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Liz's avatar

Where are my nanomachines, Hideo

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David Khoo's avatar

The phrase I keep hearing is "flaccid cyberpunk dystopia".

We got cyberpunk, but only the lame parts. We got the megacorps, but not the machinegun arms. We got corporate AIs, but they draw hands with six fingers instead of sending hackers to exfiltrate paydirt from cyberspace. We got unbelievably rich villains who control all the money and power, but they're short, fat and pathetic losers who wear lift heels and spray tan, rather than steeple-handed masterminds. We got the magic internet money the cypherpunks thought would break the state, and it's nearly useless except for crime. We got robots, but they're unreliable tools not new friends. We got violence in the streets, but it was the same violence we always had where the powerful stomp on the weak, not the rebellion against the system of street samurai or shadowrunners.

We got the fictional future, but it was covered in the gross goop of reality, and that made it lame.

Edit: We even got nanomachines, but they were just enzymes in our laundry powder, because that turned out to be what nanomachines actually were.

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