I'm pretty sure this is the original version of this meme. Or at least, it's the first one I ever saw.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Cyberpunk
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What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.
Cyberpunk characteristics include:
- Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
- Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
- Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
- Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
- Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.
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And nothing confirms this more than the suffix -punk becoming short had for aesthetic.
We're already in a cyberpunk dystopia. I wouldn't mind some cool gear to distract me from the constant horror of what's ever increasing and I'm powerless to stop.
🤷
I was saying to my discord group as 2 if them got the 2077 game recently and I got back into after a few years
But the thing that always got was modders making V (player) look like a terminator when the only cybernetics we see are face and eye cosmetics, the totally not a usb in the wrist, and any arm cyberware such as the mantis blades or rocket launcher system. Everything else is pretty much below the skin
But cyber psychosis is a think and I feel like I’m screaming at my screen “DID YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM THAT QUEST LINE” while modders become a machine
my take away from the cyber psycho questline is
Yes there is implant rejection just like real life where patients’ bodies can reject implants, with cyber psychosis being and extreme case of that but not the big idea here
But the big take away is usually it’s a ship of Theseus, where the person who replaced their body with metal is NOT the same person, usually leading to an identity crisis or depression
I think an in game text even say a vast majority of cases are not the hyper violent criminals or ex soldiers with ptsd and military implants on the news. But the majority are people who maybe have a synthetic liver as their own implant but don’t feel it’s theirs
And I kinda get that, im a type 1 diabetic and I don’t see the insulin pump as part of me or my body, just a machine that has a vital function. I couldn’t imagine that ideology applied to my whole body what that would do to my mental health and self image
Idk the who self identity in cyberpunk (as a genre) always sticks out to me, can’t remember where I heard the quote but: you can be anyone, but is that someone you?
So, word of Maximum Mike (Mike Pondsmith, creator of the Cyberpunk TTRPG the game takes its setting from) is that beyond gameplay reasons, V is effectively immune to cyberpsychosis because of Johnny. Johnny splits the load of the implants with V, and most importantly, Johnny pre-death is already a somewhat functioning cyberpsycho. In cannon Johnny has slaughtered through stealth jobs and says the arm made him do it, which is how he refers to his breakdowns.
I love that they brought Mike in as a radio host in-game.
One of the top arcs should have "gauss needlers are fucking cool" in it.
Human extinction is a preferable alternative to transhumanism. The only future that lies down that road is an exponentially deepening divide between the haves and have-nots, in which a slave class with mandatory compliance-enforcement augments is ruled like livestock by a class of sadistic, hyper-wealthy elites who enjoy life-extending luxury cybernetics in a horrific parody of the Morlocks and Eloi. The potential for debasement of the poor and unfortunate will skyrocket and it will not go untapped. Humanity will not exist forever and we do not have the right to prolong that inevitability by creating abominations.
I don't necessarily agree with all you say, but I think it's a very good point and something worth thinking about when you look at the topic.
Musk in the bottom middle there
Is the 'cool' part NOT supposed to be the fact that you have circuits of raw power embedded in your very being??! Because we are headed towards Capitalism Hell whether we have cyberdecks or not. I would personally much rather have highly useful body mods in the Capitalism Hell...
Do you really look around at the current consumer tech landscape and think the mods available to anyone but the 1% would be useful?
We already have people with artificial eyes that got shut off when the company that made them went out of business. Similar issues with other implantable medical devices.
so true for the average person, buy this is why I use linux, you really just need programmable hardware that can ibterface correctly, the software is were the magic happens...