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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3157 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

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Anyone else feeling particularly cyberpunk?

Even normies online are talking about 'clankers' (humanoid robots out in the wild, not ASIMO scripted performances). I'm giving vague orders to Claude Code and watching it go. People are actually having relationships with digital waifus like Ani (not in the news media sense like 'Japanese man marries hologram girl but company is discontinuing the service' but in a more organic sense). The most valuable company in the world is a near-equivalent of 'US Robotics' from the Asimov novels.

Feels like there's been a step change in just the last few weeks.

I'm a bit slow on this one, but I saw a hilarious clanker clip the other day.

Turns out all we're really missing from cyberpunk is the "punk", and I don't really care for that. It's nice living in the future*, most of it is really sick.

*Said future is here, just not evenly distributed.

It's nice living in the future*,

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I used to dream about flying cars and moon bases, not digital panopticons and simulacra.

You can buy a flying car, at least if you're in the US. Moon bases? Give it 5-10 years.

I mean, Kulak had that bit about us having flying cars since the Fokker Dr.I. Either way that's not quite how the future was advertised to me. And the moon base isn't going to happen in that time frame, unless the Chinese have some surprises up their sleeves.

I want the punk. If I'm going to have to put up with corpo dystopia, then I at least want trench coats and neon mohawks, dammit!

Trench coats are sick. That reminds me that I should engage in some more rampant consumerism by browsing Vinted for a few good pieces. The neon mohawks? You're welcome to keep them!

There was a brief, glorious moment in yhe early 2010s when all the fashion lines decided men's long coats were In. Sadly, my budget at the time was tremendously Out.

I bet there are some subcultures out there that have this feel, but you'd have go out to look for them.

I felt this a couple months ago. Ozempic, self-driving cars, LLMs, humanoid robots, and Mars-capable spaceships all in the past 3 years. We're in a new era, no getting around it.

Be remiss to mention the Chinese Cities really leaning into the aesthetic. Especially with the drone shows and the round robot cops.

One wonders how much of that is 'chicken/egg' though. We expect the future to look brightly lit and with glowing colors everywhere because a lot of scifi media depicted it as such.

We expect the future to look brightly lit and with glowing colors everywhere because a lot of scifi media depicted it as such.

I'm reminded of how so many dashboards and such use blue light (when red would be much better for nighttime!) because red was "dated" due to its use in Sci-fi (which was because it was the obvious choice of the military).

Thankfully there are plenty of options for LED lighting, so in my personal use I lean heavily on red.

Yes, and I absolutely love it. It seems all the sci fi I consumed when I was young is coming to life.

I like fitness and learning which means I'm going to go down the biohacking route more so than the fall in love with non-human minds route. (I'm not judging, I think it's good people find comfort and companionship no matter how it's delivered.)

If this is not a worldwide technological false start and we are turning into a type II civilisation, I'll probably have at least 3 non organic body parts within the next 40 years.

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