this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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Showerthoughts
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Cyberpunk authors have been introducing progress-hostile/'go back to the past' movements and factions since the 80s, arguably it's older than cyberpunk-style technology itself (cyberpunk-style technology definitely being a thing that already exists, arguably since the www-internet but nowadays with VR, AI and electronically enhanced prostetics we're definitely getting into the flashier stuff). And remember that the cyberpunk genre paints the future as bleak, in terms of how the common people live most cyberpunk worlds are clear downgrades compared to the actual 1980s.
And e.g. the amish rejected the industrial revolution.
The Amish are a good point. Unfortunately being a Luddite gets quite logistically hard of you still want to be part of society
Yeah, and the amish aren't exactly a positive example in terms of personal freedom, especially for women and queer people. Though those were never their goals anyway, so a more modern luddite community might be nicer to live in.
Good points. Im not sure if social progress is bound to technological progress but think it’s interlinked somehow. Our social progress is worth the overall progress, to be honest.
I’m entering the 50 soon - grown up with C64 - and thinking a lot about my kids and my childhood. It’s so much better for kids nowadays.
All the brutality and all the loneliness has gone. Thanks to Me-Too. Still so many kids at my age have been beaten, so many young girls abused in my generation. I’m talking with my friends about this nowadays. The generation of my parents are even worse. Still trying to talk with them about their childhood. Remember this was the generation grown up by facists&racists after the WW2.
I think this is because technological progress allows discourse between people living on opposite sides of the planet, aligning our morals planetwide, ditching what doesn't work in one society and adopting what they do somewhere else
it's good to share beliefs, opinions, and ways of living so that we are aware of what other options exist out there
I think this is what's going to end discrimination once and for all, because what we get to see isn't only what is filtered by public media like tv, which is often controlled by political agents who profit from racism and such
I wouldn't be so sure about that. We definitely got a lot of social progress from technology, but it's plain to see that social media gets massively abused for reactionary propaganda (not entirely unlike radio and print have been abused to further authoritarian ideologies in early 20th century). IME, in recent years people have been getting MORE cold and brutal, more willing to assault random people for being the wrong sexual orientation, they started assaulting EMTs, firefighters and train employees in significant numbers, and people have been outright murdered for telling them that they should wear a mask.
And every appliance becoming "smart" seems to further the corporate desire for planned obsolescence and making people unable to repair their belongings, along with massively increasing security risks and possibilities for mass surveillance.
IMO, we're moving backwards right now, with significant risk of losing the progress of the last 50 years.