I’m talking about how pockets and islands of cultures pop up everywhere within these settings, how Cyberpunk as a whole does away with national borders and lets everyone from everywhere and anywhere suffer equally.
And we’ve kinda’ missed the mark on that, as now culture is instead becoming eclectic. We don’t have pockets of cultures, we are steadily pushing toward having a single culture, a mass of haphazard associations and little comprehension of meaning.
Keep in mind the nature of fiction. It has an obligation to create friction and conflict. Intrigue is built into a fish-out-of-water story. Reality is far stranger, and far more complex. People and culture interact in imperceivable ways, and our influence on each other isn’t something we can predict. Nor is one type of culture drift good, or another bad. It isn’t better or worse in reality to have concetrated pockets of similar-thinking communities. In fiction, it is narratively expedient.
That’s a very fair point, and I agree that cultural dynamics aren’t uniform. However, the largest beacons/propagators of culture which exist have demonstrated this tendency to run the tender bits through a blender together, then spray it out indiscriminately, because it’s making them money. And, from a functional perspective, it is an effective means of doing so, because we mass-consume Content nowadays.
Honestly, this is a bit paradoxical on my end, which is why I may have expressed myself abstractly - I tend to prefer flexibility over specialisation, but this is one aspect in which I see more value in specialisation rather than flexibility. Basically, I think we’re losing repositories of undiluted culture over time, and I guess I’m just really scared of plastic…
We don’t have pockets of cultures, we are steadily pushing toward having a single culture, a mass of haphazard associations and little comprehension of meaning.
Kinda true on the push, but not on the “we don’t have pockets of cultures”. Lemmy and the fediverse as a whole can be described as a pocket of culture, maybe a subculture of a larger thing. It doesn’t matter how hard the corporate overlords try to impose a single culture, people within it will want to subvert or change it one way or another.
I’m talking about how pockets and islands of cultures pop up everywhere within these settings,
In real life, this happens with cities that receive many immigrants or after any diaspora. People from far away always bring something with them and, depending on how they are received and integrated within their neighborhood and society, some changes will show up, given time.
Lastly, schismogenesis is a real thing - cultures can form entirely out of “we are DIFFERENT from them”
That’s a fair point and an unrealised bias, our country doesn’t have that large of an influx, so it’s generally been mostly just “us” around here.
Even so, when starting from the local flavour, there are very few aspects which stray from globally mass-distributed stuff, y’know? Like, most stuff around here feel pretty American, for one, even though we’re almost on opposite ends of the planet. And it’s the same in many other places I’ve visited. And it makes sense, honestly, it’s easier to interact if everyone behaves in a familiar manner.
Edit: also, really good point about internet-based nodes! I guess I was focusing more on the external-world aesthetics of it all, maybe I’m just longing for a change:))
I don’t think we’re heading towards a monoculture. Actually much like Cyberpunk, you’ll find the most striking pockets of unique cultures in small spaces relevant to whatever group is there. Go to a skatepark and you’ll think the people there are talking another language. Go to a concert or rave and you’ll see all kinds of different subcultures and fashion styles depending on what kind of music is playing. Even here on Lemmy you see different cliques and subcultures. There are astrology conferences and Beyblade tournaments and everything in between. Theres also always little pockets of ethnic groups, foreign to where they are, all over the world. I love finding different groups and the things they orbit around and the lingo they develop and the ideas and values they have. They’re not as easy to find as they are in a video game, but they’re out there and it’s a much more rich experience to get to know those people than in a video game.
I can’t describe it well because I’m not an anthropologist, but the changes in the larger zeitgeist over the years I’ve been around seems to be pretty normal too. I don’t think there’ll ever be some kind of monoculture, just that what makes groups different will naturally change over time.
See, that’s the thing, I rarely see these spaces being used nowadays! We have a couple of areas within the city which used to be high-traffic for skaters, bikers and such, now it’s (and I know how this’ll make me sound, but…) teens staring at their cellphones.
And the creepiest thing is that most people are even dressed the same. One used to see entire herds of Metal peeps, or you could tell the bikers and the skaters apart even without their signature implements. Dunno, maybe I’m getting old, but I miss seeing that variety.
Or, hell, maybe it’s just my country slowly dying off!=)))
Haven’t read Neuromancer in a while, but didn’t the rich have private satellites?
Facetious question: don’t they own private satellites IRL, too?:))
C’mon.
What’s the point?
Acting like an eight year old and taking words at their literal meaning?
You’re subverting your own thread.
It was a joke…
Edit: sorry, hadn’t had my coffee yet:))
To answer your initial comment, yeah, that’s how I remember it as well (been a while for me, too). And we already have real life analogues for that, in Musk trying to colonise Mars and Bezos proudly launching giant blue dildos into space. In either case, they’re both one step removed from eventually establishing a space station or some such - Musk because it’s easier to deploy a colonisation effort without having to deal with exiting the atmosphere first, and Bezos because… well… he’d actually have to have a reason to keep launching giant blue dildos other than for he hell of it, which fair enough! Very Post-Modern!
Honestly, I’m surprised they aren’t focusing on that. Makes sense to develop a reliable and sustainable means of getting to-and-from, but we kinda’ already have something that’s Good Enough™… In all fairness, I may be overestimating these guys, given their track record so far…
