A cyberpunk dystopia without the cool stuff is unfolding before our very eyes
Can we have a discussion about how far/close are we from a cyberpunk world? Someone on an imageboard a while back made this list about some events towards a cyberpunk world.
Some of these events are already occurring.
Economy:
>Bankruptcy states
>Collapse of U.S. economy
>Drastic increase of essential commodities prices
>Famines
>Metanational corporations (without fixed country)
>Takeover of food production by states / megacorporations
Environment:
>Climate changes
>Depletion of global resources
>Depletion of oil resources
>Dwindling supplies of drinking water
>Ecocide
>Multiplication of large-scale natural disasters
Geopolitics:
>Balkanization of United States and others countries
>Countries serving as data bank and respecting more or less international laws
>Exacerbation of nationalism
>Internal destabilization of China
>Resource wars
>Severe strengthening of borders of rich countries to fight immigration
>Undermining of U.S. hegemony
Social:
>Abandonment of any kind of social welfare
>Bloodsports
>Brainwashing and deceiving of the masses through mass media
>Control of society by powerful megacorporations
>Disappearance of any criticism against the excesses of society
>Disappearance of middle classes
>Disappearance of social ties
>Drugs more or less legal massively distributed and consumed
>Emergence of many sects and other religious fanatics
>Emergence of nomads
>Epidemics and pandemics
>Frenzied urbanization and emergence of giant megalopolis
>Growing technology gap and emergence of a "low tech" population
>Lawlessness urban areas
>Mass exodus
>Non education of the people (privatization of education, reserved only for the rich)
>Power increase of criminal cartels
>Press entirely controlled by states / megacorporations
>Private polices and armies
>Puppet states controlled by mega-corporations
>Rich-poor abyssal disparity
>Riots and uprisings violently repressed and tools for this repression
>Violent confrontation between states and criminal cartels
Technology:
>Artificial intelligence and advanced computing
>Brain-machine interface
>Control and surveillance of society by all possible technological means
>Cybernetics
>Cyberwarfare
>Early colonization of solar system
>Electromagnetic and futuristic weapons
>Exoskeletons
>Infowar
>Internet everywhere
>Nano and biotechnologies
>Permanent connection to the Net and virtual/augmented reality
>Robotics
People only change when they have no choice. The catchphrase "the earth is on fire" is cute but until the earth is actually burning then one option is to get used to that status quo. You too, can help keep it in place with any number of distractions. Culture war is quite popular these days.
