are you telling me that cyberpunk pop culture might have been warning me of an impending dystopia?!
😳🫨😵
TBF, for the last 30 years even Cyberpunk authors completely missed the point that capitalism will subvert these amazing technologies to make everything worse if we don't do something. Neal Stephenson is a crypto shill.
Manna got rampant capitalism + AI pretty close, and has predicted McDonalds payment kiosks, Amazon worker abuse, and probably some of the tech layoffs too.
Damn, that surprises and saddens me. I've only ever read one of his books, Diamond Age/A young lady's illustrated primer, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and also thought there were some great critiques of the upper class
gets worse. they tried to warn you again and this time someone's taken action before it could reach you: relevant news article
Scientists are saying we should hit Blade Runner territory by May.
...and WALL-E by June.
The corporations in Wall-E were short sighted and misguided but ultimately well intentioned. We're way off track for Wall-E
Could someone enlighten me what Deus Ex is about without spoiling more than two hours of gameplay?
You're a new type of cyborg cop, that works for a new anti-terrorism unit to hunt down terrorists, formed after they bombed the twin towers. A global pandemic keeps the streets eerily quiet.
The game came out in 2000 btw.
You’re a cyborg agent for a new branch of the federal government formed in response to a terrorist attack on us soil tasked with performing extrajudicial acts in order to keep access to the treatment for a pandemic under government control.
In the opening cutscene the governments response to the pandemic is revealed to be “let it rip” for profit.
It’s a phenomenal game and very fun.
Basically: Anti-Terrorist agent gets instructed not to talk to terrorist, talks to terrorist and becomes a terrorist.
Cybernetics (or technology in general) are both the hope of humanity and its likely doom through abuse by powerful interests.
Deus Ex is the 1984 of videogames.
Someone on here posted the dialogue from a conversation with an NSF “terrorist” from the game and I initially thought it was a pretty reasonable assessment of modern society and its problems. It was only when I read the comments that someone pointed out that the post was quoted verbatim from the game. Need to see if I can find that post…
Corporations are so big, you don't even know who you're working for. That's terror. Terror built into the system.
There's so much more, but I remember that one
Ross (Accursed Farms) did a really good review/analysis of the game: https://youtu.be/rxOKEsBx4NU?si=a7UHgYa-TqCfnqvB
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/rxOKEsBx4NU?si=a7UHgYa-TqCfnqvB
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I've never played the game and it doesn't seem like it's for me... But this video... I think about it a lot...
They also predicted 9/11.
Damn
It's just human nature to see something coming for 40+ years and then be surprised by it.
Meanwhile I'm playing Deus Ex like:
