Elysium
Instead of a space station, the ultra rich will live in a giant gated city that has all the world's latest technologies and medical services.
The rest of us will work menial jobs to supply everything for the city.
this post was submitted on 06 May 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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That movie was contemporary geopolitical commentary using a sci-fi metaphor. Same as District 9 (a refugee crisis). So you could argue that future is now, depending on your views.
Science fiction is usually about present issues. It puts them in a different context to offer a different perspective and enable consideration.
That's true. It's also a way of taking contemporary trends and extending them in a slippery-slope type analysis.
The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror have entered the chat.
Akira Battle Angel? But, before the war or without the warrior women.
^Alita
Although an Akira crossover with Alita could be fun.
The other one I was thinking of was Hunger Games .... 12 different regions governed over by one powerful region that controls everyone else with military power using all the latest most deadly and most invasive technologies humanity can imagine.
I thought Hunger Games used at least, if not mostly, police and intelligence agency powers, much like 1984 and V for Vendetta… post Great War, at least.
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I replied elsewhere but, yes, that's what they want. Peter Thiel is a proponent of the Network State and absolutely is working towards that end.
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most likely? not the xenomorph part of Alien, specifically, but the general message of unchecked corporate greed leading to disaster for everyone is an all-timer.
Weyland-Yutani has entered the chat
Is our current dystopia not good enough?
“We have dystopia at home”
Wall-E, except no spaceship
Snow Crash seems to be a favorite of the current heads of mega tech corporations.
-Federal government still technically exists but has barely any ability to do anything -Everything privatized including police and emergency services -Wealthy live in gated communities while most of the population lives in corporate owned slums -Leader of a megachurch is trying to take over the world
Yeah, this one really seems like we are heading in that direction.
A mix of Her, Gattaca, Mad Max, Idiocracy, 1984, Ready Player One, Waterworld.
Was Her a dystopia? I recall it being a fairly good world to live in.
Is ‘Brazil’ in contention?
That's closest to the expected Idiocracy in cyberpunk aesthetic.
Whoever thought that we'd look at idiocracy and think "well, it's optimistic because they put the smart person in charge of real policy"
I guarantee it wasn't Mike Judge. He put Crocs in the movie because they were just coming out and thought they were so stupid, they'd never take off.
Look where we are now.
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Our dystopia somehow manages to both be one of the most boring and the most destructive. Figures.
I think Blade Runner 2049 is our most likely future from a food systems/decimated eco system perspective. Androids and flying cars, yeah, maybe. No natural vegetation and only the only crops being produced in greenhouses. Probably not by 2049, but I could easily see it by 2149.
1984, but with Idiocracy.
Side note: I really liked Her. Great music, relatable story (for terminally online folk at least). If you haven’t seen it, I’d recommend.
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Cyberpunk? Deus Ex, just the first game. The sequels have the depth of a puddle.
Or if climate apocalypse then something like Mad Max, but way dumber perhaps.
That'll do.
"This plague...the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it."
"Why contain it? Let it spill over the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end they'll beg us to save them."
"You misunderstand. They're rioting because we're trying to save them with vaccines. They don't think they need to be saved."
"God, people are so fucking stupid. Why do I even want to take over the world?"
Yeah we were too optimistic in our dystopia fiction.
Idiocracy lacks the malice and bad faith.
The ones with fascist governments are the closest, like 1984.
If fascism is not a distraction. I still can't believe that the billionaires have let Trump win with no further plans.
They're working toward the Network State model where they basically get to be tech-enabled neo-feudal lords with near slave populations.
Yep, Ive heard it referred to as techno-feudalism.
Robocop one is rather close.
I was hoping for Shadowrun, at least there'd be magic, elves, orcs and trolls around
William Gibson's writing after the Sprawl trilogy always seemed very likely to happen. I mean, squatters living on the Bay Bridge in NorCal after it gets damaged in an earthquake, for instance. Not the really out there stuff.
That was always one of my favorites, and it seemed so likely. Now, however, I realize that it was horribly overimpressed with corporations, like most 80s stuff was. We know innovation isn't something megacorps do anymore.
The one I wished for was more of a Shadow Run future, and my native friends and I used to joke about it.
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Nothing that relies on AI that can pass for a competent human.
Admittedly, this is an ignorant guess, but I don’t think we’re on the right track to manufacture consciousness. I’m not even sure it can be done at all.
The classic of course.
We're allready half way there. Neuromancer.
My company poached a bunch of people from a competitor. And I'm hoping to parlay my US job into a transfer to the EU to get citizenship. Meanwhile my company is building arguably the most complex system ever made by humans. No one employee knows enough about it to say how it works. All we know is that big corporations pay big money for it. And if a system is capable of becoming self aware, it will happen in one of our facilities as no one else has systems as big and fast as ours.
Yes, I work in AI.
No one employee knows enough about it to say how it works.
Just a friendly warning: This is a giant red flag for any job.
You are almost certainly working for a scam if you hear things like this. This is exactly what Bernie Maddoff employees would have said, or anyone at FTX or WeWork.
My advice? Get the most out of it that you can, money, transfers to EU, whatever, and don't let them drag you along. set deadlines. make written contracts with dates in them.
Be prepared to not be paid without warning, and MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: Keep Receipts, save emails, photograph them if neccessary. Be aware of laws, and get things in writing if you are requested to do anything you are not sure is legal.
I think you misunderstood my intent. The modern world has a lot of Neuromancer aspects.
The AI programmers don't know how to manage servers. The sysadmins don't know how the liquid cooling works.
Every company has silos. And AI itself is kind of a black box. Non-deterministic software is by definition unknowable.
Plus the whole centering of the novel on AI.
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There is no such thing as Non-deterministic software. except maybe microsoft windows. Jury still open on that one.
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I stick to my statement, and you can remember this post in 5 years, and we can see who was right :)
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The Road.
Mad Max once climate change really gets cooking.
Except we'll be running around like cave people with spears made of iron or copper pipe .... we might get imaginative and use bicycles or giant kites or wind surfing.
Horses might exist but they'll be too expensive to maintain and will only be available in certain regions where expertise can survive alongside the farming resources to maintain these animals
It might look like Mad Max for about 10 years maybe 20 but not beyond that.
Motorized vehicles won't be possible after 20/30 years because all fuel supplies will disappear, any stored fuel will break down and be unusable or contaminated and there will be no more manufacturing of new fuels. And if there are places producing new liquid fuels, they won't be able to supply anyone beyond 100 km of the manufacturing center. Wars will be fought for the fuel centers and chances are they will be destroyed in the fighting.
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