Hi Tech | Low Life
Safe to say we are in an actual Science Fiction dystopia. Not to the extent of Blade Runner or Judge Dredd, but more along the lines of Ubisoft’s games Watch Dogs 1/2/3 .
In fact, I’ve just replayed Watch Dogs 2, which was released 9 years ago (from the time of this post’s inception) and it’s EERILY too close to what is going on and what is brewing with the political landscape, corporate control and plain, vanilla big-brother surveillance.
We are definitely degrading our living situation. The gap between rich and poor has widened… the added space from the destruction of the middle class. The cost of literally everything is going up. The economy is so close to tanking, the uber-rich are currently moving their investments to other countries, meaning the value of the dollar is about to tank.
On the other side, we have the AI bubble in full overfill. AI is helping, but also we’re still in the early stages of AI, so we’re not sure how to use, apply and maintain it.
So basically, we are a High Tech, Low Life society. The definition of cyberpunk dystopia.
When Cyberpunk was created (intuited), it was the 80s and punk rockers were the street thugs of the time. I remember that time. The Hells Kitchen of Daredevil and Spider-Man was overrun with mowhawks, spiky jewelry and leather. NY in the G.I. Joe comics also overrun with punk rockers.
80s movies also portrayed the low life of street level culture as punk rock.
The dystopia of 80s Cyberpunk looked like the crowd at a concert I would have loved to attend.
The tech wasn’t any better.
Electronics back then were close to what we have now, but still slow, simple and in early stages (like AI currently).
To connect via modem, we had to place a telephone receiver (the part you hold to your ear and talk into) onto the modem. Everything worked through sound.
We even saved and loaded data using tapes similar to audio cassettes. I say “similar”, but they were totally cassettes.
ANYWAYYYYYYyyyyy… I don’t feel like going through all of cyberpunk references throughout the near history. I will say, go read, watch, consume Cyberpunk Sci-Fi. Good stuff. There’s a 90s documentary about Cyberpunk available on YT. The Cyberpunk 2077 video game is based on the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020 which came out in 1988 and was created by the great Mike Pondsmith.
Here’s the intro video to the game Watch Dogs 2. It lays down the plot of CToS… which eerily mirrors what is happening now. As of New Years 2026. The game even covers the conspiring corporations, tech companies, privatized and federal militaries, space tech companies… literally everything that is real was covered in this game… released in 2016, development started in 2014. So 12 years ago, the writers of this game pinned the smallest tail on the smallest donkey. Somehow.
BTW… even though it’s dystopian and big brother… embrace it.
If you own change, then change ain’t nuttin’ but a thang…