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By Root 962 0

that technology will bring, so that if we act in a timely way, we can preserve consensus values. The cyberpunks studied the history of how humans have tried to manage change, and were not impressed. Moreover, the technologies of the twenty-first century are invasive and intimate. A key insight of CP, extended still further in PCP, is that we are no longer changing technology; rather it has begun to change us. Not just our homes and schools, our governments and workplaces, but our senses, our memories, and our very consciousness. Ubiquitous computing with access to all recorded knowledge, instantaneous communication across the entire planet, add-ons to the Human Operating System, manipulation of our genome—all are on the horizon. The changes these technologies will bring are qualitatively different than the changes caused by the automobile, or even by science fiction’s longed-for invention of faster-than-light starships. Yes, cars transformed the landscape and gave rise to the malls, McDonald’s and the suburbs. Sure, FTL will get us to the stars. But cars and starships change what we do, not who we are.

It has been observed that the future that cyberpunks envisioned seems very dark indeed. However, dystopia is in the eye of the beholder. While we may shudder at the thought of living in some of these worlds, the fictional denizens of pep stories seldom exhibit nostalgia for the good old days of 2007. What seems grim to us is simply the world to them. Characters in these stories are too busy living their lives to waste much time wringing their hands over the subversion of our values. Why should they? Do we live in a dystopia? One can easily imagine the American Founding Fathers, even the technophilic libertine Benjamin Franklin, recoiling in horror at some of the values of our society. In pep stories, human values are not imprinted on the fabric of the universe because what it means to be human is always negotiable.

These traits of PCP are so far mere extensions of CP obsessions. Another obsession of CP was to tell stories about the people that science fiction had traditionally ignored. Originally “the street” in CP meant the shadowy world of those who had set themselves against the norms of the dominant culture, hackers, thieves, spies, scam artists, and drug users. But for PCP writers the street leads to other parts of the world. Their futures have become more diverse, and richer for it. Asians and Africans and Latinos are no longer just sprinkled into stories as supporting characters, as if they are some kind of exotic seasoning. PCP writers attempt to bring them and their unique concerns to the center of their stories. PCP pays attention to the underclass, who do not have access to the transformative technologies that were the CP stock-in-trade.

“I think we live in an incomprehensible present, and what I’m trying to do is illuminate the moment. I’m trying to make the moment accessible. I’m not even trying to explain the moment, I’m just trying to make the moment accessible.”

—William Gibson, No Maps for These Territories

punk

In the beginning, the stereotypical cyberpunk protagonist was a disaffected loner from outside the cultural mainstream. Ultimately this proved not only tiresome but also betrayed a lack of extrapolative rigor. No future could exist in which there were only data thieves in trench coats and megalomaniacal middle managers. Someone had to be baking the bread and driving the trucks and assembling all those flat screens. Cyberspace needs electricians! Where was the middle class in the CP stories? What were the families like? Could the cyberpunks write about community and still be punks?

The punk in cyberpunk has always been a problem. If by punk, one meant to say that the writers of the Mirrorshades generation were young, well, they were — at the time. But while they were to varying degrees outsiders, very few of the original cyberpunks — or indeed, the contributors to this collection — could be said to have lived “on the street.” It is difficult to write orderly sentences if one is caught