Neuromancer
Our Cyberpunk Future
"The saraiman had been Japanese, but the Ninsei crowd was a gaijin crowd. Groups of sailors up from the port, tense solitary tourists hunting pleasures no guidebook listed, Sprawl heavies showing off grafts and implants, and a dozen distinct species of hustler, all swarming the street in an intricate dance of desire and commerce. There were countless theories explaining why Chiba City tolerated the Ninsei enclave, but Case tended toward the idea that the Yakuza might be preserving the place as a kind of historical park, a reminder of humble origins. But he also saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn't there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself" ~William Gibson, Neuromancer, pg.10-11.
The World of Neuromancer is among the first cyberpunk worlds ever created. It is a world where technology becomes blended with the human form as implants, grafts and cyborg parts are implemented on massive scales. It is a world already occurring today, as we are already modifying ourselves with prosthetic limbs for amputees. Virtual reality (VR) with devices such as the Oculus and Vibe and augmented reality (AR) such as the Google glass or Snapchat filters are already changing how we view and interact with society. The world of cyberpunk is simply our world where this technology flourishes nearly unrestricted. A future both bountiful and potentially foul is what Neuromancer chooses to look towards.
"A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social reactions, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction." ~ Donna Haraway, Manifestly Haraway: The Cyborg Manifesto, pg. 5-6
The cybernetic future marches ever closer to our everyday reality. The use of technology to improve our lives has become almost essential. A day hasn't come that I have not needed to use my phone to look something up. Humanity has become so attached to our devices, one could argue that we are currently living as cyborgs. The gadgets we use now enhance and elevate our skills to levels never been seen before. A student right next to me in my college computer lab uses Google translate to write a paper in French. They've never been to France nor have they spoken it prior to college. Calculators, bulldozers and cranes are being used to build a massive new facility on that same college campus. In no other century has technology been so integrated into our social reality than in the 21st century and with this tech, we continue to do the impossible.
"In the shift from modernity to postmodernity, our world image is experiencing a sea change, from one sustained by a narrative like, cinematic perspective on the entire world to one read up by search engines, characterized by databases and interfaces." ~ Hiroki Azuma, Otaku: Japan's Database Animals, pg. 54
The technological world now has its Magnus Opus, the worldwide web. An invention so transcendent of all previous works it unites humanity in a way never before seen. Our use of the internet has changed us fundamentally as a society, revolutionizing how we work, how we play, how we learn and how we interact with other people and the world around us. The internet is now so ingrained in our modern lives that severing that connection seems nearly unthinkable. The worldwide web has become the first technology to truly merge with its creators, ushering in the beginnings of the cybernetic future.
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." ~Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan has been proven right about human tools. As we develop new tools and devices which improve our society, we begin to integrate those tools in conjunction with ourselves. Nearly everyone today wouldn't be caught dead without their smartphone on them. With each passing day, new tools and addons to the internet and our other devices has lead to a more stream lined existence. A world interconnected by invisible wires and webs, through media devices and high tech cameras. Though it may be many decades before we get to fancy brain implants or cool cyborg arms, rest assured, it is coming, slow and steady.
