/cyber/ - Cyberpunk & Science Fiction

>>33429

>1. What does cyberpunk mean to you?

Schway

I see cyberpunk as neon lights with always raining.

Also with high tech, but with shitty living.

Don't really know what it "means" to me.

I see myself as mr nobody a normal guy who wants to be or do something nice/big, but no one really cares.

so, no hardcore cyberpunks, okay, lesson learned

I hold Neuromancer as my gold standard for what cyberpunk is, along with the whole sprawl trilogy and the stuff from burning chrome. An advanced but plausible (mostly) earth bound future, with a massive gap between the rich and poor. The super wealthy have access to technology and power practically beyond human comprehension, to the point that they are hardly even considered human, while the mega-corps operate almost as living organisms. I also really enjoy the theme of AI as daemons/gods that was explored in Neuromancer, where entities form consciousness in cyberspace, and make deals with humans in order to free themselves from their safeguards.

>>33621

What do you mean by "hardcore"?

>>33621

So how do you see cyberpunk then?

Cyberpunk?

Having odd hours.

Being able to make an entire world in a city block, a building, a single apartment.

Not knowing of the gang next door is more dangerous than the "police" station down the street.

Most importantly, seeing the world around you grow- and not knowing if it's societal puberty or the last throes of cancer- and being forced to grow along with it to keep up.

>What does cyberpunk mean to you?

not being a victim/pawn to mega corps

>How do you see yourself in a cyberpunk sense

I'm a computer science student so I just wish to learn as much as a can about technology

>what do you do about it

Only use Free Software and GNU/Linux on all of my computers, as well as encrypt all external harddrives

>what are you as a cyberpunk citizen?

Just another anon

Cyberpunk to me is about the power that can come from knowing the ins and outs of technology. Even if you're powerless in the overworld, you can still take some for yourself by knowing how to exploit the systems that society relies on.

In a literal sense I'm not very cyberpunk, probably the closest thing to it I've done is made a program that went through an auction site and bid on things. Not very cyberpunk until I realized it was accessing/bidding on unlisted things, as in the item didn't show up in search results or browsing, so I was the only person bidding on it (at first, anyway). Not hacking really, but accessing the underlying system and bypassing the controlling, user-friendly surface layer to get at the innards and help myself to the stuff that had fallen through the cracks.

1. Just saw it as a fictional genre. Didn't realize people consider it a lifestyle until I started lurking cyber a little while ago. While basing your identity around it may seem a bit eccentric I don't think the idea is irrelevant in today's world. Many of the cyberpunk predictions from the past have come true, and the world is becoming more dystopian year by year, but is it a reaction or escapism?

2. I can't even program my oven's timer. I'm a cyberpunk media consumer. Nothing more.

basically shadowrun on snes

1. Cyberpunk is any future, real or imagined, where we as a species basically punt on all of our most pressing issues. Inequality, surveillance, corporate control, the environment, public mental health, fuck it all, let's make more gadgets and push more ads. Prime examples of this genre are Neuromancer, Snow Crash, The Windup Girl, and the 21st century's future history according to Star Trek right up until First Contact.

2. I'm a former Seattle gutterpunk like a Shadowrunner without the magic, currently working as a corp decker in another sprawl.

1) High tech world but also the failure of this technology to improve the lives of humans at all and in fact can make our lives more miserable.

The world also has contradictions such as the great promise and wealth in the society which is wasted by corruption as the government and mega-corps rule

I also see cyberpunk as existing in an isolating and atomized world

I feel as if this opens up the individual(hacker) who wants more from the world to more adventure and esoteric pursuits.

This is my first imageboard and the experience has been enlightening

So 2)

I would see myself as in the cyberpunk world as the ordinary person who is so bored with the world that he is eventually caught up into underworld like a Neo or Neal Stephenson or Thomas Pynchon novel(Crying of Lot 49)

I don't even think I would win or "fight" against fed-corp but just shitpost, dig and try and redpill others but anything is possible.

>What does cyberpunk mean to you?

Listening to Samantha Fox on Sony Walkman while blasting through Pacman on my new Commodore64, which I've download from some BBS with my 2600 baud modem. Then getting bored a bit, putting my badass leather jacket on, hopping on skateboard and rushing through hot melting summer streets and sipping soda while I'm reaching new chillest hangout.

>what are you as a cyberpunk citizen?

Cyberpunk is me.

>What does cyberpunk mean to you?

It means living in a world where you can actually make brouzouf just watching ads (three cents an hour, but you can actually do this with some Android bitcoin faucet apps).

It means living in a world where a computer costs $100 and we put them in everything.

It means living in a world where holograms are just starting to be feasible, where the city is everything.

And it means sitting in a little mom-and-pop gas station, nestled between major corporate offices, and having a home-made burger in their barely-big-enough kitchen while you type away on your home PC via SSH.

>How do you see yourself in a cyberpunk sense?

I wanna be the guy. I just suck at it. And I don't live close enough to anything (downtown, makerspaces, not even a fucking Best Buy around here) to really get into that late-night city feel.

I wanna move to this place off in another state, but I don't have the brouzouf for it, so I'm gonna move into some apartment nearby with my sister helping me pay rent.

>What does cyberpunk mean to you?

A particular form of literature that extrapolates current(as in 21st-century) societal, cultural, political, and economic circumstances into the future in a slightly pessimistic way. Usually confined to Urban environments concerning "underworld" characters.

>How do you see yourself in a cyberpunk sense. what do you do about it/ what are you as a cyberpunk citizen?

I'm freetarded, so I guess you could say that I'm a cyberunk, in some sense. I dont really see myself in a cyberpunk sense since the world (at least the one I perceive) doesn't match with the predictions of cyberpunk writers, so it's silly to describe myself that way.

>>33650

>>33649

Now, to me a hardcore cyberpunk is one who is constantly tinkering with stuff and expands ones knowledge in all areas technical (because this is what surrounds us these days) to exploit said knowledge in a way that helps in life. Guess you could say it's the hacker mindset as the big guys at Defcon say. Curiousity mixed with utilitarian DIY stuff, being smart about what you spend brouzouf on (for example : not buying retarded gaymurr cases when you could buy better hardware for the brouzouf and such). Let's grab some things the others said to illustrate it better:

>>33670

>Learn valuable skills that would increase my chances in a society where technology has a deeper and deeper impact on our lives

>>33680

>I just wish to learn as much as a can about technology

>>33684

>Cyberpunk to me is about the power that can come from knowing the ins and outs of technology. Even if you're powerless in the overworld, you can still take some for yourself by knowing how to exploit the systems that society relies on.

>>34012

>While the plebs worry about the most recent scandals and pop-star relationships you worry about hardening your network and playing with the airwaves.

>>34019

>I also like to tinker with, well… Basically everything. I just can wrap my mind around how someone can interact with an object and not wonder how it works.

Without any actual knowledge about electronics, computing, or whatever, i have been able to build lots of interesting trinkets with just learning by observation and trial & error, it may not be much, but it's my little cyberpunk activity and it makes me proud.

These are thought which I can endorse and live by. This is how I imagine a hardcore cyberpunk. If there is one thing I would insert into the imagined ideal cyberpunk mindset is : avoiding escapism . I know this will divide the community, but I think watching series frequently (anime or normie tier) is useless, same with vidya. Do not think I don't watch stuff occasionally, but these just drain you and you achieve nothing. Occasionally it's okay for inspiration or stuff, but frequently? waste of time. I have this little thing, this saying that intelligence is about moving on, dealing with the circumstances, finding alternatives, and devolving into escapism is neither of these. You could say that this whole cyberpunk identity is escapism too, but it can have a beneficial effect on your life (unlike activities mentioned above). I have seen too much souls dwelling and drowning in escapism which crippled them, that it just makes me sad. Sorry for the buttblasted post from earlier but I was just a bit drunk and frustrated because everyone was being a normie around me at the time.

post-script : sorry if I butchered english

PS2: what I was trying to say, it doesn't matter whether you live in a big city or in a village either, it's the mindset that matters (also today's tech reaches all quarters of the world so double meaning there)

> What does cyberpunk mean to you?

High tech, low life. The grimy underbelly of society living off whatever tech they can scrounge from the crystal palaces of the corprocrat overlords.

Apart from the social stuff, a lot of it is aesthetics. Neon signs in the rain, a smoggy urban sprawl, steel and concrete.

> How do you see yourself in a cyberpunk sense/ what do you do about it / what are you as a cyberpunk citizen?

Not much really; I use Free software, encrypt everything, dabble in tinkering and coding. Given that I'm pretty far from the aesthetics of cyberpunk (not in the city, clean western air), all that's left is patterns of behaviour, like paranoia and dislike of corporate consumerist bullshit.

I'm more comfortable with computers than people, but I guess that just makes me a dysfunctional shut-in rather than some genius codesmith.

>>33429

Being a newcomer to cyberpunk, I think it encompasses liberty, an intense focus on technology, curiosity, rebelliousness, and somewhat of a fantasy element.

Yeah, science-fiction eventually becomes science fact, but cyberpunk involves some schway concepts that may not be attainable.

As far as how I see myself in it, my love of tech and fascination with how it works helps.

I'm also not fond of the current authorities, especially with their attempts to coral the internet.

Corporations gaining massive influence in politics and everyday occurences like reality, also shitty living, constant crime and technology constantly updating.

We are kinda living in a cyberpunk world

>What kind of citizen.

A nobody.