March 15, 2006
Warren Ellis Imagines a Grim Meathook Future, or…
Warren Ellis, creator of Transmetropolitan, one of the best cyberpunk comics ever, has recently posted a rather grim outlook for the future. Last week on Comicon.com, in his Warren Ellis’ Ministry Feature, he states:
I wouldn’t think there’s much doubt that things are getting strange again. And not the good kind of strange. A woman married a dolphin yesterday. Seriously. A US senator has declared that no woman can get an abortion in his own state unless she’s a committed Christian virgin who’s been beaten to within an inch of her life and anally raped. He said it on television. Quantum physicists are teleporting light. The truth behind that old “where’s my bloody jetpack” view of the future is that the future is clearly not going to be that simple. In the last few months, I’ve started to get the feeling that maybe old miseryguts JG Ballard isn’t right all the time, and the near future, at least, is going to be anything but banal. Unless, of course, you’re already so dead inside that anything short of Jesus Robots descending en masse from the centre of the sun dispensing immortality juice and flying cars makes you yawn….
…There’s a middle distance between the complete collapse of infrastructure and some weird geek dream of electronically knowing where all your stuff is. (I’m cheating: the end result of pure spime theory is electronic omniscience, which is not a useless concept.) Between apocalyptic politics and nerdvana is the human dimension; how this stuff is taken onboard by smart people at street level. You all know Bill Gibson’s saw from his cyberpunk novels, that the street finds its own use for things. It still holds. But, right now, I think there’s an urgency and a sense of envelope-pushing in exactly what uses are found for these things.
Josh says it in the GMF text: “I think the problem is that the future, maybe for the first time since WWII, lies on the far side of an event horizon for us, because there are so many futures possible. There’s the wetware future, the hardware future, the transhumanist future, the post-rationalist (aka fundamentalist) future….”
I tend to agree with this sentiment. While we seem to have so much potential for the betterment of mankind, I don’t see the stars aligned for this, at least not any time soon. I am far closer to believing we’ll all need a site like Desirina’s With a Whimper: How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse and Other Helpful Hints to help us through it.
Comments
March 15, 2006
ETM said:
I tend to ponder these things a lot, and I’m not that sure I’d want to survive the apocalypse… theorising on the possibilities is necessary, though. People need to be aware of the direction in which the world is headed, because nothing is harder to control than a large number og people who k n o w…
DannyV said:
You know, it is true that the signs point to us destroying ourselves before the sun’s heat death, but I at least try to believe that humanity as a whole is still mostly aligned towards good. Not counting fanatics and criminals, murder and rape are still considered the hideous crimes they are, and every country on Earth has laws against them, so life isn’t THAT cheap yet. We still tend to celebrate the joys of life and give solace for moments of sorrow. The concept of building a better life is still not laughable, but admirable. I’d say we’re just a little off track, but mostly still on the good side of things.
The thing I see is the problem is that one of cyberpunk’s eternal axioms has not only come true, it is pervasive: leaders and corporations look only after themselves and are willing to lie and abuse the general public for it. Face it(and sorry to bring up politics here), President Bush doesn’t give a flaming fuck what the American public thinks. Interests like the oil companies don’t give a damn if America is “addicted to oil.” Pharmaceutical companes don’t look for cures, they look for treatments(they make more money).
So what can be done? Simple: become TRUE cyberpunks! It is a mistake to talk about humanity as a whole, because humanity is composed of INDIVIDUALS. We need to embrace our individuality and live for ourselves. Working for a greater good is fine and all, but it is useless if one does not seek to better oneself. If EVERYBODY thinks of bettering themselves, well, it’d probably add up and turn into a struggle to better everybody. We need to start thinking for ourselves and not let ourselves be lead by the masses, because sometimes the masses are WRONG. Too many people are easily lead by stupid-yet-well sounding ideals, just letting themselves be lead by the momentum of the masses. As cyberpunks we need to go against the flow and look at things from a cynical perspective, question everything, ask “what does this do for ME?”
“What does this do for me?”, that is a question that not enough people ask themselves…
March 16, 2006
SFAM said:
Hmmm. No, I think there are quite a few too many people already asking “What does this do FOR ME?” The question we should be asking more is, “What are you DOING TO me?” Answers to this question are the ones that yield important insights.
Be it corporations, politicians or the culmination of average citizens in totally adding up to destructive results, the question, “What are you doing to me?” is the one that identifies how we are being led towards a cyberpunked future. Answers to this question may include the destruction of the environment, the removal of our civil liberties, the addiction to processed foods, the removal of our personal drive and individualism, etc.
DannyV said:
A complicated topic, to be sure, and a divisive one at that. But then again, that’s what makes our favorite genre so great, huh?
And if cyberpunk is truly the way of the future, I’m going corp all the way. Hey, if the world’s going to the shitter, might as well be in the side with the power, huh?
God, I’m SOOOOOOOOOOO gonna get flamed for that, hahaha!
SFAM said:
DannyV said: “I’m going corp all the way.”
We’ll keep that in mind when we find out that the corps changed your name to Johnny Mnemonic, ripped out your short term memory and forced you to galavant around with has-been wrap stars and seedy dolphins in dirty fish tanks. I can see you know all pissed off, saying, “Listen. You listen to me. You see that city over there? THAT’S where I’m supposed to be. Not down here with the dogs, and the garbage, and the fucking last month’s newspapers blowing *back* and *forth*. I’ve had it with them, I’ve had it with you, I’ve had it with ALL THIS — I WANT ROOM SERVICE!!!”
Ah well, I guess it’s important for all of us to do our part to make a cyberpunked future a reality I suppose.
*plans to create a dogbert-like marketing scheme that tortures the masses while making money at the same time*