Post #2440581
2026-02-20 19:56 UTC
Replies (6)
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@SectoidLexi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-02-20 22:03
This feels a little defeatist. Obviously cyberpunk media is usually meant to be dystopian and bleak but a common theme among them is resistance. That's part of the 'punk' in cyberpunk. Consider how prevalent hackers are in cyberpunk and one can realize that the robo-police can be shut down by someone with a keyboard. As for everyone being hyper-individualist and out for themselves, one could say the same about our world rn, or at least in much of the West but that's because most people under capitalism are not class conscious. Building Marxism requires educating oppressed people on why their interests as a class are aligned against the oppressor class. It may seem impossible to create this better alternative to capitalism, especially in the context of a cyberpunk setting, but people thought the same thing about monarchy and feudalism. Just my two cents.
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@GalacticSushi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-02-20 20:25
Also, transitioning is an individual decision that a protagonist can just unilaterally decide to pursue. I can see how that's seen as an obvious answer to the internal conflicts that a crossdressing protagonist is facing if they are actually trans. Dismantling the existing socioeconomic structures of society in cyberpunk (usually controlled by some highly militarized, brutal corporate surveillance state) and replacing it with ones that better embodies Marxist ideals is not as simple as someone saying "let's just try that." Even if it *were* an obvious answer, it's an answer that would first require the story to answer a thousand other "how do we get there" questions before it can be reached.
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@djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-02-20 20:21
it's one where the premise could be defeated by Marxism, but if Marxism was widely adopted then cyberpunk could not exist. The genre is inherently tied to a capitalist dystopia where existence is controlled by megacorporations; if you remove that you no longer have cyberpunk. Although I'd also say transitioning doesn't fix crossdressing manga, since crossdressing is something people can do even if they are comfortable with their gender identity, so I guess the meme still works in a "It doesn't fix it at all but instead completely erases the concept and turns it into something else" sort of way.
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@Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2026-02-21 04:29
Go play Watch Dogs 2 for some anarchist collective action cyberpunk.
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@vantablack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-02-22 05:29
cyberpunk as a genre is fundamentally a critique of capitalism to quote William Gibson talking about Ronald Reagan, >"His smile was the nightmare in my back pocket."
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@emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 2026-02-21 05:17
I think it's less 'fix' and more 'make irrelevant'. In a society that doesn't care too much about gender, crossdressing stops being anything of note. Similarly, if you think about a cyberpunk society through a Marxist lens (or use a bit of common sense), you quickly see the flaw in the premise.