I'm real bummed that big takeaway of generic "cyberpunk" has somehow distilled into "Do bOdy mOdiFicAtionS mAke uS leSs hUMan???" and not "Do corporations deserve the same rights as people and how do we hold onto our humanity in the face if moving closer and closer to becoming mere data points in a system that values commomidfication over everything else"
Yeah definitely, transhumansim thematically definitely has, I just don't like that somehow an ableist take on it has become one of the biggest dominators
YEAH ITS IN A LOT OF IT. I guess it does depend on your take too ....like Blade Runner is kind of quintessential cyberpunk and I would say it's very much about how "humanity" =/= your body (ie/ we are meant to empathise with replicants)
tbf I feel like there's genuinely been very little good cyberpunk ever...I just feel like we live in a time rife really interesting conversations about corporations, and technology, which were both big hallmarks of the genre
you kind of look at old cyberpunk stuff thats full of .... leering voyeurism about imagined body modification and r just like Why Have We Not Moved Any Further Than This
like im sure there has always been cyberpunk stuff that didnt suck in this specific way but there absolutely always has also been tons of stuff that did
SOMEONE RETELL REPO FOR 2019 BECAUSE THE IDEA OF "YOUR HEALTH BEING SOMETHING BIG COMPANIES WILL TAKE CARE OF UNTIL YOU CAN NO LONGER MAKE PAYMENTS" SURE IS REAL
I think ultimately "cyberpunk" as it was is no longer socially relevant and so if you are going to make a point about anything you kind of have to shed a lot of those basic cyberpunk concepts and move forward
"does a robot arm make you less human" is a useless question because, to me anyway, the answer is pretty much flat out no with no real room for argument
yeah like even fucking medical prosthetics aside its like. people irl get facial implants to look like a lizard man. people irl get modifications to look increasingly like their romantic partner until you cant tell which features came from which one originally or whatever. Calm Down
BUT IM SURE THERE ARE OTHER BORING READS ON BLADE RUNNER LIKE "DECKARD IS A HUMAN"this does not lessen my absolute dislike of doktor sleepless thoseriously, the musical Repo is just getting more relevant by the year with health care and people literally being addicted to plastic surgery