Vlog #40 - Cyberpunk
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- My first book, Big City, is influenced by cyberpunk, though it's light on the cyber. If you want to read it, you can buy a digital copy here for $3: gumroad.com/l/...
In which I try to work out the draw of cyberpunk, at least for me. If you haven't read any of the Neuromancer series by William Gibson, I highly recommend you check them out - it's gorgeous writing. Burning Chrome, his short story collection, is also a good place to jump in. And I should mention that Gibson's novels and cyberpunk in general are heavily influenced by Japanese culture, especially that of Tokyo.
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I found one old video and now I'm on a spiral of old nerdwriter videos
Just wanted to state that cyberpunk is my all-time favorite genre of writing, movies and games too. It's incredible.
Subbed.
Science Fiction is things that mankind might see in a thousand years. Cyberpunk is things you might very well see with your own eyes before the end of the decade.
I'd argue it's exactly the other way around
*****
I remember the old Chromebook 1. Half the stuff in it has already been exceeded by real-life modern technology.
+Von Neely I feel like we could definitely manage a lot of these things, if we had a complete lack of interest in morality and not being spied on constantly.
Daniel Burns
Well we've already got the former. Just need to work on the latter.
With that said: I am officially excited, but outright terrified.
I feel like this channel was made for me, like a self created conscious loop. It's like you have tapped into my brain and made a video about everything I am interested in.. .
+DREAM清醒夢LUCID hey you're the dude who lives in taiwan! cheers man, they found the guy.
+Zoe Lin (& i get exactly what you mean)
I'm amazed you know who I am... Yeah, they caught him, the internet is an amazing thing... This is one of my favourite channels ;)
+DREAM清醒夢LUCID same dude
DREAM清醒夢LUCID
Cyberpunk slaps all of our fears onto a platter for us to see and observe. We eat it up. I think that is why we are so drawn to it. Instead of a genre of fantasy focusing on joy and magic(boring!) cyberpunk shows us everything we are usually terrified of and makes it...intriguing. With this genre's ability to display all of the wicked sin in the world, it can show us how we can improve ourselves in the now, making us truly enjoy our lives the way they are.
I'm so happy to be a cyberpunker.
If life is meaningless (without it's own meaning), does that mean that we can define (to give meaning, to take infinity from) it as we wish? If so, then meaninglessness might be the most beautiful state.
+JohnZ117 Ghost In The Shell will help you with that ;)
Yes that's exactly right. It is left to us to give meaning to our existence. It is not defined by any clear purpose. Everyone searches for a purpose in life and that is the reason why.
UnregisteredChannel
My purpose in life is to find my purpose in life.
+JohnZ117 that's about the gist of it :)
thats existentialism
All nihilists are hedonists, partly. It's healthy, I think, to embrace that. But though life may be objectively meaningless (I think it is), a lot can be subjectively meaningful to you. Find out what those things are. If they at least include helping people, loving, & being loved, I think you're in good shape. Hope this helps!
I love cyberpunk for showing what our current ways result in if we go on without reflection. From a post-modernist perspective where the self is displaced by simulacra and societies drown in hyperreal projections the cyberpunk societies are refreshingly clear. I find most dystopian narratives allow traces of hope to surface in narratives full of diverse subcultures and a technological positivism in overdrive.
Yes! YES! The feeling! The one I felt when playing E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy! Hopelessness that everything is here and yet you are left behind, to the point that you can only... go with the flow...
No more freedom... You are one with the world now... Just keep on walking...
ah yes that note in the beginning. like a welp mewling into the nigh. nothings so lonely like a dark room in the night with the neighbors you never talk to ten feet away
I was researching on cyber punk and you have no idea how much I celebrated when I discovered you have a video on it
I recently decided to write my MA Dissertation on cyberpunk and this video just affirmed why I want to do it.
Cut and pasted this from my response so you don't miss it.
What Cyberpunk was is a reaction to the the wave of automation that was washing over the western world making more and more folks redundant, Gibson is the Dickens of our generation.
Before Cyberpunk the heroes of Sci Fi were Starship Captains, Scientists and other boffins and Gentlemen Adventurers. Cyberpunk changed that it's heroes more often than not the folks at the bottom and fringes of society, the folks making do and making ends meet in this near future urban dystopia.
Lord Boofhead thanks!!
Looking forward to elaborate my Master Thesis on Architectural Design throught Cyberpunk! As always, great motivation Nerdwriter !
Ah, now I understand why I love dystopia, cyberpunk and post apocalyptic fiction. The same reason I loved the Smiths, the Cure and Depeche Mode. My understanding that due to the infinite aspect of the cosmos... life has no meaning. Irony makes more sense then reality.
You have a really good taste in music 😊
@@fruzsinafarkas3506 i second that. The smith's were my jam for a long time and ill still rock out to some of Morrisey's crooning every once in awhile.
Cyberpunk is a kind of nihilism. It is hopeless. For example, it depicts a world wherein corporations rule and there's no way to get ahead. This is appealing to people who are anxious about growing up and meeting their big goals and ambition because if it's all dystopia, if there are all these barriers to get ahead then what's the point?
I don't know about that. Neuromancer certainly didn't seem hopeless to me, and a lot of dystopian fiction, especially the kind aimed at young adults, is about struggling to fix the world.
Hey man. Love your channel. Just subscribed today. :)
Big Guy thanks :)
Holy shit you just described my mind
I really look forward to these weekly. Very well done!
Thanks for 40 great and thought provoking vlogs! I so love to watch cyberpunk, never read it though...just discovered steampunk books last year and fell in love head over heals!
i would love to see you do at least 1 video talking about the 'Metal Gear Solid' games
One of the most brilliant descriptions of Cyberpunk and Blade Runner ever, good job!
Finally a glimpse of your original philosophical approach! Nothing against your more casual new style but I was very appreciative of the old style, and ultimately prefer it to the new. I love the substance, common sense, and lilting tones of the old style - like a good story, entertaining, offering new ideas, and provoking thought about our shared experience of the human condition. So amongst vlogs of the new style (like I said, nothing against it) I would love more occasional old style ones too
I'm always sad when your videos end. Not because they're bad, but because they're so good I wish they kept going.
I have just discovered you with the Children of Men: Don't Ignore the Background video and what I think is that you are great! Your channel is one of the greatest things I needed. Best regards!
*stayed through 40 vlogs and a two month or so hiatus* (your work has been thought provoking and very inspirational - don't stop - thank you for doing what you do)
The Nerdwriter: Making Tuesdays gloriously frothing with intellectual awesome for over an entire year.
Always makes me smile and confirm my own way of thinking
Please please do something on Gattaca
yes! additional vote for Gattaca !
I don't know if you would respond, but I wonder what you might think of Psycho-Pass. I think that the themes within that anime are profoundly interesting and it has a great commentary on what constitutes crime and what happens to a society where people's choices are guided by a system. It also plays really well on dystopian and cyberpunk themes that I think are really enlightening. Granted it is a violent anime and some might think it is too much, but I view the violence to contribute really well into the philosophical commentary. The touch of horror and the morals that play in the horror genre are another addition that I think makes Psycho-Pass really amazing, in my opinion.
dude wish you would do an updated video expanding on these ideas....but this is great and thanks for posting
I used to play the D20 Cyberpunk RPG, and the thing I found most interesting about the system was that for every cybernetic augmentation you added to your body (bionic eye, retractable claws, kick-ass metal arm...), you lost points off your 'Humanity' score. Each 10 point loss of humanity equaled a 1 point loss of your 'Empathy' score. When they Empathy dropped to 3 or lower, the character starts to suffer from psychosis. I'm becoming aware that my iPhone is currently draining my humanity/empathy.
Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Over-Drive, Burning Chrome(Johnny Mnemonic) Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, 1984 are some of the most absolutely brilliant novels ever written.
And if you like the Cyberpunk genre, they are a must read...
Love this , thanks ...will check out William Gibson.
well 2 years has passed, did you checked it out? hope so, couse it's amazing
"when the note turned, had melted." Wow.
He hit the nail right on the head.
Ive been here since the beginning sorry i never did that video for you @nerdwriter, woot for being first subscriber
that was a brilliant analyzation, i had just recently REALLY gotten into it becasue of its immensely depressing undertones and that i feel some kind of a connection to the cyberpunk fiction
i wish you were one my of lecturers in university. i absolutely love your vlogs and look forward to them every week. so thank you for making them!!
I find the meaning of life to be an interesting paradox:
If you believe that the meaning of life is to make life meaningful, then in the act of trying to make it meaningful you have given meaning to your life.
This is the first video of yours I've watched and I'm definitely subscribing. Keep it up, love the content!
Even though it's not quite cyber-punk, V For Vendetta would be an interesting topic to go on in continuation of this. For its time, the technology that is seen eventually comes to fruition. It was written in the 80s, but the time it is set in is about the time that many of the listening and spying technologies became more evident. Or maybe you could do a video on the philosophy of the book.
thanks for another great video man. Ive been subbed since i saw you via weezy waiter (you did a vlog on free will) and you shot up to my favourite vlogger instantly, i tell all my mates who like youtube about you and a bunch, in fact, have subbed. i will continue to do so for as long as you Vlog :)
i wish this were longer..good stuff
Nerdwriter, you are more human than human. I noticed many of the questions posed by the movie blade-runner are designed to bring out your inner nihilism: What is human? What is engineered? What have we created? Are we in control, or do our creations control us? How the hell did the movie so accurately predict the video-billboard-skyscape of modern cities? When I first saw BR, I thought of it as a detective story (Decker, human, must find the replicant by his wits) but now i have no chrs left ...
You are pretty much my favorite youtuber. Well, except for the vlogbrothers. I'm so happy you do what you do :)
I disagree that science fiction isn't meant to predict the future--in fact that's exactly what it's meant to do. Cyberpunk is a super interesting and particular genre of SF and I greatly enjoy this video, but SF as a whole is absolutely written (and should be written) with great care and scientific accuracy to predict a possible vision of the future that is a real potential
you got me at Bladerunner!
wow. 2012, didn't think your channel was this old.
looked for vids about the history of cyberpunk. maybe an idea for a new vid?
the quality of your editing has improved a LOT. over the years.
I'm just going to say, that intro you have is amazing. Very...classy, yet... inviting.
I love cyberpunk too it's one of my favorite style with dark fantasy and fantasy, i love those theme because it show to us a part of humanity we could be or not but for the worst and made us think about ourself, it's a simulation of pain and choas who make up think and improve our wisdom without live it really (i don't know if i have been understand, i don't speak english very well x) )
This is one of my favourite videos!
I'd like to see you come back to Cyberpunk now, almost 5 years on.
"All living things are born for no reason, continue through weakness and die by accident [...] It is meaningless that we are born; it is meaningless that we die." -Sartre
At 0:20 that is the Shakespearean wooden theatre somewhere around London, isn't it?
The one that was built from plans that were preserved from that time period, so the architects actually knew what the building looked like that Shakespeare had all his great plays at?
I think I've been there. I saw Summernight's Dream there. It is pretty cool.
Amazing channel! Every subject/ theme/ questions speaks to me haha, great to see where your interests lie!
wow, first time seeing your videos and I was blown away with the thought and attention you put into your video. well done :) i am subscribed.
Not sure who said this and I'm paraphrasing, "we live with a generation of people who's more interested in the questions of life, rather than life itself".
Do you spend a lot of time planning/writing your videos? I always feel like I'm listening to one of my university readings when I watch your videos. You always so...thoughtful and profound.
I've always felt like cyberpunk was more of a religion than a style since it often goes into detail about transcendence or enhancing reality.
This vlog makes me want to become more acquainted with things I would never think to explore. Thank you.
Life is not meaningless. The question,"What is the meaning of life" doesn't even make sense.
+RicoSeattle Hi, Quine. Yes and no.
Yes, from a grammatical point of view the question requires a subject to make sense. I.e. rephrased as "what does life mean to you" (for example) the question makes perfect sense.
Also it would be easier to make shared sense of the question if it was phrased a little more explicitly as either the meaning of life in general or the meaning of an individual's life. I.e. rephrased as "what does your own life mean to you" it not only makes sense, but starts to take the form of a question that has great psychological potential for those who engage it.
No, because to those who understand that the sentence "life is meaningless" is strictly grammatically incomplete, it could still make sense. Interpreted as summarizing the thesis that "since every subject your life or life in general could possibly have meaning to will ultimately perish along with the heat death of the whole universe, the limit of the meaning that is made of your life or life in general as time approaches infinity is null" - the statement makes sense and might well be correct.
snow crash by Neal Stephenson is my favorite cyberpunk book
Thanks for melting my head too mate!
Honestly, I cannot understand how this guy isnt more mainstreamed and serialized for his thoughts
Hey, man! Just wanted you to know that you're being watched from here, Rio, Brazil! Keep doing the good work.
I've wanted to be able to put those words together for most of my life. MORE ON CYBERPUNK!
yay the old intro is back
yes! another beautiful vlog!
I don't think that life has an inherent meaning, but that it not to say that I think it's devoid of meaning. I think you can apply the meaning you need.
just so much content in Nerdwriter are my of interest ...make me wonder .. am I nerd?
Altered carbon was an amazing show.
Can you guys suggest books or tv shows with a similar atmosphere ?
I seriously need a similar recommendation. That show had some solid fucking pacing and a very gritty setting for a back drop.
I found it interesting how you superimposed the feeling of cyberpunk to epitomise the charactistics of a cyberpunk. This is is where i believe you are compleltey wrong. A cyberpunk is a rebel on the edge; yes, a loner; maybe but not nearly as "deeply feeling" as you would make us out to be. Cyberpunks will fuck your shit up for this if you don't change your understanding of what a cyberpunk is. Get my meaning?
I wanted to put into words why I really really enjoy watching your videos, but I couldn't, so I'll just stick with: You're awesome.
Oh my gosh is that how you pronounce Vangelis? Blew my mind there.
6 years later . We are getting closer and closer to the cyberpunk age 😎😎😎 not fiction anymore
Yeah bro, good job at being awesome.
Amazing video and analysis!!!
Speaking of Cyberpunk, has anyone here read the book " Synners", from the 90's.I read both books, however,I do not remember the authors name.She wrote great cyberpunk novels.Thank you.
Nerdwriter...I share similar thoughts as you on the nature of reality and free will. Often times I find myself succumbing to nihilism and I find it difficult to escape this train of thought; its quite depressing. What are your thoughts/how do you deal with this?
I bet you're well excited for the new Cyberpunk game
Just Poetic Bro!
Bladerunner. First notes = Shivers.
Accept your mortality - but only accept it in moderation! I love it!
Getting any progress with dailygrace cause I'm really keen to see this awesome video idea, speaking of which, got an idea of what it would be about?
your videos are so well done and sooooo well spoken. What is that anime you visually reference in this video.
Hey Nerdwriter1, I enjoyed the analysis of cyberpunk but I'm curious to what you meant by "moderately" succumbing to the meaninglessness of the world. Camus, similar to other existential philosophers (Nietzsche/Sartre), maintains in "The Myth of Sisyphus" that true freedom and passion are achieved only after the full and complete realization of the contradiction between man's search for reason and a meaningless world, something he calls the absurd.
This hits different now 😅
So I just bought the Blade Runner Bluray and it has like 4 different cuts of the film. Which version should I watch first and which is the best version of the film in your opinion ?
I spot "V" by Pynchon. I have wondered why you haven't done a Pynchon video yet. I would love to hear your opinion on some of his works.
Lol..telepathy. As I
was watching this, the same thought struck me, why not
Pynchon?I've been putting off finishing ' Gravitys Rainbow for the last three years...
lol.I don't want it to end.. crazy? yea of course. But your point 'V', oh yes indeed, or Vineland or The crying of Lot 44, or.....Lol.
If you can please make a video essay on modernism and post modernism.
I wonder who was the "we" that Evan was referring to at the end of this?
Where did that image come from at 0:54 ? It's beautiful!
Julian Assange would disagree with the dystopic part and would say that we're already on the way there.
Truth spoken
Fantastic :) Love it!
fan of the vblogs, though you are not making it so easy to search for each one from 1-50?
If life was meaningless then would it not be meaningless to think that life was meaningless?
MVHH
key word moderate
+HarriHaffi gg星
Nothing matters, so nothing matters if nothing matters.
Please can you do something about existentialism, absurdism and nihilisim?
0:56 hey i had that as a wallpaper before.
Hey! THis just came to my mind going through your videos at a random order. Would it be interesting for you to talk about robot chicken as a collection of icons being torn down?
And I just proved my smarts by misspelling "you're"
I have a sudden urge to re-read The Gap Cycle (Steven R Donaldson) After all these yeas it is still the best story I've come across. Then again, perhaps I'll pick up the Neuromancer series. Anyone have any suggestions?
Cyberpunk, it's the new age philosophy.