Been playing Cyberpunk 2077 a lot recently, think I’ve put in around 30 hours in the span of 4 days. Look who’s really making the most of their graduate degree! One of my worst self-enabling habits is gaslighting myself that gaming and watching entertainment is actually a form of casual digital ethnography. This is nowhere near play, do not interpret it so, my time spent shooting Japanese cyborgs is not just academic, but excellent praxis.
I like some of the ideas the game has in what entertainment will look like in the future. Of course, a lot of technology in the game is a build up of ideas that have spanned throughout the history of cyberpunk/sci-fi as a genre. But “Braindances” is something I find quite interesting. The idea of replaying and re-entering a video file through a more dynamic actionable way seems provocative and utterly horrifying. Nowhere will be safe when a camera enters a room, not that that’s so different now anyways. Shoplifters of the world must unite before our favorite anti-capitalist practice is taken from us.
I also think the amount of radio and television use in the game might not hold up. What even will be the legacy of radio anyways? I know this is a stupid question, especially for a comm student, but I don’t think viewing it the traditional way we do here gets us the answer. That is, viewing it in this progression of: radio to television, television to internet, yadi yada. Radio if anything is reflected in short-form content, or YouTube, or anything like this. It is listening and engaging with something curated for you, with the flexibility and customizability that you have now on your phone. It is this offloading of consumption that radio teased at in its archaic ways, even if tracing it all the way back to radio to blame seems to miss the point a bit.
I’m still not finished the game, think I got a little less than halfway to go. I struggle with the middle of games, especially story-based ones like Cyberpunk. I form attachments so quick that I get insecure about the speed of it, so I stay in limbo, killing the relationship. I think it’s why I’m drawn to simulation/sandbox games like Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, Project Zomboid, and especially Minecraft. There is a certain freedom in curation that is inherent, where the narratives come out naturally through the little actions made. I’ll save this for another blog, but the core sentiment I want to make with this paragraph is that my choice of game is superior to yours. Mine denotes a certain aloofness and complexity, so my lack of commitment is actually just a disgusted high-browed nose turned in your general direction.
Back to Cyberpunk.
I must hesitantly admit, the ability to mod your body with cybernetic prosthetics is something that I am incredibly fascinated with. To a degree that puts me in the same take as the techno-ghouls. The body is bad the body’s not good, I want out of my prison of flesh.
I’m always surprised when the topic is brought up and the majority of people will argue against cybernetic prosthetics. It’s not the take I disagree with but the extent to which I feel alone. But it is academia, so I guess I can’t be too shocked. Or maybe it’s just that I love the idea of things, never wanting to see the reality of it (this can’t be it). Of course—as a good Marxist—one knows that the companies behind these technologies will be anything but ethical. The idea of being Elon Musk’s lab rat with my brain hooked up to technology trained by killing monkeys doesn’t inspire much appeal. But goddamn, I would love a USB port available on my arm (USB-C might be better). A multitude of multi-port wires coming out of the 2 terabyte storage drive in my arm. I’m sure this will be subscription based in the future. And I do wonder what I would store in there that would make it worth it. Right now it mostly consists of academic work (5%) and torrent files (95%), maybe NordVPN will also allow untraceable torrenting straight to your body.
At the graduate conference I was at last Friday, a presenter’s topic was on Neuralink, arguing for its inherent ableism. And my selfish thoughts couldn’t stop attacking my morality. Of course, the expectation that one is of a “functioning” person today is tied to the capitalist understanding. Efficiency is less so anything quantifiable, but the extent to which one is able to sacrifice themselves, to endure, to achieve success under capital. Some people genetically have the up, and some people due to cultural mores may have the up. And this technology being tied up with Elon Musk is food for thought for a Luddite take. The Luddite take, I refuse to have.
I read an interview of the guy who was one of the first human trials for Neuralink. And he said that he was able to multitask in a way no human is. He’s playing Civilization VI, listening to a podcast, reading, music, all at the same time. I wish the interview would have pushed on that point further, what does that really really mean. For a human to consume all such media with efficiency. What is he getting out of it. I think it would probably be reductive to say that he’s not getting the same experience as one would by engaging with a piece of media on its own. But maybe something new is going on here. Our limbic system is demanding what he is doing, and brain cybernetics like Neuralink might be where our current fixation and need of entertainment may lead us.
So in this fictitious imagining of the future, our organs are demanding something we are biologically not capable of producing. That is, a far greater ability of perception. I believe that some kind of form of Neuralink (I would probably take the CCP funded version of this) will make its way into somewhat mass adoption in the next 10-15 years. What’s gonna accelerate further? Our entertainment or the technology to allow us to further consume it. Maybe the next 5 years will be a sort of “entertainment bottleneck,” as we wait for the technology to catch up to allow us to self-harm even further.
-> Slopunk <- 