The End of Cyberpunk?, Why I'm having trouble with 4th ed Options

[hobgoblin]

One thing to keep in mind about the "fighting the man" aspect of cyberpunk is that, with the one notable exception of Hardwired, it's not some crusade against oppression and tyranny like the Communist revolts of the late 20th century...that all led to oppression and tyranny...every single time.

A lot less philosophy of "Right vs. Wrong" and a lot more "Fuck me? No, fuck you!"

Something like "this is my hilltop, this is my shotgun, your laws dont apply here!"?

[DocTaotsu]

You also have to admit that SR canon doesn't have a great deal of "The little guy sticks it to the man!" at least in the metaplot

[maded]

Even so it doesn't mean you can't play a cyberpunk game with nymphomaniac sammies wielding flechette pistols <snip>

Hey now, while I will agree that after the first time I read Neuromancer years ago, Molly Millions defined my ideals of sexy, I'd hesitate to call her a nympho. But I definitely envy Case!

[noonesshowmonkey]

Cyberpunk and its passing is somewhat similar to the passing of the Modern Art movement in a lot of ways.

Modern art, from the late 19th century and into the mid 20th, defined a series of principles of design and aesthetics that spawned everything from lawnchairs to skyscrapers. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, a swiss architect, referred to buildings as "Machines for living in." The machine aesthetic, abstract expressionism and theory based art were the output of a movement that saw the industrial revolution as a process of ordering and refining the human experience towards the ends of effeciency first. In a similar vein, modernists believed in the power of art, especially when expressed through grand social projects like housing or commercial buildings, as vehicles for change.

Then someone woke up and realized that effeciency makes for a really uncomfortable chair (most of the time). We came to realize that flat planes, smooth surfaces, vertigo inducing heights and the replacement of all classical systems on the grounds of obsolescence and ineffeciency was, though sublime, rather abrupt for the human animal and too vapid for the human spirit.

More importantly, modern art has a begining and an end - starting in the late 1800s as the cities were made increasingly dense and more industrialized and the art of cubism or expressionism. The endpoints are generally marked in the late 1960s, but there are aftershocks until well into the contemporary era. The rise of art as theory and ideas is still vogue and many a modernist will tell you that these pieces show that the Movement is still alive - even some of the artists making these pieces will call themselves Modernists.

And there is the rub. Modern art is, by nature, contemporary and pushes the boundaries of experience and aesthetics. Similarly, Cyberpunk is a distinctly contemporary phenomenon. Cyberpunk is often deemed by those who proclaim themselves believers in cyberpunk to be what is now where now is life in the emerging information age. There is a lot to be had in this - namely the age old cyberpunk dilemma of self-hood in an era of machinelike sameness and dissemination of identity into millions of little points, be they actions or interests, or just data points in the great machine.

Anyhow, the main thrust of all of this is that Cyberpunk is a slippery bugger in some ways because of the Modern-like definition of "nowness". We do, afterall, have post-modern... Which is confusing to anyone who thinks in a strictly grammatical fashion.

As for the foresight, nigh on haruspection, of cyberpunk. Certain themes of old Cyberpunk still remain - the definition of self-hood is no less difficult now than it was then, even if counter-culture is not what it used to be. The Japanese did / are / will be kicking all kinds of ass in the business world but, as one user already pointed out, they love Western anything. A friend of mine travels to Japan frequently and recently said that "In the 80s I heard that Japan was taking over the US. I traveled there [on business] and saw that, no, WE had taken over Japan a long, long time ago." Even so, this kind of hegemony (business, cultural etc.) is a hallmark of the Cyberpunk tradition. We need monoliths for cyberpunk.

I find myself regularly reading through these forums and formulating a response only to find that MaxMahem has already penned most of it. Key to the death of traditional cyberpunk is the failure of the Establishment to deter, even slightly, the Information Age. The very nature of free information and the exchange of ideas is anathema to the oppressive culture envisioned in the 80s - instead we live in one of over-stimulation (not so far off the 80s mark here, at least) and awash in a sea of information. Our only 'tools' for parsing that information are apathy and unaccredited sources. The ability to lie successfully and not get caught, or just tell a doctored version of the truth, is easier than ever. This is the new post-cyberpunk.

[sunnyside]

Postcyberpunk is what it's called.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcyberpunk#Postcyberpunk
(Also from there I notice the term Cyberprep, heh)


And it's increasinly being thought of as a genre.
Actually having some anthologies sold under the term
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewired:_The_...rpunk_Anthology

[Cantankerous]

For me Cyberpunk was a dark world, a nearly hopeless world, and that was the contrast to the Runners, even when they employed the most horrific of tactics, the Runners represented the idea of the possibility of getting one over on the man. That was what Cyberpunk was, more than the Pink Mohawks, which were only a symptom, more than the tech or the toys or the magic or anything else, Cyberpunk was getting one over on the man.

In 4th the Man has already won. You can't get one over on him, not really, you can only roll over and take it quietly and with dignity or ignore it. I think that it is the perfect representation of the last eight years IRL, beyond hopeless where Big Brother had already won and anyone who argued the point was treated as naive or delusional. This was mirrored in the genre changes.





Warning: Rant Alert

[rant]Post Cyberpunk my ass. Allot of people gave up and gave in and took the new toys and said "Hey, what can you do; it not only looks hopeless it IS hopeless because you've already been co-opted and if you don't know it by now, you're just ignorant, at best, or suicidally delusional in all likelihood." It was "NO MAS!!!" being shouted by the novelists of the genre and they congratulated themselves on having given up. And since the genre as a whole was headed there, the game went that way too. People, Art imitates Life. It's a fun house mirror of the world itself, in a politically correct and harmless subconscious display of the FEEL of the time.[/rant]



Isshia


As an Aside: Sunnyside, I'm not dissing you. You're right, that is what it is called. I just think the people who came up with the term were full of shit.

[sunnyside]

As an Aside: Sunnyside, I'm not dissing you. You're right, that is what it is called. I just think the people who came up with the term were full of shit.

I'm responding to this since I've been discussing some similar things with some anarchists about real life.

One of the key problems of the cyberpunk genre from the onset was that it made some incorrect assumptions about people.

One of my favorite game books ever for flavor is "Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads" a supplement for CP2020 in which the developers yell at GMs and Players in no uncertain terms for playing CP2020 "wrong". Instead of playing rock stars, dressing in bright colors, having tons of sex and drugs, living out of coffin motels, and going on heartfelt missions to stick it to the man players and GMs were, well, basically they were playing Shadowrun without magic.

That right there should have told them something about the cyberpunk movement.

Shadowrun had a much better grip on human nature. The corporations need the runners and the runners need the corporations. They each think the other is scum, but they have an understanding. Sure the corporation treats the poor and downtrodden in the barrens like crap. But runners with their, in those editions, million nuyen worth of goodies right from chargen were not hypocritical enough to really get up in airs as they cruise around in their sports cars.

In the end it wasn't about The Man. It was about being the Big Dog. The corpers went about it one way, and the Runners went about it theirs.

[streetangelj]

Wow, this has gotten all over the map.

First off, I want to thank everyone who gave me actual advice. I loved that trainwreck comment. It appears to be the way my games are going lately with all three types of runners trying to not kill each other (thankfully).

Secondly I have to disagree that Shadowrun wasn't cyberpunk at it's core, just read the history section from the first two editions. Yes, they threw a bunch of other genres into the blender, but that's what made it different from CP2020 (and what made it better IMHO).

Lastly, the meat of my post (where I get into politics and philosophy) boils down to one thing- APATHY. I have to admire Cantankerous' rant, because it's so spot on. At least where I'm living, a small city in the US Midwest, I see it all around me; even at the university (where one expects progressivism and rebellion) people have given up more and more of their individuality and freedom and noone seems to really care or notice the loss. Most people are just trying to survive from paycheck to paycheck and find a little entertainment to distract them from how miserable they really are. Practically noone is motivated to change the status quo for their own betterment. Corporations and the media run our government and tell us what to think. Yes, "Big Brother" isn't the iron fisted tyranical government people once feared, but believe me "He/She/It" does exist- a person has become a collection of information all accessible to anyone with the right tools, and perhaps that's an even scarier situation. I mourn the loss of what I see as cyberpunk (and punk in general) and have resigned myself to living in whatever world develops. I am thankful, however, that I have faith that change must come and I have managed to hang on to my sense of self (even though it has cost me friends and kept me poor) in an ever-more apathetic world.

J

[Wounded Ronin]

Hey now, while I will agree that after the first time I read Neuromancer years ago, Molly Millions defined my ideals of sexy, I'd hesitate to call her a nympho. But I definitely envy Case!

Dude, she picked a scrawny burnt out man off the street who was about to die of natural causes and began inserting various parts of him into her labia. That's like something out of one of those "beauty and the beast" themed small time pornos.

[Synner667]

Dude, she picked a scrawny burnt out man off the street who was about to die of natural causes and began inserting various parts of him into her labia. That's like something out of one of those "beauty and the beast" themed small time pornos.

Have you actually read Neuromancer ??

Molly is told to "recruit" Case by Armitage [under direction from the AI]...
...She has little say in the matter.

As to bedding Case, you saying she's not allowed to get horny, and pick and choose who she fucks ??
However, if you actually read the book, you'll see that she falls for Case because he reminds her of her 1st love, Johnny Mnemonic.

[Wounded Ronin]

As to bedding Case, you saying she's not allowed to get horny, and pick and choose who she fucks ??

I don't see why this is so confusing. She picked the depressive man who was about to die of natural causes. When she could have presumably gone after anyone else.

[MaxMahem]

Have you actually read Neuromancer ??

Molly is told to "recruit" Case by Armitage [under direction from the AI]...
...She has little say in the matter.

As to bedding Case, you saying she's not allowed to get horny, and pick and choose who she fucks ??
However, if you actually read the book, you'll see that she falls for Case because he reminds her of her 1st love, Johnny Mnemonic.

I was also under the impression that the sex was more of a mercenary thing. She was ordered to recruit Case, and having sex with him seemed like one of the most efficent ways to keep him motivated and from getting to depressed. Given Molly's background, it seems like a logical decision for her to make.

Though I would also admit that it is possible her motives were more complex. She probably enjoyed the sex somewhat and developed some feelings for Chase as well. Maybe some sort of Stockholm Syndrome or something.

In any case the motivations of women are rarely simple. And the motivations of a woman like Molly are certainly not.

[Tachi]

I would say a more Cyberpunk Shadowrun wouldn't feature meetings with Mr. Jonhson, even at a runner bar at the Barrens (Except to graffiti tag his briefcase/pda and those sellouts actually meeting with him). It would feature meetings with the likes of Uncle Che and Bombshell Betty, and the use of gangs as more than just mobile scenery and random combat encounters.

I just wanted to share this with everyone. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Uncle Che gets the "Mickey treatment". That's one mass murderer who, I was glad to hear, died screaming and begging for his life. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) HOORAY for the CIA.

[Wesley Street]

Time and Ramparts magazines and investigative reporter Jon Lee Anderson disagree with the screaming and begging bit:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_guevara

Moments before Guevara was executed he was asked if he was thinking about his own immortality. "No," he replied, "I'm thinking about the immortality of the revolution."[103] Che Guevara also allegedly said to his executioner, "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."[104] Tera¡n hesitated, then pulled the trigger of his semiautomatic rifle, hitting Guevara in the arms and legs. Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Tera¡n shot him again, this time hitting him fatally in the chest" at 1:10 pm, according to Rodraguez.[105] In all Guevara was shot nine times. This included five times in the legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, once in the chest, and lastly in the throat.[106]

Anyway, back on-topic. Shadowrun has never felt like the now-dead cyberpunk movement, at least not in the way it could be compared to the writings of the major cyberpunk authors of the time. It's just a fantasy-action game with a near-future setting. It only had the sheen of cyberpunk as that's the easiest way to convey a sense of "it's just around the corner." Plus, utopian settings make for dull story-telling.

[Heath Robinson]

Plus, utopian settings make for dull story-telling.

Every dystopia is another person's utopia.

[Dr Funfrock]

Lastly, the meat of my post (where I get into politics and philosophy) boils down to one thing- APATHY. I have to admire Cantankerous' rant, because it's so spot on. At least where I'm living, a small city in the US Midwest, I see it all around me; even at the university (where one expects progressivism and rebellion) people have given up more and more of their individuality and freedom and noone seems to really care or notice the loss. Most people are just trying to survive from paycheck to paycheck and find a little entertainment to distract them from how miserable they really are. Practically noone is motivated to change the status quo for their own betterment. Corporations and the media run our government and tell us what to think. Yes, "Big Brother" isn't the iron fisted tyranical government people once feared, but believe me "He/She/It" does exist- a person has become a collection of information all accessible to anyone with the right tools, and perhaps that's an even scarier situation. I mourn the loss of what I see as cyberpunk (and punk in general) and have resigned myself to living in whatever world develops. I am thankful, however, that I have faith that change must come and I have managed to hang on to my sense of self (even though it has cost me friends and kept me poor) in an ever-more apathetic world.

Apathy is not new. It's what cyberpunk, as a genre, specifically evolved to address. This recalls previous rants I've had, but cyberpunk is neither utopian, nor dystopian. Everyone isn't really happy, but they think they are. The heroes of cyberpunk never "stick it to the man", they just make a quick buck and get out while they still can.

Let's address some motivations here: Throughout Neuromancer Case just wants to get high and get online. That's it. He couldn't give a rat's ass about anything else that's going on, he just wants the rush of the net and the rush of the drugs.
Jonny Mnemonic just wants to get paid for the job he did, and get out alive.
Tucker is after his paycheck. Bobby is after a girl. Angie is just trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with her.
Hiro Protagonist doesn't actually care about sticking it to the man or anything, he just wants to protect the net that he helped create. It's still, ultimately, a selfish motivation, and YT is just doing it because the money is good and because she looks up to Uncle Enzo as the father figure that she is obviously lacking.

Look at Bobby's mum, lost in sims, or YT's mother, working in a cubicle farm with no rights and no privacy. Look at the whole idea of vicarious living that Angie or Tally Isham represent, and compare it to our modern culture of soap operas and celebrity magazines.

Through and through, cyberpunk is a commentary on a world where people have given up on their own hopes and dreams, content with the crumbs that fall from the table of the powerful few. It's not about "big brother" or totalitarian control. In fact there is a distinct lack of control in the worlds of cyberpunk. Look at the "burbs" of Snow Crash, independant nation states that only care about keeping themselves safe. The people living there aren't ruled by some psychotic overload or anything like that. The only problem with the burbs is how utterly xenophobic they. The cops in Snow Crash aren't evil, just bumbling and narrow minded. It's not a world of overarching regimes, it's a world of little people carving out little spaces for themselves.

Dystopia describes the utter destruction of the human will by a malevolent force. It describes the tools of control, and the ruthlessness with which they are leveraged.
Utopia describes the immortal power of the human spirit and rational understanding to overcome all obstacles.
Cyberpunk describes human apathy, the refusal of people to actually care who governs them, who watches them, who pays them. There are no tools of control, because none are needed. Nobody sits down and invents a whole new language just to stop people from being able to think defiant thoughts; instead people simply forget that they have anything to defy. Nobody forces people to take a drug that makes them docile, because they have already gone out to buy that same drug in their droves.

Cyberpunk was never about pink mohawks and demonstrations. It wasn't about oppression and defiance. It was never "punk" at all. It was about the wasteland of modern existance, the fast food, 24 hour news culture that we created.
In the words of Spider Jerusalem: "This is the future. This is what we built. This is what we wanted. It must have been. Because we all had the fucking choice, didn't we? It is only our money that allows commercial culture to flower. If we didn't want to live like this, we could have changed it at any time, by not fucking paying for it."

[Wesley Street]

Every dystopia is another person's utopia.

Most people aren't fans of nipple-clamps but there are those handful...

[Wesley Street]

Dystopia describes the utter destruction of the human will by a malevolent force. It describes the tools of control, and the ruthlessness with which they are leveraged.

I agree with 99.9% of what you said though I'd argue that malevolence requires a will behind it which would disqualify it from being a necessity in defining a dystopia. As long as there are elements of squalor, disease and/or overcrowding you can have a dystopia without the outright oppression, suppression, and or trickery.

Cyberpunk was never about pink mohawks and demonstrations. It wasn't about oppression and defiance. It was never "punk" at all. It was about the wasteland of modern existance, the fast food, 24 hour news culture that we created.

Clap. Clap. Clap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)

[Spike]

What is with people thinking that relativism of this sort is valid criticism? Definitions define things. They typify and create boundaries and categories. Thats what they are. A non-restrictive definition is an oxy-moron - a contradiction in terms. What that is... is vague.

Re-read what you quoted. I said 'Overly-restrictive', not 'non-restrictive'. For such a fan of hard coded definitions, you must realize they only work if you apply them to the words actually used. The simple fact is that the entire OP reeks of treating Cyberpunk as purely an outgrowth of 80's aesthetics, which has been discussed further down the thread. I am not alone, by any stretch, in rejecting any definition (and who really has the authority to push unwanted definitions on others?) that purely grounds Cyberpunk in a single decade.

The portion regarding SR as a game that has cyberpunk elements is, however, better recieved. To say that SR is not cyberpunk is close minded in its own right. So, really, the whole 'critique' of the OP was basically a stuffed shirt.

This is an old, old topic of conversation. Never mind that you get somewhat self contradictory in that you demand that we not stray from a definition of Cyberpunk, than insisting we flex the definition far beyond it's bounds to accomodate Shadowrun. Make up your mind, does a definition have boundaries or does it not? Without going into depth, I feel reasonably confident in establishing that one 'boundary' that almost everyone can agree on is that Cyberpunk does not have magic and elves. That isn't to say, as I already did, that a setting with magic and elves can not have cyberpunk tropes or elements, that it can not have been influenced by cyberpunk... but if definitions do, in fact, have boundaries, magic and elves sets shadowrun firmly outside of Cyberpunk.

But you seem to labor under the impression that somehow 'not qualifying' as Cyberpunk is a 'bad thing'. Really? Conan doesn't qualify as Cyberpunk either and yet Conan is awesome on toast. If anything Shadowrun might be closer to Sci-Fi Horror than Cyberpunk, what with the bug spirits, blood magic using corporations and Drop Bears and all. Most, if not all, of the prepublished adventures/meta-plot advancement do seem to focus on horror themes... farming children's brains into jars and so forth...

[Dr Funfrock]

I agree with 99.9% of what you said though I'd argue that malevolence requires a will behind it which would disqualify it from being a necessity in defining a dystopia. As long as there are elements of squalor, disease and/or overcrowding you can have a dystopia without the outright oppression, suppression, and or trickery.

OK, I'll grant that "malevolence" was a poor choice of wording. You are right that dystopia does not require an active malevolence so much as a callousness. At the same time I have to argue that squalor, disease and overcrowding do not a dystopia make (unless you intend to make the argument that 90% of literature is dystopian, which I would feel stretches the term to the point of being useless).

Charles Dickens did not write dystopian fiction, but he certainly wrote about squalor, disease and overcrowding. These elements also feature heavily in crime ficiton, pulp, detective noir, horror, modernism, the decadent period, and ancient mythology. People often seem to think the word "dystopia" just refers to fiction that is "dark". It's a much more specific term than that; it refers to fiction that paints a vision of the future as being ultimately hopeless. Dystopian visions describe all human endeavour as ultimately turning towards our own destruction.
Terminator is dystopian; the ultimate result of human technological advancement is our destruction.
Star Trek is utopian; humanity creates an ideal society, and the conflict revolves around protecting that society and helping the less enlightened to become a part of it.
Blade Runner is neither; the situation on Earth is indeed quite horrible, but it is not the only option. The people on Earth are the ones who have chosen to remain there, instead of seeking a brighter life in the colonies. Whilst cyberpunk is certainly dark, it is only because the focus is always placed on the darkest parts of the world. The "shadows" if you will. For the vast majority of people in a cyberpunk world life is neither terrible, nor perfect. It just is.

[noonesshowmonkey]

Re-read what you quoted. I said 'Overly-restrictive', not 'non-restrictive'. For such a fan of hard coded definitions, you must realize they only work if you apply them to the words actually used.

Well, calling a definition overly-restrictive is calling it a definition... a tuatology. Anyhow, I think I also laid out later in my 2nd post that Cyberpunk is an outgrowth of the 80s aesthetic and that anything else is... something else.

This is an old, old topic of conversation. Never mind that you get somewhat self contradictory in that you demand that we not stray from a definition of Cyberpunk, than insisting we flex the definition far beyond it's bounds to accomodate Shadowrun. Make up your mind, does a definition have boundaries or does it not?

Actually, I never implied that cyberpunk needed to stretch. I merely stated that Shadowrun incorporates elements of cyberpunk in it. In this case it is Shadowrun that is doing the stretching. See the next chunk.

But you seem to labor under the impression that somehow 'not qualifying' as Cyberpunk is a 'bad thing'.

I am not really sure how you imply what my impressions are from an analysis of semantics and argumentation, but whatevs. See the above chunk on cross-genre elements in Shadowrun. At no point did I ever proclaim it bad. I merely state that cyberpunk is its own thing, it has a distinct meaning that can be clearly defined, and that wielding a term wildly or using it bluntly does not a strong argument make.

Really? Conan doesn't qualify as Cyberpunk either and yet Conan is awesome on toast.

Conan is awesome on toast. Conan > pants.

Anyhow, my response was mostly just a knee-jerk reaction to relativism as a method of criticism. I hate it with a fury that burns like a Thousand Sons.

[Wesley Street]

Unfortunately, "dystopia" has been slapped onto many a cyberpunk product and that's often the word associated with the lit movement by armchair critics who confuse it with noir. The definition of dystopia that I usually go by is a society where existence is as bad as it possibly could be. It's one that's usually characterized by squalor, etc. etc. but is more than the sum of those parts. There's a world of difference between the classic dystopia of 1984 and the near-future heterotopias of Blade Runner, Neuromancer or Akira.

If cyberpunk were truly defined by mohawks and other retarded 1980s style-choices, then the protagonists in steampunk novels would all dress like Sid Vicious rather than Victor Frankenstein.

[Spike]

Well, calling a definition overly-restrictive is calling it a definition... a tuatology. Anyhow, I think I also laid out later in my 2nd post that Cyberpunk is an outgrowth of the 80s aesthetic and that anything else is... something else.

Not at all. Restrictiveness is a quality of definitions, not the whole. Labeling a country, for example, 'small' is not a tautalogy; and just so calling a definition 'restrictive' or even 'loose' is merely adding the same sort of quality descriptor.

Given the origins of Cyberpunk in literature, which tends to be less caught up in aesthetic timeliness, and the existance of it as a fashion/subculture into the early nineties, I strongly disagree that the aesthetic qualities are truly the important element. Working from the literary angle I would be more comfortable with the somewhat circular definition of Cyberpunk as the moments that lead up to a transhuman revolution, circular because transhumanism seems to be to be an evolution of cyberpunk... thus we (tautologically...) define Cyberpunk by what it becomes. It is crude and even ugly, but it is sufficent for a random internet discussion.

Actually, I never implied that cyberpunk needed to stretch. I merely stated that Shadowrun incorporates elements of cyberpunk in it. In this case it is Shadowrun that is doing the stretching. See the next chunk.

We were speaking of the definition of a term, not a thing itself. Genre is a terrible catagorizing system as it must typically be applied to creative efforts after they are done. The common mistake of trying to write (music, books, etc...) to a genre results, nearly uniformly, in derivative and hollow efforts. Shadowrun doesn't need to stretch to accomodate Cyberpunk. Shadowrun is, essentially, its own genre; sitting on teh shelf somewhere between the 'genre' pigeonholes of Cyberpunk and Techno-Fantasy. The fact that Shadowrun has invented its own tropes speaks to this fact.

I am not really sure how you imply what my impressions are from an analysis of semantics and argumentation, but whatevs. See the above chunk on cross-genre elements in Shadowrun. At no point did I ever proclaim it bad. I merely state that cyberpunk is its own thing, it has a distinct meaning that can be clearly defined, and that wielding a term wildly or using it bluntly does not a strong argument make.

I continue to feel that the initial Post was not deserving of a strong counter-argument. To provide one would be to provide undue validity to the rather vapid ground it staked out. I judged your response to my dismissive rejection of it to be based on a perceived criticism that Shadowrun wasn't Cyberpunk.... which seems a reasonable response until you really think on it (not being a particular 'other thing' is not, in and of itself, a good or bad state.). I just feel it would have been the height of rudeness, not to mention unnecessarily cryptic murmuring to simply post "Catagorical Error" or some other distillation of my impression.

Conan is awesome on toast. Conan > pants.

Anyhow, my response was mostly just a knee-jerk reaction to relativism as a method of criticism. I hate it with a fury that burns like a thousand sons.

If you like, my response to the OP was just a knee-jerk reaction to people assuming that cyberpunk is intrinsically tied to pink mohawks and The Bangles, which does not approach the height of silliness, but rather makes such a height the very nadir of the concept of silliness... Snake Plisskin may be Cyberpunk, but so too is Jet Li's The One... and the two couldn't be farther apart.



* The Author takes no responsibility for the contents of this, or any other, post given the possibly illegal levels of coffee that is currently, continuiously circulating through this coffee stream....

[Rasumichin]

Unfortunately, "dystopia" has been slapped onto many a cyberpunk product and that's often the word associated with the lit movement by armchair critics who confuse it with noir. The definition of dystopia that I usually go by is a society where existence is as bad as it possibly could be. It's one that's usually characterized by squalor, etc. etc. but is more than the sum of those parts. There's a world of difference between the classic dystopia of 1984 and the near-future heterotopias of Blade Runner, Neuromancer or Akira.

IMHO, a seemingly utopian world that has a terrible, hidden flaw (a society free of violence where all potential criminals get lobotomized, a world where famines where averted by using liberal amounts of Soylent Green or something like this) may also qualify, even though your definition is a safer bet.
In either case, the dystopia label certainly doesn't fit SR.

[Dr Funfrock]

Dystopian literature is largely political in nature (there are exceptions, and I stand by my point about Terminator, though it's a fringe example at best). Dystopian literature is an attempt to discuss the way in which people become subject to the political systems that they help to create. Dystopia is not neccisarily hopeless, but it is a discussion of how all political systems seek stability, and in doing so tend towards the destruction of hope. Hope breeds change, and change is the antithesis of stability. It is therefore more politically expedient to foster fear than to foster hope, because fear strengthens the existing political order, and in doing so creates increased stability (or so the argument runs). Even Terminator fits this example; Skynet is, ultimately, a political system. It rules the world (except the small remaining pockets of human resistance), and it does so through the application of force and the destruction of hope. Skynet rules by tyranny, with no thought to inspire or seek devotion. It's servants are mindless machines, and it is the enemy of all free thinking beings. This is all largely allegorical, but the comparisons with 1984 or Farenheit 451 are pretty obvious. In this context Sarah Conner is a metanym for hope, which Skynet is actively seeking to destroy in order to perpetuate itself. The central struggle of Terminator, just like that of 1984 or Farenheit 451, is of one man seeking to resist an overwhelmingly powerful political system that does not seek to destroy him, but rather to destroy the hope that he has found.

Cyberpunk, in contrast, is largely apolitical. Governance is either minimal or non-existant in the worlds of cyberpunk. In Snow Crash the US Government is simply another corporation, fighting for it's own survival. It has little to no real power or authority remaining, save within it's own thoroughly limited dominion. The central figures of cyberpunk stories have no political ideals or aspirations, they seek only to survive in a harsh and uncaring world. Whereas dystopian literature pits it's protagonist against a single, unified, "system" that seeks to crush them, in cyberpunk literature the protagonist is caught between many different "systems", each seeking to destroy the others and become dominant. The protagonist typically seeks to profit from this struggle without being destroyed by it. Hence, Shadowrun, by it's core conceit, is inherently cyberpunk. The trappings are largely irrelevant. What people are largely discussing here is not the definition of cyberpunk, but the depiction.