What is a cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk
is a science-fiction genre born in literature, which focuses on people living
in technologically advanced future (main technological focus is put on
information technology and cybernetics). It typically focuses on the dark side
of technological advancement, which is connection to the machine and cyberspace
through cybernetic implants.
The rule is that in the
world of cyberpunk there exist companies and corporations which are extremely
influential. Because of that all the civilization is concentrated in the
cut-off cities where freedom and liberty are taken from people under the guise
of defense of humanity. This often leads to the origin of rebellious
underground groups. The last thing to mention is cyberspace. It's like an
internet, but with proper implants or equipment you are able to connect your
mind to. This was the cause of creation of the information society, where
information is an extremely valuable commodity. The commodity which
hackers can provide for the right price.
What is the vision of cyberpunk corporations?
As
mentioned before, the rule in this genre is presence of corporations which are extremely influential. What it would be like
if the free market was controlled by a few corporations, which control all -the
business in the world? Imagine a world, where everything is owned by coca-cola.
Imagine,
that even police, politics and scientific research can be controlled by
corporations. This is cyberpunk. A world in which very few people control every
aspect of your life and society has lost its rights to fight.
This vision,
created by William Gibson, isn’t very appealing. His work depicted a world
extremely different to the utopian vision of future from 1950s. One example of his
work is Johnny Mnemonic. It is a story about a person who, thanks to a brain
implant, is able to secretly transport valuable information. I am pretty sure many, if not every one of us, heard that name. It might be because of move adaptation of the story. Why am I bringing this up? The main focus in this movie is on data held by Johnny. This data stolen from a pharmacological company contain a cure for a disease which ravages the civilization. Now imagine you have such a cure. Would you share it with everyone? Or would you sell it for thousands of dollars?
Why do I bring this topic up?
What do you
think about it? Are we in danger of creating such a monster? Nowadays companies
are involved in many aspects of our lives. We are dependent on brands and buy
things with no real need for them. With this, companies gain more money and
thus more power. As money can grant you many things. This can be seen in the TV
series called “Better Off Ted”. There you can see an exaggerated corporate life
in a corporation called Veridian Dynamics. This stereotypically evil company
experiments on its employees, twists the truth, and will do everything to
achieve its goals.
- Do you think this fiction will become reality?
- Have you seen “Better Off Ted”? Is it really that exaggerated?
Comments
But back to the original topic. I don’t believe that there is any company in the world that can influence the politics in such a scale that is shown in Cyberpunk. And I don’t think that it will ever happen in the formidable future. The main reason is that most of those companies have conflict of interest so they had to agree among themselves how to influence the global politics to serve all their interests. And no company is rich enough to take action large enough to influence our life in some significant way (start a war for example). Of course they have billions $ of income but that is still not enough.
But I agree that we face a problem like companies that are so large that “they are too big to fall” as the recent financial crisis shown. That is the responsibility of the world governments not to allow that to happen ever again, and I believe that preclusion matters taken after the bankruptcy of Leman Brothers bank will be sufficient.
As for the “Better Off Ted” I’ve never saw even a fragment so I don’t have anything to say about it.
In the worst scenario, the most influential companies could start making a little countries and next expand influence further and force people their will and products.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUK-4c_6-rI
To me there is just one especially influencial trade. It's pharmacology and medicine. There are many illness, which can be cure. Unfortunately people, which suffer are not rich enough to undergo therapy. For these people such companies have essential influence, life or death. Just one word and they can support any person and treat her/him.
However on the other hand companies have also influence on our's everyday life. They make products with particular features, they decide what we can and can't possess, they control supplies and prices and what is most important they create our needs. Basicly they decide for us how our life will look like. Of course not everyone will follow it, but only few will resist. It's hard to go against the current. Live simple life and do not care about trends and other people. To me somehow it means give up your development, staing behind others. People expect you to look, think and behave some particular way and if you are diffrent you do not fit to this society. You will not achieve your goals (or at least it'll be harder) This expectation are created by marketing and developed by society as no one wants to be an outcast.
I have never seen and even heard about “Better Off Ted” I do not have opinion about it.
I've heard the term 'cyberpunk' before but had somewhat vague picture of what it really means (I thought it focus on technology and robotics but without those big corporations aspects). And while I was reading this, I've asked myself a question "so, isn't it true that we kind of live in cyberpunk now?" There's already so much power and influence possesed by so small amount of entities, most of them of business character rather than political. And it seems like never before so much was controlled by so few.
I'm not particulary afraid of this vision, I can imagine even worse scenarios for humanity ;)
As for Better off Ted, I've never heard of this...
being spied by NSA and others anyway so this chips are not that needed.
As Sylwia mentioned - pharmacy is a good example.
Companies like Samsung in Korea which are very influential.
Facebook with all its data.
Amazon - hosting 1/3 of the Internet.
Gas companies. Car manufacturers slowing down changes in the industry.
And many many more, with governments on top of them, spying all of them.
2. Do not know what are You talking about :)
And yeah, I've never watched that, so cannot really say anything creative here.
I have never seen “Better Off Ted” so I can’t answer this question.