> we are getting the cyberpunk dystopia with none of the aesthetics that have made it a household word.
Sure we are. The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed. Here's a nighttime walk through Shenzhen.[1] Shenzhen is cyberpunk made real. Giant display screens everywhere. Light shows on major buildings, synchronized between the buildings. Robots on the streets. Drones in the sky. Cameras everywhere. Night markets where you can buy both food and electronics. Self-driving cars. Electric buses and taxis. Women in colorful outfits on motorcycles.
Shenzhen looks more cyberpunk than Cyberpunk 2077, the game.
That's an interesting video. If the skyscrapers were flickering just a little faster, the sky would be the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.
That's just a normal night. For special events, the skyscraper lighting is much more dynamic.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDNkcKiD2Ow
it just looks like a normal city. If we're declaring things cyberpunk based on LED displays Las Vegas probably wins but China is a horrifying totalitarian dictatorship with a market economy and by that measure sure, guess they beat us to the dystopia! go communism! go China! weeeeee
Well maybe there's something to be said about that when comparing against the decaying and crumbling corrupt US
I think what is confusing some people is that those novels and authors are all American and they can’t seem to believe another country beat us to it. It’s like they expected God had made it so that America would be the leader in techno culture evolution. It would be endearing if it weren’t for their impotent rage response to enable fascism for their own ends.
Asian superpowers feature so heavily in the genre that it's a cliche. Also Ballard was British.
> I think what is confusing some people is that those novels and authors are all American and they can’t seem to believe another country beat us to it.
Gibson's novels predicted Asian ascendency (insomuch as you can have ascendency in a dystopia). Through a quirk of the time period in which they were written they happened to present it as emanating from Japan rather than China.