Selfishness, superficiality, and apathy, Cops vs. American Psycho Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[hyzmarca]

One core component to corporate dystopia, far more important than class divides and abuses of technology, is a culture of selfishness and superficiality in which people can't be bothered to examine anything past the surface or to participate in anything that does not obviously benefit them.

The subtitle of this little topic derives from the juxtoposition of cultures as presented in the reality TV series Cops and in the book/movie American Psycho.

Cops presents a world in which the police are perfect public servants who always win. The bad guys cannot get away and they are inevitably bad because of minor sleights rather than huge violent crimes. You see the police on Cops arrest people for drugs and domestic violence. Occasionally you see a little bit of shoplifting, some drunk driving, or a weapons violation. But no one ever tries to shoot it out with the cops and the people who run always fail. Likewise, the police are presented as perfect public servants without any failings. There is never any abuse and they never make mistakes.

On the other hand, American Psycho presents a world of superficiality. The protagnist is racist, sexest, classist, elitist, brutal, cruel, and unrepentant. He murders an uncountable number of people on a regular basis for no other reason than his own sadistic pleasure and he is very sloppy about it. Yet, he maintains a good life because no one dares to look past the thin and flimsy vineer that he presents to the world. He confeses to murders and his coworkers laugh as if he were making a joke. When his charnal house is discovered the owner doesn't call the police. She instead has the place cleaned and covers it up so that the place will be easier to rent.

So, I must ask exactly how selfish and superficial is the average wageslave in your world on the dystopian fiction scale, with Cops representing the peak of human selflessness, public service, personal responsibility, and dedication to justice and with American Psycho representing a world so selfish and superficial that the protagnist can murder countless people at random, drive stolen cars through buildings, get into shootouts with the police, and frequently confess to these crimes without any consequences whatsoever because no one wants to look below the surface and the people who do can't be bothered to act on what they see.

This, of course, goes toward how easy Shadowrunners have in it your world. In the world that sticks heavily to Cops, the Shadowrunners will inevetably be caught and punished for their crimes it is only just a matter of time. They must be perfect and leave no trace because a single trace is enough to send them down the river forever. The police are unbribable. Witnesses are forthcomming. Forensics labs do not make mistakes. Violence is out of the question and a single shot fired is as good as a failed run.

In the world of American Psycho things are a little different. The Shadowrunner has it easy. You can blow a man away in front of his best friend and the best friend worldn't even blink. Most people have trouble telling their friends apart, anyway. One less just makes things less complicated. In this world a suave face can get away with anything and only the poor and downtrodden have anything to fear from the police. Unsolved running shootouts are a common occurance and you'd have trouble finding a crime lab technition that you could trust not to masturbate onto the evidence. So long as the police don't catch you at the scene you never will be caught because no one cares. They'll clean up your evidence for you simply because it means less paper work for them.

While few SR worlds reach either extreme most lean towards one or the other. Personally, I prefer the American Psycho level of superficiality to the point where you can fire grenade launchers in public (assuming that random casualties are kept to a minimum) without getting on the evening news or the police blotter (because it would be too much of a for any survivor hastle to report) and a good face can impersonate a wageslave's best friend without anyone being the wiser because they are just that shallow.