Post #2440583

2026-02-20 22:03 UTC

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.

Replies (2)

@Zgierwoj@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-02-21 14:23

And yet all that resistance ends up translating to individualistic defiance, sabotaging one power just to reluctantly grant advantage to another, sometimes terrorism. I guess if we strayed far enough from the common tropes of the genre, then yes you are right. But remember what is the origin of the genre - to my understanding, in its core it exists as satirical critique of neoliberal policy. I dunno, it feels essential to me, but genres are constructed

Open ##2440589
@Hoimo@ani.social 2026-02-22 09:35

It's much easier to organize the workers under feudalism, because they'll be in the same places slaving away together under the same king. In cyberpunk, everyone lives in isolated pods and gets their news through the corpo networks. The few interactions they have with other people are in subcultures and gangs, but every other gang will be "an enemy" even though they're the same class. There's also no obvious "king" to rally against. Neuromancer has the Tessier-Ashpools, but they're smart enough to live in space and stay out of the public eye. Some corporations are more like sentient beings, where even the C-suite only live to serve the machine. Who's going to overthrow Hosaka when it provides millions with jobs and stability? And how? The only entity with the means and the motive would be another corp, which doesn't change the system so much as the name on a building.

Open ##2440590