The information age is a cyberpunk dystopia

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This is a microblog post that will only explain what I mean by the title "the information age is a cyberpunk dystopia". In reading lots of science fiction including the genre of cyberpunk, perhaps even playing the RPG Shadowrun, I recognized a theme that data (information) is an expensive commodity. The struggle in "the net" isn't how fast your connection is, but what you can get access to because of who you are or if you can "hack into" it. The enemy is the "corp" who has secrets that need to be unlocked for the good of mankind. You can probably see the scholarly publishing world in here, though our researchers aren't confined to plateaus in the desert at gunpoint. But things are looking up for those with government funded research and the other publishing models look to be catching on, so perhaps we're due for utopia instead.

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2 Comments

Russ Hall said:

John, did you ever play the RPG Paranoia? I think it might be something more like that (except without the cloning :))

John Meier said:

I'm not sure which RPG you are talking about Comrade, uh I mean, Citizen. What would represent Friend Computer in the publishing world? Since I only have Red Clearance, I don't know.

I only played a few times

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