Third World Cyberpunk

Now I implore you not to devolve into discussions of racism nor fetishisation of third world people, because by all means I wish to avoid that. Of course, dealing with a subject such as the third world, these problems will become inevitable, however what I want to explore is a kind of pitch for (ironically) the future of cyberpunk. There is no doubt that cyberpunk colloquially stands for a presently outdated, corny aesthetic. That much is true as much as much as I would like to bemoan it. And, while many of the fears that cyberpunk authors once had are a bleak reality now, we find ourselves with - if not a kind of apathy - a nostalgia for the genre largely devoid of the horror and experimentation it once had. I'm going to be cynical with you, I'm proposing a survival strategy for cyberpunk. The easiest option may be to let cyberpunk die, then move on. But, as good as other genres are; much like a herd of animals; we are only moving to greener pastures after we deplete one after the other. Survival on the other hand entails adaptation. We can keep on rehashing the same soykaf and die out when the conditions around us change, or we can evolve. It is not a bastardisation if the mutation is actually beneficial to the survival of, in this case, cyberpunk. Feeling alien to, yet being familiar with the present around us is something I feel as though is a precondition for the global world we are in. Technology is making the world smaller. As technology spreads across different regions, not only do people have to deal with the introduction of new technologies but they also they have to deal with literal culture shock. Suddenly, new communication technologies are in countries with intense strife, militarisation, and political unrest. The image of a future with hi-tech gadgets in dilapidated slums may not exist within the first world, but in third world it's nearly there. Excuse my mention of a real life example, but ISIS is literally recruiting impressionable kids on the Internet. As damning as it might be to say this as someone from the first world, maybe the problem is with perspective. Everything around me is hollowed-out, commercial bullshit, but surely somewhere else (with just the right amount of exaggeration) could be the right setting to capture that immersive cyberpunk feel. Why the third world? As I would like to put it, a third world setting breaks the mould just enough for the introduction of new conventions while simultaneously putting the more familiar cyberpunk trappings in a convincing context. Want political revolution, terrorism, government repression, and drug cartels to be in your story (?); it's all there! Exploitative as it may appear to actual natives from the would-be settings in this new direction, the avenue can open up dialogue across the world. For the all the worse that could happen, it can invite correction, alteration, and connection. I fully expect that there to be works within this vain to be offensive, however unlike the usual crap concerns around the third world are channelled into, cyberpunk is constructive and nuanced. The direction I'm calling for is not entirely new, just unexplored. Neo-Tokyo is a staple of (although not third world) the foreign setting cyberpunk likes to explore. As Isaac Asmiov states in his review of 1984, ". . . The displacement of the story is much more geographical than temporal".

We have that It's called Russia.

>>45112 >Exploitative as it may appear to actual natives Relationships only involve exploitation if you deem acceptable inauthentic replication of cultural components acceptable for the sake of charisma. In short, we must avoid hyperreality with these cultures. Anons have called me a demagogue for wielding authoritative aesthetics on BBS, but I have experienced esoteric study of internet culture plus lived through history. That makes me an authentic cyberpunk, no matter what identity I present in any given moment. I earned the privilege of associating a troll- or lol- face with my opinion. Likewise, you must study your target culture to the point of authentic representation.. especially by means of language acquisition.

>>45133 >Relationships only involve exploitation if you deem acceptable Yeah. It's a double-edge sword. The closest analogue I can think of is blaxploitation films. A lot of those weren't by black people, but they did good enough for black people that even nowadays you don't hear of soykaf like, "Oh, blaxploitation re-asserts colonialist attitudes". It's too niche of a genre for that. And, although it probably faced criticism back then, even the most negative perceptions of the genre now are ultimately cheeky jabs.Critics know of the good intentions that went into it.

I believe so long as you recognize harm when explained, no one will abuse you for trying to be a part of their culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script

>>45112 I mean i've seent shanty towns built out of banners and billboards for massive corporate conglomerates so there's that... Mountains of trash but everyone has a cellphone People who cant into living in non-squalid living conditions but somehow have internet and soykaf. I wonder if they envy what they see, or if their perspective of western society is its all just photoshop of science fiction fakery Oh yeah and C-beams n'sheit

>>46600 I guess for people living like that, ownership of a cellphone makes getting from one crappy labour gig to the next a lot easier. Maybe also to spread word when the police and/or landlord's thugs are coming through (because people in shanty towns often still pay rent to some gangbanger or warlord). I would love to know what other uses they have found for mobile devices, as in stuff you and I would never even think of because it's not our life.

A few years ago I used to go down to (from California) San Luis, Mexico on a daily basis. At night there was always a drone that'd fly back and forth in the same area and it went on for weeks. I have no idea who it belonged to, but I imagine it was doing some form of surveillance/transportation? Drones in the 3rd world make for some interesting soykaf like this video: "Annoyed_by_loud_music_man_uses_drone_to_hit_neighbors_with_fireworks-YjSzVHFrjRQ". 3rd world countries don't have an FAA, so you can turn Drones into death machines if you wanted. Other cool things would probably have to be the mad-max cars. There's a lot of creativity in 3rd world countries, Mexico specifically, in creating racing cars. The roads are usually unorganized and not managed by law enforcement, so racing can be very dangerous if you make it, not to mention most police will leave if bribed (Which is another cyberpunk aspect...). They have large tournaments like Baja races on a yearly basis as well. In Mexico guns are outlawed but most people have them anyways. I think this isn't too far from the cyberpunk idea that everyone is under surveillance and tight control, yet at their core hates the system and secretly disobeys it.

I think two countries are very important to look at in this paradigm - India and Nigeria. Their conditions are similar: enormous populations with English language skills, with many living in destitute conditions in which cybercrime is the only well-paying career option (or the only alternative to starvation), and a host of other Third World issues. India has more tech-literate workers and infrastructure, but Nigerian scammers find ways to adapt even if their country is still catching up. Cybercrime is huge in both countries. Just last year in the US, 36 billion in COVID unemployment funds were stolen, here's how they did it from Nigeria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYKuqu831TU Groups like the Nigerian Yahoo boys and the Indian Jamtara scammers are notorious and iconic there, with some Indian scammers now even learning the trade by watching the "Jamtara" Netflix series. There's many human stories and aspects, mostly tragic but some truly remarkable: >The genuine sociopaths who unflinchingly steal from their own countrymen, or from foreigners who they perceive as stupid and undeserving of any money whatsoever >The conflicted scammers who despise themselves, their work and their society for leading them to this career, and the fact that their society allows and often shields such criminals. Sometimes they work to redeem themselves by managing to return money to their victims, collaborating with others to take down the scam operations, or simply sharing their story and spreading awareness >The individual tragedies of each scam victim and how their life is impacted If you haven't watched youtubers like Jim Browning or Pleasant Green, I can't recommend them enough. They've played part in some amazing but often heartbreaking stories of infiltrating and hacking scammers, helping victims, and also helping scammers redeem themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6sYuYTZyI https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBNmQJqxpaMaxqghShRiOnHUjO00ZCsor https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLeykLlB1Bft1ib18y4KxXQXdK2EoLgut https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLeykLlB1BfurqOnKKldHnQqieE1UaMVp From another perspective, this just shows how technology is not only making us less empathetic and more depersonalized when socializing in the developed world, but also influencing the criminal and deeply exploitative aspects of the developing world - by creating opportunities for such cybercrime, and further reducing both scammers and victims to blank slates, dollars signs, or foreign caricatures (the gullible rich First Worlder, the scummy thieving Third Worlder, etc.) My point being, it follows the trend of how we all mostly treat each other online nowadays, as simplified and abstract tools and sources of attention, emotion, money, etc.

>>46605 Most of the 3rd world I have been exposed to involves heavy government surveillance anyway. People who can afford the luxuries of the wired in a non-phone based format are often forced to learn how to hack or at least at the time were fairly tech savvy to prevent the government from monitoring and prosecuting the kinds of online activity that most people in 1st world countries take for granted. A really good point that Facebook has tried to bury was the fact that SIM cards were so regulated (IIRC it was almost 1000 USD just to buy one) in Myanmar, that when the government finally allowed telecoms to sell SIM cards cheaply, everyone believed facebook was (which was baked into all the phones) was what the internet was all about. The result was that people used facebook to spread hate and foster a genocide that facebook tried to downplay despite people reporting all of the posts. Their justification for not removing the content in a timely manner was that the "jokes" were not culturally understood to mean a call to genocide. https://web.archive.org/web/20210623224237/https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/facebook-un-myanmar-genocide.php

>>46617 Facebook does that alot, they come into 3rd world/ global south countries offering internet infrastructure, but only allow facebook and no other site. The idea that facebook is the only site on the internet would make me log off forever.

I dont care about cyberpunk (though I think this could be related to it) but im highly interested in the idea of slums as having some very good things to say for themselves. Youl find most stay fuarrrked because of weird laws and what not that prevent them from establishing themselves to their best, random crackdowns, think homeless encampments in America except its like a "we will seize your soykaf at will and if we are able to easily". Even with this they still survive, just not thrive. I think if allowed people would, like they already are doing but to a greater extent, build the infrastructure they need on their own. Of course not even going into some evil govt soykaf, as any kind of govt covering large swathes of land you are going to do anything to stop infrastructure developing outside yourself, for both practical and more political reasons. Good? Bad? Dont care, but it is what it is. And what it is is interesting to me, I think its for better or worse a good example that people will in fact create public services and infrastructure independent of immediate incentives, rather in fact facing immediate opposition they still will. This isnt big news, obviously it arose at several points throughout history, it had to for the concept to even exist. But for whatever reason people assume everyone to be total lizard brained, they especially love to of the third world. Which is projection really. In general yeah also, not even launching into critiques but cyberpunk would not exist without both this concept of "the third world" as well as orientalism. The orientalism one is probably obvious, the third world one is because it draws heavily from down and dirty repurposing and "on the grounds" use of tech inspired by third world countries and places in the US people who would deny this would analogize to third world countries all the same.

>>46617 >US congressman this, Orange Man that At first I thought that you linked the wrong article altogether, where's Myanmar and Facebook in it, what does Orange man has anything to do with it? But then it reminded me of old soviet textbooks and technical/scientific literature which always included a preface on latest Party Congress and 5-year plan results and prospects.

those governments probably fear the internet forming purely a tool for English or Japanese language propaganda. hence why I believe preserving endangered languages should serve the one absolute function of the internet. that means making APL practical translating the barebones essential resources to Toki Pona having a free culture suite of basic education in very elegant code, which one from any culture can adapt to their particular context.

the one absolutely most important function of Internet culture *

>>46605 You're right about a lot of things but most people don't have guns. It's not that easy to get one.

>>47325 since when ? you want to fux those places into theaters of war .. cyberpunk should not mean dystopia . find meaning in a developed world . do not stunt the growth of developing counties by idolizing barbarism . stop showing the vile of terra-Earth ..

how would having a gun help in an environment where many societies do not feel any sense of consequence from using one. stop pretending like your own nuanced culture exists everywhere in the world. while at that, stop try to spread your culture everywhere.

>>45112 There are two types of people in this world: - People who use paragraphs to organize long trains of thought - People who come across to other people as completely bugfuck insane

>>46610 Another interesting topic is how communism and necessity turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XS4aueDUg https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/isolation-generation-master-inventors-cuba https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/bizarre-brilliant-useful-inventions-cuban-diy-engineers

>>47394 you are bugfuck insane who says bugfuck you fuarrrked bug glitterboy

>>47728 >Another interesting topic is how communism and necessity turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers. No, it was the Unites States' sanctions which forged the Cuban DIY-repair culture. The post-revolutionary Cuban government only implemented communism after the US government got pissy that their pet thug Batista was deposed, and slapped sanction after sanction on Cuba - forcing them to turn to the Soviet bloc for trade ties and aid.

>>47728 Imagine having 150 IQ and your biggest achievement is strapping a water bottle to a motorcycle because of your government's soykafty political situation. And then dumbass westerners go "clap clap clap, look at how smart those little brown people are, yay communism".

>>47742 Firstworldlers really have no fuarrrking clue. They unironically believe things like these are ingenious, ecological and sustainable because poor people/foreigners do them. Example: https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/a-dacha-for-everyone-community-gardens-and-food-security-in-russia.html They also love taking up foreign terms for mundane, low-effort non-solutions that basically mean "redneck/ghetto engineering" in their native languages, in a usual pejorative sense, and transposing these words into western discourse to praise the "ingenuity of frugal developing nation engineers". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad Poverty turns you into SUPER FRUGAL DIY HACKER, but only int he eyes of rich hippies who attended too much marxist sunday school classes. For yourself and people around you it is just a way of survival, and definitely not a respectable one, the moment an alternative of quality foreign goods appears, everyone switches to it.

>>47758 Even stuff that is impressive is still an absolute waste because those people would be building rockets for spacex if they had been born in america.

>>47762 So, what's the problem? Invite them over to America, give them proper education and let them build rockets. Because if they were born in America, they would have become the same type of people as everyone else in the US. People who build great things from nothing aren't born in America, only businessmen.

>>47758 >They unironically believe things like these are ingenious, ecological and sustainable because poor people/foreigners do them. It's because of how they are presented. You could show westerners two pictures of a slum, one with dim lighting and a high angle and another with nice lighting and a low angle, the first they would say "wow look at those poor brown people, look what they have to do to survive!" and the second they would say "wow look at those plucky brown people, they survive by their wits and courage!" anyway redneck engineering is fun but definitely not something to rely on if you can help it. >>47764 America never really had an academic/intelligentsia class of its own, that's always been imported. Engineers less so.

>>47758 my friend is a construction defects investigator in the US. In fact he works in one of the most expensive cities in the US. He has told me horror stories of things he finds behind drywall. Behind all the facade, American buildings are just as janky and slapped together as Russian ones.

>>47758 >Way of survival Ingenuity comes from necessity, and things like these aren't merely for survival, they are partly for luxury, and partly for making life easier. >Foreign goods. Yeah, because everyone can afford those. No one will give them away, that's for sure, and buying requires money. Also, not everyone done in the west is better, I would even go as far as to say that a lot of the things that westerners produce has become increasingly soykaftier and/or more expensive. The only thing I hate more than my fellow countrymen who shiit on my country because it's "sooo regressive, so poor, so soykafty in general", is foreigners who look down on us and say:"they live in the dirt, they cobble things together from scrap, they barely survive, we are better than them, they should be working here for us instead of scraping along. No. We don't need help from you, who sows conflict everywhere, and destroy counties from inside. We can manage on our own.

Russian here, don't judge >>47768, they're probably just frustrated over the SU falling apart. >>47767 Russian buildings started to have construction code violations since the Soviet Union fell apart. That's when everything wasn't as strictly regulated anymore, and many people wanted to live like westerners as seen on TV/radio/holidays. They started capitalising on the few things they had, and those who were more "shady", started companies that weren't as tightly controlled as under the Soviet regime, which resulted in gross incompetence for the sake of quick profit. It's still seen today, with people doing a sloppy job in order to get a quick buck. I know, it sounds cliché, but the sudden rush of capitalism into the country has ruined a good portion of the people, and spoiled large parts of the new generations. I see it in my relatives, I even have cousin who is strongly anti-russian, which makes me sad, and it confuses me, how someone can hate his own country so much. Do American lainons have similar experiences? I heard that America has a problem with spoiled teens that hate their country as if it's their worst enemy. Is that true? If yes, where did it come from?

>>47769 >I heard that America has a problem with spoiled teens that hate their country as if it's their worst enemy. Yes, this is true. >If yes, where did it come from? America was built with slavery, but we tell all our kids we are the land of freedom. So when they learn they aren't really in the land of freedom, they rebel. This applies to both poor (mostly black and brown) people who are genuinely under the boot and rich kids who are idealists but benefit from the system.

>>47769 >>47770 I think one of the main differences between America and places like Russia or China or even Britain is that America doesn't really have a deep-rooted cultural identity. Pretty much everyone here is from immigrant stock, mostly from less than 3 generations ago. "America" and "The American Government" are synonymous, with the sole exception of Texas. So when people hate their government, they have no choice but to hate their country.

>>47771 America was founded by people engaging in land-grab get-rich-quick schemes. Find resource-rich land, shoot anyone already there, and shoot anyone who tries to drive you off. Is it any wonder that it's become a dog-eat-dog ubercapitalist imperialist soykafhole with no unifying culture? Hell, they worship a bunch of slave-owning tax-dodgers known as the "founding fathers" as if they were deities.

>>47771 I don't see anything wrong with the way America evolved. People argue with the "slavery bad, killing natives bad, colonists were invaders" tactic, but ignore that every nation is founded on the basic principles of "grab land, hold it, kill competition, consolidate your strength, now it's yours". Also, every nation I know of is built on exploitative strategies, slavery or serfdom (which is slavery with extra steps). Modern wage economy, especially the fact that one gets paid py the hour instead for doing a specific amount of work, is basically the advanced form of slavery, slavery 2.0 if you will. The only reason America gets soykaf on, is because it is the youngest of the nations and doesn't have hundreds of years of history to layer over it. t. German with Ukrainian roots.

>>47872 >every nation is founded on the basic principles of "grab land, hold it, kill competition, consolidate your strength, now it's yours" This is accurate, and it is why I am an anarchist. I do think that the strategy of extermination is more ethically repugnant than mere conquest. Vikings raped and pillaged their way across England, but when they settled they intermingled with the English. That I think is a respectable way for conquerors to conduct themselves. Extermination seems to only be a tactic of people who are too high on their own farts to adapt to their subjects (Romans, Catholics, Americans, Canadians, Turks, Nazis, Chinese, etc.)

>>45113 >third world It's second world and very advanced, smartass.

>>47764 >So, what's the problem? Something you may have noticed about socialist governments is that they don't let their citizens leave, especially the smart/productive ones. >>47770 >America was built with slavery If that was true then progress would have halted the moment slavery was abolished. >>47892 >It's second world Cuba is also technically second world. Third world means not aligned with NATO (1st) or USSR/China (2nd)

>>47995 you're mixing up some things, no offense. >[Progress would have halted the moment slavery was abolished.] Yes, because that's exactly what would've happened. The fact is, that the abolishment of slavery was a calculated act of reducing cost. If you compare the cost of sustaining slaves by providing them food, shelter, clothes, overseers, with the average cost of employing laborers with a miserable wage that barely is enough to get by, then you'll see that slavery was never abolished, it was improved, streamlined, simplified and made cheaper. see my previous post >>47872, i already stated this there. >Definition of third world = not aligned with NATO this is true on a historical basis. But since the cold war ended, the definition and common understanding of "first, second, third world" has shifted towards an indicator of development and stability. Ask someone out in the street what "third world country" means, and i doubt they will answer that "it's a country that wasn't aligned with either the eastern bloc or the NATO bloc during the cold war", but something more along the lines of "a really poor, possibly war-torn country, most of them in africa".

>>47996 >having a job is the same as slavery You are frankly a disgrace to everyone who lived through actual slavery and apartheid, no offense.

>>47997 Hes right though. People at the bottom wageslave in worse conditions than roman slaves. Youre probably sitting in some first world country and think people are talking about your office job and not the millions in poor soykafholes manufacturing all your crap.

>>47998 >People at the bottom wageslave in worse conditions than roman slaves. You don't seem to understand what slavery is. Being a slave means you are dehumanized to the status of an object that someone else owns. That is not at all comparable to voluntarily doing work in exchange for money. It's just ridiculously bad faith to even compare the two situations. >Youre probably sitting in some first world country and think people are talking about your office job and not the millions in poor soykafholes manufacturing all your crap. Err, they own motorized bicycles and live in a house with electricity and have access to more chocolate than they can possible eat. Even the fuarrrking pope 200 years ago had none of that. So comparing a south asian factory worker to not even the emperor but a roman slave is pathetically out of touch with reality.

>>47999 you're out of touch, and you don't even read what others write >being a slave is worse!!1! >muh dehuminizing!1!! yes. It is. You know what is also dehumanizing? working behind a counter, being forced to smile all day like a Fvcking servant bot, taking orders, handing food trays and putting cash in the register. Everyday, all the same motions, like a machine. De-hu-man-i-zing. same with factory workers. Same motions, like a robot, every second, every hour, every day, until you die and get replaced by another robot who does the same soykafty work as you do. And all you get is pocket change compared to what your boss earns from the products you produced. you're a cog in the machine, a piece of meat, a slave. you're trying to find excuses for completely unnatural wage-slave economy based around the concept of work division, and you fail miserably at it. >muh luxury goods >muh electricity which are produced en masse and/or of poor quality. Chocolate? More like waste sugar, milk powder and a tiny bit of cocoa powder. besides even that, material goods cannot buy the happiness that freedom to do as you choose, and having a fulfilling Life can bring. Try working to barely sustain your existence for a while. Then come back to tell me about your experience. I'm sure you'll be down from your sh!tty high horse by then >you probably never done it yourself, duh. i worked till my whole body hurts as a gardener. And while it was friggin miserable some days, i am happier about it than when i worked as a cashier at a local grocery store.

>>47998 >People at the bottom wageslave in worse conditions than roman slaves. lol, no they don't. Roman slaves would get their genitals mutilated if they misbehaved.

>>47999 >Even the fuarrrking pope 200 years ago had none of that. This is a bad comparison, because the pope had significantly more control over his own life, and had security and safety that a typical factory worker does not. That said 47998 is a dipshit for comparing wage work to slavery.

>>48000 >working behind a counter, being forced to smile all day like a Fvcking servant bot, taking orders Nobody is forcing you, you are free to choose any job you can convince someone to pay money for. In wealthy countries you are even free to not work at all and be a parasite on your neighbors. I don't think you realize how much of an entitled brat you sound by comparing yourself to a slave. >same with factory workers. You realize the factory workers didn't spawn with the factories. There are other jobs. They choose to work in factories because it's better than the alternatives. Factories [b]have[b] to be better than the alternatives or nobody would work there. And the more factories there are then the more competition for labor and the better the pay and conditions. So it's not just better than the past, it will also be better in the future. >muh luxury goods Do you deny that the poorest people in our society today are richer than the richest people in the world 200 years ago? Hell, even 100 years ago. A $200 Corolla is faster than anything Rockefeller could buy in 1921. So are the tiny scooters your factory "slaves" zip around south asia in for that matter. >Try working to barely sustain your existence for a while. Then come back to tell me about your experience A magic genie teleports you away from evil capitalist civilization. You are now alone on a desert island. You think you don't need to do work to keep yourself alive?

>>48004 >Do you deny that the poorest people in our society today are richer than the richest people in the world 200 years ago? "richer" in terms of having better technology available is not a good comparison. Look at availability of clean drinking water, safety, relative power. All of these have *improved* for a typical factory worker but have not gotten anywhere near that of an 8th century British noble.

>>48005 >clean drinking water Factories need electricity so obviously they are industrialized enough to have clean water. We're not talking about african wilderness or some soykaf. If nothing else you don't want to constantly retrain new workers because the old ones are dying of cholera. >Safety Are you implying the life expectancy was higher 1000 years ago than anywhere in the developing world now? >Relative power Yes a king could kill anyone he wanted and an indonesian worker can't. But neither could a roman slave. So what was your point again?

>>45113 Da! >>47892 >It's second world and very advanced, smartass. lainon is still right though. Musak, lo-life & hi-tech, reverse engineer, forward engineer... You need hack anything Russia is cyberpunk 100%. Whole West is turning into 3rd world with Great Reset, so even 2nd world is better! lol

>>48006 >Factories need electricity so obviously they are industrialized enough to have clean water. factories also have a tendency to dump toxic waste into the water table when nobody's looking, and companies like Nestle tend to claim all the good wells for themselves. https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/clean-drinking-water >We're not talking about african wilderness or some soykaf. Of course not, we're talking about huge cities, where clean water is probably more scarce. >Are you implying the life expectancy was higher 1000 years ago than anywhere in the developing world now? life expectancy != safety. That should be fairly obvious. >So what was your point again? that a third world factory worker is not "richer" than a king was. Their life has improved but only because life in general has improved.

>>48008 >Of course not, we're talking about huge cities, where clean water is probably more scarce. There's a lot of opinions flying around. Can you actually show stats on cholera and related infections? I'll be generous and say infections because modern diet and medicine makes this much less of a big deal anyway. Or is your point just that evil companies pollute water therefor implications? >life expectancy != safety. That should be fairly obvious. Pretend it's not obvious and elaborate. >that a third world factory worker is not "richer" than a king was They have access to effectively unlimited calories, a warmer dryer permanent shelter, godspeed transportation with exploding dinosaur juice and soykaf, cheap medication to treat the 1000s of diseases that killed people in the past. But they can't command an army or whatever you mean by "relative power" therefor being an 8th century noble is better?

>>48004 >you are free to choose any job you can convince someone to pay money for. i dunno how the US work, chumbo, but here in the good ol' european conglomerate of nations, you either wage-slave away, or you have qualification (at least a trade), which doesn't even guarantee a stable workplace, if your local work opportunities are soykaf, which means you are forced to move, which is soykafty, as moving puts you in temporary instability. And if you, as you put it, work something that you convinced someone to pay for, prepare to get assraped by the taxation and legal system, because a lot of work that isn't soykaf tier requires loicenses, certifications, additional tax, and further sh!t. And leeching off your neighbor is, at the least, unfulfilling, which is the main point, and furthermore not as easy as you make it out to be, at least for natives. do you really reduce it all to material soykaf? There's more to life than eating, soykafting, sleeping, working and entertaining yourself. Having a fulfilling work that you enjoy doing is a big part of a happy life, and a factory worker, as much as you want it to be true, isn't happy with his job. Because there are better things. If it comes down to basic needs, trust me, i can eat anything that grows. I know how to live off the land, and i can live my life completely off mushrooms, berries and wild legumes, but again, life is more than just basic needs, and reducing someone to basic needs and workforce is slavery. You cannot convince me otherwise, as i have seen it myself many times, and nothing can erase that sh!t from my mind. >you think you don't need to do work to keep yourself alive? I think i know damn well more about life than you do. Thank you very much.

>>48010 >you either wage-slave away, or... You think a slave has any of these choices? On top of choosing which job to do or taking welfare or moving to another location. You can educate yourself to be a more valuable worker and command a higher wage or start your own business. The fact that the last two never occurred to you is quite telling. >do you really reduce it all to material soykaf? Because there are better things. Yes there are better things. The fact that you don't need to worry about basic soykaf like food, water, shelter is proof of how good your life is. A slave literally lives or dies depending on if master decides to give food or not. You are crying because your job doesn't provide enough self actualization. There is a big difference. >I think i know damn well more about life than you do. Don't dodge the question. You act like it's some great injustice that you need to work a few hours to earn a living. Do you genuinely think you wouldn't need to do any work to keep yourself alive if it was just you vs nature? >You cannot convince me otherwise I know. But maybe I white pilled some lurkers. And maybe once the emotions have passed you will realize I'm right and do something to improve your own life instead of complaining about everything as if it's someone else's responsibility.

>>48011 >You think a slave has any of these choices? yes, he either slaves away, or sneaks away into the wilderness to survive on his own, or he goes on to steal... You see, there's always choices in life, and ever situation has several ways out. But, are all the options or choices always good? No, they aren't. And not all Choices are realistic. You talk about education, but forget biological reality. Not everyone is born equal, and a lot of people are genuinely not able to grow enough intelectually, or do not have the time or physical capabilities to develop further, and are therefore stuck in their social cell, being forced to work hard for the bare neccessities. You see the ideal, i see the real. Not everything is as great as you paint it. >don't dodge the question i didn't. i indirectly accused you of being an overly smug know-it-all who never really worked hard in his life. I did, and i do know how much work it takes to sustain even yourself, not to mention others. So no, i do not think that i wouldn't have to work to sustain myself, and i never !mplied that. >And maybe once the emotions have passed you will realize i'm right[...] You are right in the fact that a good portion of emotions flowed in my above posts, and that isn't quite helpful in bringing my point across. But my views and convictions are formed by life and real interactions, not statistics, books and studies. I will consider your words, and i will most definitely work on my rhetoric abilities as to not allow myself to slide off into a rant again, as it hasn't helped me in this argument. I probably offended you, but i will not apologize for my views, as you don't have to apologize for yours, just know that i do not mean to really inflict harm upon you.

>>48009 >Can you actually show stats on cholera and related infections? I literally linked a UNICEF page stating that 50% of Indians have water contaminated with excessive chlorine or arsenic. Cholera is from drinking soykaf water. >Pretend it's not obvious and elaborate. life expectency is largely governmed by infant mortality, disease, and war. Infant mortality is way down in most of the world, as is disease and war. However 'safety' means the ability to, say, walk the streets at night without getting jumped, or do a job with proper safety equipment, or live in a place that isn't liable to collapse the next time a big storm comes through. Slum dwellers typically don't have this. >But they can't command an army or whatever you mean by "relative power" therefor being an 8th century noble is better? Not better, richer. Although I still think it would be better simply because of having more free time.

>>48001 Well now they do it for free and people make money on their self-mutilation selling them the tools for it (trans). That aside getting fuarrrked in prison due to misbehaving isnt really much of a step up. And more on point food and home is what i wanted to compare. The living conditions are abysmal, barely space to live and modern food is worse due to hybridization aiming for size and growth speed while ignoring nutritional values which makes it look impressive but empty. Lastly the modern toys you got aren't a sign of a better life but exist merely to ensure your continued descend as you use them as a tool to cope with your ill fate.

>>48012 >yes, he either slaves away, or sneaks away A slave can't sneak away. A slave is property and the owner will track him down. If you don't show up for work you boss will not track you down and beat you up and drag you back. That's why you're not a slave. >i do not think that i wouldn't have to work to sustain myself, and i never !mplied that. Your options are to do work at a job and then buy food and soykaf with money. Or do work against nature and make your own food and soykaf. Either they are both slavery or neither is. >my views and convictions are formed by life and real interactions, not statistics, books and studies. Facts don't care about your feelings. And you don't know anything about me. >>48013 >I literally linked a UNICEF page Sometimes people post completely irrelevant links just to pretend they're not making soykaf up. It's been known to happen. >50% of Indians have water contaminated Ok but if you remember we were specifically talking about factory workers in cities not mud eating chimps in the wilderness. And specifically talking about disease infections not just if water exists in india. Because getting ill in the age of antibiotics is not really the same thing as getting ill in the 8th century. Even if we pretend the risk of getting infected is higher now for whatever made up reason. >Although I still think it would be better simply because of having more free time. Free time to do what? Wash your clothes without a washing machine, cook food without a microwave and walk everywhere?

>>48118 You omit other peoples points. You attack the things that are easy to attack, and are doing your best to describe the current state of affairs as better than slavery. The Global system is founded on enslavement of the masses, and you're defending your masters and their methods. Your god is not founded in nature, it is printed in central banks, and called Yen, Dollar, Euro... Furthermore, You accuse others of providing no information, then when you're called out on it, pretend that you're the careful and thoughtful one, worried about others using ill-willed tactics to win arguments. You maneuver around and snake your way around obstacles, and you expect anyone to take you serious? you're full of Shit, and if you have even a spark of decency left, you should shut up, lurk, and learn to argue in full posts, without dirty tricks, and upright. As it stands, i have no respect for you and your filthy tactics.

>>48124 >you do this >you do that >you think this >you think that If you can't quote it it didn't happen. An entire post with zero quotations is just you furiously squirting jizz all over your own strawman.

>>48004 A $200 Corolla (by the price I immediately detect a northamerican) is an excess of your top 5% humanity industrial society lifestyle. 300 years of genocides, slavery, profiteering off endless world wars, and now post-cold war neocolonialism bring all the resources to your country, in exchange you get these "affordable" prices on otherwise obnoxiously luxury goods. Compare to whole world, an Congolese can afford a wooden scooter for that amount of money, that is otherwise bulky and useless outside delivering produce to market in downhill environment of few cities, an Eastern European - starter bicycle against an endless hellscape of megalomaniac communist city planning, an Indian - probably two rickshaws, but he earns 2 dollars a day and has to rent the rickshaw, a Western European - monthly pass for suburban train, probably the best option until you remember that all close suburbs and city are occupied by old capital, and he has to ride 40 minutes one way from any affordable place. Moving further. Your so-called freedom of movement is purely fictional. You have to travel further distances to get anywhere than you had to 100 years ago, or let's take 1900 because by 1921 USA was a complete Fordist wow based industrialist exposing da joos amirite mess already. Why do you have to travel further? Because automobile you rely on going further has destroyed the cities (oh no city is polluted, so noisy, gee bill i wonder why, gotta buy a cardboard mansion somewhere afar to hide away, you better lay a wide road through that forest and pasture for me, government), the suburbs (the Rockefeller you allude to was one of the few people, hecne having low overall surface footprint, enjoying the luxury of suburban life and commuting by automobile: roads were small, zero traffic jams, automobiles were not a nuisance that made cities and landscape so insufferable) and the countryside (villages and towns worldwide destroyed, population cramped into industrial slums, agriculture replaced with corporate soil destruction, devastating forest logging). 100 years ago a worker lived in walking distance from his place of work, today it makes as much time to commute on automobile or dwell in belly of underground iron worm as it took a person to cross whole city/town by foot 100 years ago. He could buy a bicycle or take a tram/omnibus and it would be instantaneous. Henry Thoreau lived as "hermit" in 1 mile walking distance from town of Concord. That was in 1845. Can you imagine a modern hermit? All your average prole in modernist industrial hellcape has is a bus stop in same 1 mile distance, and no real people to interact with. Wow that sure makes up for raising social alienation, anxiety and child autism. Yes, they lived in smaller dwellings, but smaller dwelling means you can place them dense, have community of humans to interact with, not automobiles and concrete, have more space filled with actual nature and infrastructure instead of endless overpass 10-lane highways and parking lots to move your body from work to your plastic grass, empty "retreat" mcmansions and modernist "garden city" commieblocks in your "cheap" branded, tolled, taxed, surveilled, subsidized metal cage. You can "travel" to another city on your bucket you'd say, but a man 100 years ago could too. Ever heard of such thing as overnight train. You board it in night, get a fresh bed, can eat, drink in total peace, maybe find some company too, no need to watch the road or flat tire or worry about fuel, motel. You arrive to another city central in the morning. It's the closest thing we got to teleport, in service since 1850. Moves thousand souls in one trip. >>48118 Mud-eating chimps don't naturally contact cholera in water. Cholera comes from fecal contamination, that usually happens in industrial slums. In any case, a bacteria-contaminated water can be boiled. When a hunter-gatherer lives downstream from industrial slum, it's not his fault, it's the industrialist's fault. I'm pretty sure the talk here was about toxic chemical pollutants, not disease. Industrial facilities and cities do contaminate water with industrial waste. From untreated liquid waste water to plain plastic, many marine cities even in your country dump feces in ocean when they could use them as fertilizer like every dimwit peasant for last 10000 years has figured out to.

>>48144 > A $200 Corolla is an excess of your top 5% humanity industrial society lifestyle. It seems like you just want to throw mud and didn't actually read the thread carefully. A $200 Corolla is appropriate since the target of my posts is in Europe. >>48010 And in poorer parts of the world I said they ride small cc motorcycles. >>48004 Both of which are massive improvements over walking. In past only the rich could afford horses but now anyone can afford a 50cc scooter. >You have to travel further distances to get anywhere than you had to 100 years ago Nobody is stopping you from getting an apartment in the city and walking everywhere if you want to. >Why do you have to travel further? Because automobile you rely on going further has destroyed the cities What you're actually complaining about here is overpopulation. Technology allows us to support higher populations. But if you add modern technology but keep population levels at historic levels then your argument doesn't work. >Ever heard of such thing as overnight train. Trains only go where your overlords allow them to go. A car/bike is personal freedom on a completely different level. >I'm pretty sure the talk here was about toxic chemical pollutants, not disease. Why am I supposed to give a fuarrrk about "pollutants" if they don't have health implications. sage because you're just mad and not contributing anything intelligent. And again please respond to quotes instead of your own projections.

>>48152 >And again please respond to quotes instead of your own projections. "wow based industrialist exposing da joos amirite" is completely unacceptable. I am disappointed that the mods are letting you get away with this.

>>48152 I'm literally too tired to even put up with you any longer. Just coming in to let you know that you won, I won't reply to this string of arguments anymore. >>46602 As far as I know, Africans use cellphones for banking, and there's an entire business branch revolving around cellphone banking. There are also some subscription services for farming tips I think.

>>48152 >automobile you rely on going further has destroyed the cities This is not true for another reason. Before cars city streets were flooded with horse crap. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/ >>48176 >I'm literally too tired to even put up with you any longer. I'm sorry I made more compelling arguments than you lol?

>>48185 >>48152 didn't read everything you guys wrote, while in north american cities, design and zoning have truly made cars a priority, this is only because someone made that decision. Not all cities in the world are like this, and they definitely don't have to be, and the existence of the car or of horses doesn't have much say, because there are alternatives to everything.

>>48185 yes you did, or maybe it's just me running out of good arguments, I don't know. It does not make me feel better anyway, knowing that i'm supposedly in a better situation than someone born 1000 years ago. Maybe it's the fact that i am not interested in any of the opportunities you have presented, and indeed do not wish to partake in society at all. I am working on this, to go out and never look back, but until then, i am bound to my living space, coping with my current situation by arguing with Anonymous imageboard users about how soykafty modern life is IMO.

>>48185 Uugh, by late 19th century every city with "manure problem" had money to build tram and trolleybus lines which could also transport cargo loads, and bicycles were already affordable to lower classes. These were dismantled in favor of gas automobiles after WWII because everyone in US apparently wanted to live in Levittowns and mow useless lawns every single day. Alluding in to horse manure as pollutant (not just as mere nuisance) is a non-sequitur because unlike noise and particulate pollution and extracted carbon adding to atmosphere from petroleum combustion, horse carriages are quiet, and manure is recycled back into fields that grow fodder.

for a thread about third world problems , the discussion sure got hijacked by US history .

>>48152 >And in poorer parts of the world I said they ride small cc motorcycles People are forced to ride noisy farting motorcycles to get anywhere in megalopolises built by braindamaged modernist cargo cultists. Every time I see an photo of these motorcycles in traffic, they're accompanied by megalomaniac 10-lane overpass highways or similar crap. Guess what market these motorcycles were originally made for? Suburban United States in the 60's by Honda. >Both of which are massive improvements over walking. "Improvement" over having to cover inhumane distances in a "city" otherwise occupied by automobiles? "Improvement" over having baseline body exercise without visiting a gym? "Improvement" over perceiving surroundings at own's scale? >Nobody is stopping you from getting an apartment in the city and walking everywhere if you want to. Nobody is stopping you from riding your automobile in front of my windows honking, whirring, buzzing. Nobody is stopping you from polluting the air I breathe. Nobody is stopping you from occupying all available surface with automobile infrastructure leaving no place for nature or humans. >What you're actually complaining about here is overpopulation. Overpopulation is noticeable in subtle ways. A huge traffic jam occupies more space than a "crowd" of it's drivers who would fit into a bus or train. A vast network of roads, copy-paste suburbs and accompanying crop fields are noticeable from space, permaculture villages and walkable town centers are not. In fact if you compare population dynamics of major old cities, you'll see population decrease in the centers even on last 50 years span. These people are moving into newly-built suburbs to LARP American lifestyle. Real overpopulation happens in places you don't see daily: it's shanty towns and slums in Africa and Asia, what happens when these people are wealthy enough to move into another suburb? >But if you add modern technology but keep population levels at historic levels then your argument doesn't work. It's not possible to have both low population and high technology. The excess population works on factories to sew your disposable clothing, to grow your hamburger, to build your automobile, to mine your oil and gas, to dig minerals for your e-car batteries and computers. Otherwise, ho do you propose getting rid of them? Why not start with yourself and your car? >Trains only go where your overlords allow them to go. And autos don't? Oy vey! Who builds your roads, parking lots, who operates the tollbooths, who puts a license plate on your car to track via CCTV? My shoes don't have a license plate, I can walk anywhere I want and further, deeper, higher than any "off-roard" auto can go. While a train station almost everywhere I'd realistically need to go and all the amenities are in walking distance from it, thanks to non-braindamaged premodernist town plans, but walking in any place built for automobiles is increasingly difficult. >A car/bike is personal freedom on a completely different level. You took these words from a TV commercial. Freedumbs ain't free. Is it actually freedom if you can't traverse artificial environment by foot as a human being for whom the concept of "freedoms" is meant to apply? Mowing nature with bulldozers to build another highway and suburb or "off-roading" it with tyres is not freedom, it's frivolous luxury and destruction of natural habitat for ecosystems. >Why am I supposed to give a fuarrrk about "pollutants" if they don't have health implications. Yeah right, a whole river of fish dies, cancer rates rise, and it's not a health implication. #notmyproblem

>>48252 Yeah, mainly because those two (three?four?) jack∆sses can't help but argue over wageslavery. I mean, what the fugg does it matter?if one doesn't like it, they can go /vent/ about it. Fuggin snowflakes everywhere. Back to topic >>45112 I see you gave this some thought. Let's take a look >There is no doubt that cyberpunk colloquially stands for a presently outdated, corny aesthetic The old wave, certainly. It is, however, almost forgotten in wake of the current wave. The current view on cyberpunk is formed by the very forces cyberpunk condemns, the corporate powerhouse is shaping the genre into a cash cow to generate profit from a 'hi-tech, lo-life' aesthetic, that has little in common with the original cyberpunk. The increasing commercialisation of the genre has tainted it, and left millions of norms with the impression that "that's what it's All about". It is not outdated, it is reshaped into corporate monstrosity. >The easiest option may be to let cyberpunk die, then move on. Cyberpunk is already basically dead, as I said, it's current form is a monstrosity that pleases the consumer and is devoid of soul. >We can keep on rehashing the same soykaf and die out when the conditions around us change, or we can evolve. True, although changing the current wave of cyberpunk may not be the best idea. I propose an alternative wave, like the way other subcultures split up in different movements, although without the hostilities that usually entails. An important fact that needs to be considered in forming alternatives, is that cyberpunk often predicts future complications of current problems. It is not far fetched to build new works of cyberpunk fiction off of current problems, such as global warming, energy problems, Overpopulation, Ressources dwindling, plagues, global Control measures based on plague containment, etc. >Third world Certainly has its place in the new generation of cyberpunk, as it becomes increasingly industrialised and integrated into the new world. I cannot see the third world as slumtown central in the next 30-40 years, as they will certainly work on overcoming their problems and try to gain independence from their exploiters. What I can see though, is the political climate heating up over the next decades, and probably a shadow war breaking out, that will be fought by hackers and saboteurs, instead of soldiers and tanks. This could provide an interesting source of inspiration for new cyberpunk fiction. Fiction is beautiful, because it plays by the authors rules.

>>48206 It's easy to take soykaf for granted and not realize how far humanity has come. >>48249 >Alluding in to horse manure as pollutant (not just as mere nuisance) is a non-sequitur The argument is that cities were perfect and then cars came along and ruined everything. It's just a golden age fallacy based on historical ignorance. >>48253 >People are forced to ride noisy farting motorcycles to get anywhere in megalopolises built by braindamaged modernist cargo cultists. Nobody is "forced" to do anything. People use personal transport because they want to get places that public transport doesn't go. >Guess what market these motorcycles were originally made for? Suburban United States in the 60's by Honda. Actually the Japanese made small motorcycles for themselves because the Allies stopped them manufacturing cars after WW2 and they need to import all their oil so engine efficiency was their number one priority. That's why even today Japanese supercars like the NSX and GTR still have relatively small V6 engines. >"Improvement" over having to cover inhumane distances in a "city" otherwise occupied by automobiles? Cities are big because there are more people alive. The implication that 19th century cities would continue to function with 21st century populations if only evil technology didn't ruin everything is dumb. >It's not possible to have both low population and high technology. It was hypothetical. Low population + No cars = utopia (according to you) High population + Cars = everything is terrible (according to you) High population + No cars = ??? You are changing 2 variables and then misattributing the result to the variable you don't like (or been propagandized to not like) how dare you >Nobody is stopping you from occupying all available surface with automobile infrastructure leaving no place for nature or humans. 90% of Earth landmass is uninhabited by humans. If you don't like the city then don't go to the city. Maybe if you had a car then you could live in the countryside >And autos don't? Autos go anywhere there is a road. And there are a lot of roads. When the Italian government snapped their fingers and instantly shut down all the trains but were never able to block every road out of the lockdown provinces, that should have been a wakeup call. Personal transport is freedom. And the elites don't like that. Take the train and eat the bugs like a good citizen.

>>48263 I'm not taking sh1t for granted, I don't want a lot of it. Wage work is absolute sh1t, and if you think that's nonsense, that's fine, I'm beyond the point of arguing, but I want to be paid for the work I do, not how Long I stay at work. I have better things to do. As to tech, I try to get away from a lot of it. Video games and other media have practically devoured my childhood and teenager years, all because I didn't have anyone to wake me up to how crappy it is, and how I'm wasting my life. I was happy, happy to waste my life. Tech is used to control us, make us dependent on it. I'm not the lainon who argued for public transport, I am cycling almost everywhere, because it keeps me healthy, and I excercise everyday. But I also try to rely less on things that could fall away as soon as the supply chain goes to sh1t. Imagine trying to get away fast from sh1tshow central, and you have no gas. I won't try to convince you, but don't make others believe that being heavily reliant on tech is fine, that isn't whitepilling, that's bluepilling. >90% of landmass uninhabited. But almost everywhere is either controlled or outright owned by someone. Do you have any advice for lainons who want to use those 90%, but are afraid of getting driven off by zealous land owners?

>>48267 >I want to be paid for the work I do, not how Long I stay at work You have to gain skills that people want to pay for or make things that people want to buy. What helped me was flipping the chessboard around. Instead of asking how can I get money, ask what can I do to give value to other people? Then the money comes as a natural consequence. >I also try to rely less on things that could fall away as soon as the supply chain goes to sh1t. Imagine trying to get away fast from sh1tshow central, and you have no gas. Sure. If energy or food/transportation is disrupted then a lot of people will die. But without modern technology we probably wouldn't have been born in the first place. I don't think there's really a choice here. You can try to live off grid but it doesn't scale. The options are embrace technology or reduce the population. I don't see a third way. >any advice for lainons who want to use those 90%, but are afraid of getting driven off by zealous land owners? If you want legal advice then it depends where you are. The UK is surprisingly lax because a lot of money has been laundered through land (to avoid inheritance tax and stuff), so nobody really knows who owns what in many cases. So there is a lot of scope to dick around on empty but "private" land simply because the owners don't want to identify themselves and admit their family owes 500 years of tax just to get rid of you. Lookup a blog called Who Owns England if that interests you. That's just the UK though. It doesn't have to be land. There are people setting up independent communities in international waters. Lookup Ocean Builders as a starting point for that. I also heard of a project to buy land from governments and establish independent mini-state similar to OGFZA and the Nevada smart city. That might be a bit too cyberpunk for you though.