- This is "Cyberpunk 2077."
It's an upcoming video game from CD Projekt RED
based on the cult classic tabletop role-playing game
from Mike Pondsmith that lets you be
a stylish renegade in a corporate dystopia
using cybernetic implants to hack the planet
while people call you thinks like chumbata.
But it's not just a work of fiction.
Our cyberpunk future is already happening.
(intriguing music)
Welcome to Explainiac.
I'm Dan Casey, and on today's episode
we're breaking down our cultural obsession
with the cyberpunk genre and looking at how
what was once science fiction
is quickly becoming science fact.
Now when you think of cyberpunk, what comes to mind?
A grimy megacity where it's constantly raining
and people in vinyl jackets and metal arms
are basked in bisexual neon lighting
that just emits from the cathode ray tubes
of massive corporate advertisements
written in Japanese characters?
Is it transhumanism, vast wealth inequality,
androids walking among us?
When it comes to cyberpunk for me,
I can think of no better example
than Harrison Ford eating ramen noodles in a trench coat.
First coined by writer Bruce Bethke
in his 1980 short story, "Cyberpunk,"
the genre often feels like
the sci-fi expansion pack for pulp detective fiction
that was popularized by writers
like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
In truth, it's a cyber stew of different influences,
pulling from the works of new wave
speculative fiction writers of the 1960s
like Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison.
Most modern cyberpunk tropes can be attributed
to a trio of profoundly influential works from the 1980s.
William Gibson's "Neuromancer,"
Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner,"
and Katsuhiro Otomo's "Akira."
Now while these aren't the only influences on the genre,
they are considered genre defining
and laid the groundwork for much of what
we've come to associate with the term cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk, especially as portrayed
in the world of "Cyberpunk 2077,"
is often defined by the phrase, "low life, high tech,"
provides a critical lens to explore feelings
of encroaching paranoia,
the effects of rampant corporate greed,
the consequences of rapid technological innovation,
the ways transhumanism would fundamentally alter society,
and much more.
Literary critic Fredric Jameson said in his book,
"Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic
"of Late Capitalism," that cyberpunk is, quote,
"The supreme literary expression if not of Postmodernism,
"then of late capitalism itself," end quote.
While that may sound needlessly stuffy
or overwrought to some, all you need to do
is look at the world around you,
see the truth in Jameson's words.
Case in point, corporate dystopia.
It's not just a cyberpunk literary trope,
it's all around us as burned into our brains
by "Blade Runner" and nearly every
subsequent cyberpunk story.
Massive corporations, Japanese zaibatsus,
and leviathanic conglomerates dominate every aspect of life.
In cyberpunk stories, the only mom-and-pop shops left
tend to be black market operations,
night market noodle stands,
or sex parlors, usually with robots.
But honestly, it's not that far off
from where we're heading.
In order to facilitate insanely fast delivery times
that we're accustomed to nowadays,
some massive companies are planning to replace
human workers with a fleet of drones
that could both deliver parcels
and serve as a surveillance system.
Others are using AI-powered solutions
to do things as dire as track workers' productivity
and automatically fire them
if they fall below a certain threshold.
Our on-demand culture has created
brutal working conditions,
the likes of which we've seen satirized
in films like Boots Riley's "Sorry to Bother You."
But honestly, isn't it worth it
so I can get a 10 pound gummy bear within 48 hours?
Ha ha, mm, the taste of human suffering.
Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos
are lauded for their efforts to innovate
commercial space travel and their plans
to establish lunar bases and Mars colonies
because as we all know, Mars needs moms.
And the prospect of a decaying urban hellscape
offset by the prospect of a better life off-world,
well that's about as cyberpunk as it gets.
However, these billionaires are also
under fire for not dedicating more
of their vast personal wealth
to fixing problems that we have right here on our planet.
Because why worry about the fact
that the bees are dying at an alarming rate
when we can all just blast off on our ecology seed ship
and start LARPing the expanse, yeah!
But speaking of problems on our planet,
we're staring down the barrel
of one of the most cyberpunk of all issues:
imminent societal collapse.
Like the burnt-out shell of Las Vegas in "Blade Runner 2049"
or the urban decay of "Akira,"
our future will likely be one in which
society as we know it has broken down,
leading to new power structures filling that vacuum.
Whether this occurs from the surveillance state
reaching critical mass as police departments
and school systems increasingly rely
on AI-powered facial recognition systems,
real-world version of social credit systems
like the one featured in "Black Mirror's"
"Nosedive" episode, based on how
you conduct yourself privately and publicly,
or just from some good old fashioned nuclear war,
the world feels like it's heading
increasingly towards a major conflict.
After all, the Doomsday Clock is two minutes to midnight,
and then Gremlins rules apply.
At this point, you're probably tired
of hearing the phrase "fake news",
but honestly, it's about as cyberpunk as it gets,
especially with the advent of deepfakes.
The US government is already deeply concerned
about the threat that deepfakes pose
to the 2020 presidential election.
As proven by that Nancy Pelosi video that went viral,
these AI-generated videos can make politicians
seemingly do and say things
that they absolutely did not do IRL.
They don't violate Facebook's Terms of Service,
they're the living definition of fake news,
and they've even been shared by the president himself.
In short, they're a perfect tool
for malicious actors to destabilize a world
that's already built atop a crumbling foundation.
So, speaking of crumbling foundation,
how is this collapse going to happen,
you might be wondering.
Well, it could be the result of catastrophic climate change
and the mass extinction of biodiversity
that some scientists say we're already in the midst of.
Maybe, we'll push those Boston Dynamics robots too far
during one of their lighthearted test videos
in which people relentlessly harass them.
I mean, we've already seen what happened
to that poor hitchhiking robot in Philadelphia,
a city best known for cheesesteaks
and sports-related riots.
Or, the best case scenario is that we're just in the Matrix
and this is a really lousy plot twist
in the simulation that Elon Musk
has mused that we're definitely a part of.
On the plus side, aesthetically speaking,
well, the universe is right on track.
This has been America's wettest 12-month period on record
since "Titanic" came out, which bodes well
for a perpetually rainy cyberpunk future
that feels like it's straight out of
"Blade Runner," or "Ghost in the Shell,"
or "Altered Carbon," or, you guys get it, right?
You get it.
At least I can enjoy some white noise
as climate change slowly ravages the Earth.
(white noise hisses)
But let's be real.
If Cyberpunk 2077 series lore is any indication,
we're just gonna be caught up in the midst
of a series of elaborate corporate wars
as media conglomerates use paramilitary organizations
to wage proxy wars for control
of our hearts, minds, and streaming service dollars.
Also, probably real estate.
If you've ever played a game like "Deus Ex"
or watched an anime like "Ghost in the Shell,"
the notion of the future being full of highly regulated
military and paramilitary organizations
wielding terrifying technology should feel familiar.
It's not that far off from
what's happening in real life, either.
The United States government spent
many years and millions of dollars trying to develop
Iron Man-esque suits of armor known as TALOS,
but they've since scrapped that in favor of enlisting firms
like Lockheed Martin and Dephy to build
robotic exoskeletons that would reduce strain
and ideally allow soldiers to move faster.
Back in April, 2018, a university lab in South Korea
came under fire for working with
aerospace and defense company Hanwha Systems
to create technology that many feared
would lead to autonomous killer robots
that could be used in war.
Now, I don't know about you,
but I'm not trying to live in any "Terminator" movie at all,
but especially not "Terminator Genisys,"
or gen-ee-sees, as true cinephiles call it,
because it's not because it's a dark timeline,
it's just 'cause that movie sucks ass.
Just chugs.
Meanwhile, Russia, not content to develop
laser technology and sonic weaponry,
is apparently training a beluga whale to become a spy.
So not even SeaWorld is safe anymore,
and that's not a joke, it's a very real story.
Just look at this adorable agent of chaos.
Who knows what secrets he's storing in his blowhole.
Honestly, folks, we are one step away
from the plot of "Day of the Dolphin" coming true.
Just look at that movie poster
if you want to know what I'm talking about.
If we can't change the future,
we can at least change ourselves.
One of the hallmarks of cyberpunk storytelling
is transhumanism and body augmentation.
The process of replacing our low-tech analog meat
with advanced cybernetics, implants, and artificial limbs.
In China, scientists are working
on a brain-computer interface, or BCI.
It's a microchip that will give you
a form of limited telepathy by translating your brainwaves
into tangible information and actions on a computer.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Washington
are making a way for people to telepathically play Tetris.
Great.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University
are making strides towards creating
what they're calling the first ever
noninvasive mind-controlled robotic arm,
which eschews a brain implant that most of them need
in favor of a cap that translates your brain signals
into real world action.
Thanks to innovations like CRISPR,
the prospect of gene editing has become a reality,
leading to a host of what many fear
will be a trend of designer babies
where parents pick and choose what traits
they want their future progeny to have,
you know, like the Genesis Chamber in Krypton or something.
We just have to be careful that we don't
wind up with a boss baby on our hands,
because the last thing that we need
is a little terror voiced by Alec Baldwin
running a major corporation
like the ones in "Cyberpunk 2077."
If this sounds bleak, it's because it is.
We're staring down the barrel of a loaded gun
and trying to figure out how
to disarm it before it's too late.
We're drawn to speculative fiction,
especially the neon-bathed dystopia of cyberpunk,
because we wanna process the world around us
and make sense of the swirling chaos,
and I mean, yeah it's fun to talk about
Elon Musk (beep) posting about anime,
but we should also talk about how societal collapse
is predicted to happen by 2050.
Well, cyberpunk has always felt
like what's going to happen in our far-flung future,
realistically, it's just a matter of decades away.
It could very well happen within our lifetime,
and it probably won't be nearly as stylish
as what "Blade Runner," "Ghost in the Shell,"
"Altered Carbon," any of those have supposed.
This isn't me trying to scare you.
The dynamic duo of escapism and philosophical critique
that cyberpunk fiction offers us
is worthy of consideration, contemplation, and consumption.
But in doing so, we must also look at the world around us
to ensure that we wind up in that topia, not dystopia.
I'm so sorry.
Because I don't know about you,
but I'd much rather live in "Blade Runner's" Los Angeles
than "Mad Max: Fury Road's" desiccated wasteland.
I get very thirsty and also I cannot run.
That dust would probably be murder on my allergies.
Oof, don't want it.
But tell me, what do you think?
Do you think that we're preemptively doomed?
What aspect of our cyberpunk future
are you looking forward to?
Let me know in the comments below
and give me a thumbs up while you're there.
Thank you so much for watching.
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and I want you to be a part of it.
Now remember, not everything in life can be explained,
but for everything else, there's this show.
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