A revised essay, originally posted April, 2008
The Death and Return of CyberpunkThe "Now You See Me, Now You Don't" of Cyberliterature, and What We Might Learn From It
"God is dead," said Nietzsche, "And we have killed him." It's probably not the best segue, but I'm going to use it regardless. Unlike God (or specifically, God as a source of moral codes), cyberpunk as a genre is not dead. Neither have we killed it. But more and more, I noted that it seemed to be dying a slow death brought on by postcyberpunk.
One of the core tenants of cyberpunk, I would say, is the idea that the main characters (the protagonists in an art or literary work, or the player characters in a role playing game) are not really heroes. Even if their actions are heroic, their goals rarely are (I would argue also, that such characters are not anti-heroes, either, but are perhaps more akin to anti-villains, using heroic or villainous methods and actions to achieve self-interested goals, whichever is more appropriate to a situation). Largely, I would say this idea has remained intact even within the postcyberpunk genre, but seems to be fading, the archetype replaced by characters who have the betterment of society in mind, or at least who want to prevent the world from falling into further dystopia (if such elements are still present).
The key in my mind, however, is the role of technology. In cyberpunk, the characters have a relationship with technology that is antagonistic, or at the very least, is adversarial. Many characters doubtlessly benefit from cybernetic implants (especially the hackers who use neural interfaces to enter cyberspace), but the simple fact is that these characters are at the bottom rung of society because technology put them there. Whatever the reason for it, technology has alienated the characters from mainstream society, or at least from "straight" society, as the case is often that mainstream society is at the bottom rung as well. I'm most familiar with Shadowrun, and while I would not call it "definitive cyberpunk", it will work well enough for this. Advances in technology (among other factors) have allowed megacorporations to subvert governments and achieve unprecedented control; in some places (such as Aztlan), megacorporations are the government (as seen in the near total domination of Meso-America by megacorp. Aztechnology). For whatever reason, these same advances have put the main characters in a position where they can longer operate by the rules set down by the corporations, forcing them into the shadows.
A friend of mine pointed out that the reason cyberpunk was so effective during its initial phase (the 1980s thru the 1990s) was the scope of "tech sprawl", or the invasive spread of technology. The idea of technology being everywhere was, he said, "completely outrageous". Looking back, I find that I agree with him. Everything needed wires back then, and even the smallest computer was still hefty enough that in a pinch, it could be dropped on an elephant to kill it. The concept of a small, portable and powerful computer that plugged into the skull, immersing the user in a richly detailed virtual world was unheard of, cool and, perhaps most importantly, frightening. If VR could be shaped into anything, why would anyone want to bother with the real world? Technology in cyberpunk was not a marvel that made human life easier; it was a terrifying monster that destroyed humanity. As cyberpunks added more metal to their bodies, they lost more of their humanity; with each successive surgery, they became more alien and somehow less human, to the point of being forced into "the shadows". The fact that this alienation was the very thing that enabled the megacorporate giants of the world to take control only emphasized what was silently spoken; there was such a thing as too much technology, and it was bad for the health of society. While the characters at the core of the mess might not have particularly cared about the state of society so long as they could keep living, it struck deep with the outside observers. And suddenly, as my friend pointed out, we the outside observers looked up from our literature and realized that technology already was everywhere.
In the wake of this realization, a paradigm shift was called for. Everyone had a computer, laptops were (relatively) portable and everyone had a cell phone. Cyberpunk would due no longer; the future had arrived, and it was nothing like what we expected. Cyberpunk was dead. Enter postcyberpunk. In contrast with cyberpunk, postcyberpunk sees characters who are not antagonized by technology (necessarily), but who gloss over it because technology is so ingrained into society that it's become nearly transparent. In part, this is because of the changes we've seen in our own world (as mentioned above). In the 1980s, computers were still an expensive thing, used primarily by universities and corporations. Digital technology was entering the mainstream, but it was still very alien to many people, and became adversarial when it began making some occupations obsolete. How long would it take before governments had the means to control everything? It fit well within the framework of 1989, when Shadowrun was first published, that technology had put megacorporations at the top of the world and allowed civilization to crash and burn. However, when the 4th edition of Shadowrun was published in 2005, the role of technology had changed; everyone had a cell phone, as I said, and a lot of people had cell phones that could almost replace personal computers for word processing and data management. Many technologies were wireless. It didn't fit into the cyberpunk mold anymore, and so the setting underwent changes. It maintained many of its old elements, but the power and role of technology was emphasized; technology was no longer the enemy of society. It was society.
More importantly, however, was that cyberpunk itself didn't fit the mold of society any longer. In 1992, it was perhaps easy to imagine the inaccessibility of a corporate mainframe; you had to break inside the building itself and find a port to plug your brain into before you could touch it. But even in 2005, who didn't have a cell phone that could connect to the Internet without wires? At the very least, who didn't have a home computer that could connect to the Internet in some way? As our own society evolved, and as technology evolved to meet the needs of society, we saw the role of technology, and our perceptions of it changing. It became increasingly difficult to demonize technology, because we had become dependant on it for survival. And thus, did I declare that cyberpunk was dead.
Was I correct to declare it dead? I was not. Really, one needed only look across the oceans to China to get a different viewpoint; a nation where people are displaced from their homes (which are sometimes demolished while they are still occupied) to make way for progress. A country, also, where access to information is controlled by filters on the Internet and state-run media, and no one finds this unusual. Technological progress, and in some cases, technology itself, reassumed an adversarial role relative to the people. Things that were fears in 1989 in the United States were realities in 2008 in China, and still are today in 2009. Things that contributed to the creation of cyberpunk have appeared in China (and other places in the world, like Saudi Arabia). To the United States, however, it is plain to see that they never left. Cyberpunk was never truly dead; only sleeping.
Technology is everywhere in society. Technology is society. But still technology alienates humans from the society it now comprises. Cameras are not everywhere, yet, but they are appearing in more and more locations. Everyday, cell phones can do more and more as powerful microprocessors become smaller and less expensive. Where does the office assistant fit in? Information technologies now link every major business to every other business, and is beginning to link consumers directly to the business. Where does the sales clerk fit in? What about RFID: Radio Frequency Identification? It's already used in warehouses and storerooms, making it faster, easier and less expensive to manage inventories and track traveling parcels. It's also in credit cards and U.S. passports; with a wave of a magic wand, anyone can find out the information contained on it. How long before all your credentials, including any criminal convictions, are available to anyone with the right wand? Prosthetic limbs are wide-spread, robust, and increasingly electronic. All that is needed for true cybernetics is a direct connection to the central nervous system. What does this mean?
Even as technology marches onward and upward, becoming increasingly transparent, there are many who may not like the path it is following. Most are likely unwilling to sacrifice the "real world" for a virtual one. No one wants cameras everywhere, recording everything. No one wants to leave a "byte trail" everywhere they go. But this is the direction of technological progress not in the future, but in the now. And a lot of it is, indeed, alienating on some level. When will it stop? Will it ever stop?
Cyberpunk died, but it was never truly dead, lurking at the very edge of our perception. It was waiting, watching for the right moment to return. It may do all of us well to remember that postcyberpunk did not appear from thin air, but as the second act of cyberpunk, bridging the gap until its parent returned, heavier and more frightening than ever. Information is more free now than it ever has been before, but this is a two-way street. Just as we can now learn more about corporations, governments, laws and alternative viewpoints, so too can those entities learn about us. Cyberpunk is not the encroaching nightmare of 1984 any longer, but is now the quiet phantom in the darkness, whispering to us about everything we've forgotten because the future happened. Its whispers are not revelations, but instead, are warnings. We all benefit greatly from the spread of technology; this is a core tenant of the transhumanist movement. But technology can also cause great harm, and its spread is, without a watchful eye, infectious and intrusive.
Do we smash the machines? We do not. We allow the machines to continue spreading, and evolving. With each iteration, it becomes more portable, more powerful and, more importantly, more accessible. But with each iteration, as well, comes creep, the tendency of more than what was initially intended for the technology to slip into its scope unnoticed. It is not technology we must be wary of, but the technology creep. Just as scope creep can poison an IT project with unintended functionality, technology creep can poison society with unintended consequences. This is what we must learn from the death and return of cyberpunk; that unchecked expansion always carries with it unintended consequences.
"God is dead," said Nietzsche, "And we have killed him." It's probably not the best segue, but I'm going to use it regardless. Unlike God (or specifically, God as a source of moral codes), cyberpunk as a genre is not dead. Neither have we killed it. But more and more, I noted that it seemed to be dying a slow death brought on by postcyberpunk.
One of the core tenants of cyberpunk, I would say, is the idea that the main characters (the protagonists in an art or literary work, or the player characters in a role playing game) are not really heroes. Even if their actions are heroic, their goals rarely are (I would argue also, that such characters are not anti-heroes, either, but are perhaps more akin to anti-villains, using heroic or villainous methods and actions to achieve self-interested goals, whichever is more appropriate to a situation). Largely, I would say this idea has remained intact even within the postcyberpunk genre, but seems to be fading, the archetype replaced by characters who have the betterment of society in mind, or at least who want to prevent the world from falling into further dystopia (if such elements are still present).
The key in my mind, however, is the role of technology. In cyberpunk, the characters have a relationship with technology that is antagonistic, or at the very least, is adversarial. Many characters doubtlessly benefit from cybernetic implants (especially the hackers who use neural interfaces to enter cyberspace), but the simple fact is that these characters are at the bottom rung of society because technology put them there. Whatever the reason for it, technology has alienated the characters from mainstream society, or at least from "straight" society, as the case is often that mainstream society is at the bottom rung as well. I'm most familiar with Shadowrun, and while I would not call it "definitive cyberpunk", it will work well enough for this. Advances in technology (among other factors) have allowed megacorporations to subvert governments and achieve unprecedented control; in some places (such as Aztlan), megacorporations are the government (as seen in the near total domination of Meso-America by megacorp. Aztechnology). For whatever reason, these same advances have put the main characters in a position where they can longer operate by the rules set down by the corporations, forcing them into the shadows.
A friend of mine pointed out that the reason cyberpunk was so effective during its initial phase (the 1980s thru the 1990s) was the scope of "tech sprawl", or the invasive spread of technology. The idea of technology being everywhere was, he said, "completely outrageous". Looking back, I find that I agree with him. Everything needed wires back then, and even the smallest computer was still hefty enough that in a pinch, it could be dropped on an elephant to kill it. The concept of a small, portable and powerful computer that plugged into the skull, immersing the user in a richly detailed virtual world was unheard of, cool and, perhaps most importantly, frightening. If VR could be shaped into anything, why would anyone want to bother with the real world? Technology in cyberpunk was not a marvel that made human life easier; it was a terrifying monster that destroyed humanity. As cyberpunks added more metal to their bodies, they lost more of their humanity; with each successive surgery, they became more alien and somehow less human, to the point of being forced into "the shadows". The fact that this alienation was the very thing that enabled the megacorporate giants of the world to take control only emphasized what was silently spoken; there was such a thing as too much technology, and it was bad for the health of society. While the characters at the core of the mess might not have particularly cared about the state of society so long as they could keep living, it struck deep with the outside observers. And suddenly, as my friend pointed out, we the outside observers looked up from our literature and realized that technology already was everywhere.
In the wake of this realization, a paradigm shift was called for. Everyone had a computer, laptops were (relatively) portable and everyone had a cell phone. Cyberpunk would due no longer; the future had arrived, and it was nothing like what we expected. Cyberpunk was dead. Enter postcyberpunk. In contrast with cyberpunk, postcyberpunk sees characters who are not antagonized by technology (necessarily), but who gloss over it because technology is so ingrained into society that it's become nearly transparent. In part, this is because of the changes we've seen in our own world (as mentioned above). In the 1980s, computers were still an expensive thing, used primarily by universities and corporations. Digital technology was entering the mainstream, but it was still very alien to many people, and became adversarial when it began making some occupations obsolete. How long would it take before governments had the means to control everything? It fit well within the framework of 1989, when Shadowrun was first published, that technology had put megacorporations at the top of the world and allowed civilization to crash and burn. However, when the 4th edition of Shadowrun was published in 2005, the role of technology had changed; everyone had a cell phone, as I said, and a lot of people had cell phones that could almost replace personal computers for word processing and data management. Many technologies were wireless. It didn't fit into the cyberpunk mold anymore, and so the setting underwent changes. It maintained many of its old elements, but the power and role of technology was emphasized; technology was no longer the enemy of society. It was society.
More importantly, however, was that cyberpunk itself didn't fit the mold of society any longer. In 1992, it was perhaps easy to imagine the inaccessibility of a corporate mainframe; you had to break inside the building itself and find a port to plug your brain into before you could touch it. But even in 2005, who didn't have a cell phone that could connect to the Internet without wires? At the very least, who didn't have a home computer that could connect to the Internet in some way? As our own society evolved, and as technology evolved to meet the needs of society, we saw the role of technology, and our perceptions of it changing. It became increasingly difficult to demonize technology, because we had become dependant on it for survival. And thus, did I declare that cyberpunk was dead.
Was I correct to declare it dead? I was not. Really, one needed only look across the oceans to China to get a different viewpoint; a nation where people are displaced from their homes (which are sometimes demolished while they are still occupied) to make way for progress. A country, also, where access to information is controlled by filters on the Internet and state-run media, and no one finds this unusual. Technological progress, and in some cases, technology itself, reassumed an adversarial role relative to the people. Things that were fears in 1989 in the United States were realities in 2008 in China, and still are today in 2009. Things that contributed to the creation of cyberpunk have appeared in China (and other places in the world, like Saudi Arabia). To the United States, however, it is plain to see that they never left. Cyberpunk was never truly dead; only sleeping.
Technology is everywhere in society. Technology is society. But still technology alienates humans from the society it now comprises. Cameras are not everywhere, yet, but they are appearing in more and more locations. Everyday, cell phones can do more and more as powerful microprocessors become smaller and less expensive. Where does the office assistant fit in? Information technologies now link every major business to every other business, and is beginning to link consumers directly to the business. Where does the sales clerk fit in? What about RFID: Radio Frequency Identification? It's already used in warehouses and storerooms, making it faster, easier and less expensive to manage inventories and track traveling parcels. It's also in credit cards and U.S. passports; with a wave of a magic wand, anyone can find out the information contained on it. How long before all your credentials, including any criminal convictions, are available to anyone with the right wand? Prosthetic limbs are wide-spread, robust, and increasingly electronic. All that is needed for true cybernetics is a direct connection to the central nervous system. What does this mean?
Even as technology marches onward and upward, becoming increasingly transparent, there are many who may not like the path it is following. Most are likely unwilling to sacrifice the "real world" for a virtual one. No one wants cameras everywhere, recording everything. No one wants to leave a "byte trail" everywhere they go. But this is the direction of technological progress not in the future, but in the now. And a lot of it is, indeed, alienating on some level. When will it stop? Will it ever stop?
Cyberpunk died, but it was never truly dead, lurking at the very edge of our perception. It was waiting, watching for the right moment to return. It may do all of us well to remember that postcyberpunk did not appear from thin air, but as the second act of cyberpunk, bridging the gap until its parent returned, heavier and more frightening than ever. Information is more free now than it ever has been before, but this is a two-way street. Just as we can now learn more about corporations, governments, laws and alternative viewpoints, so too can those entities learn about us. Cyberpunk is not the encroaching nightmare of 1984 any longer, but is now the quiet phantom in the darkness, whispering to us about everything we've forgotten because the future happened. Its whispers are not revelations, but instead, are warnings. We all benefit greatly from the spread of technology; this is a core tenant of the transhumanist movement. But technology can also cause great harm, and its spread is, without a watchful eye, infectious and intrusive.
Do we smash the machines? We do not. We allow the machines to continue spreading, and evolving. With each iteration, it becomes more portable, more powerful and, more importantly, more accessible. But with each iteration, as well, comes creep, the tendency of more than what was initially intended for the technology to slip into its scope unnoticed. It is not technology we must be wary of, but the technology creep. Just as scope creep can poison an IT project with unintended functionality, technology creep can poison society with unintended consequences. This is what we must learn from the death and return of cyberpunk; that unchecked expansion always carries with it unintended consequences.