology as well the challenges we face.  |
@irenes The number of times "cyberpunk" forgets that "punk" implies fighting against the dystopia, rejecting authority, and opposing the power structures today that could lead us to that dystopia...