Cyberpunk

Thanks for the 14-year-old's perspective on geopolitics, opinion noted.

I mean I'm not talking about opinions I'm talking about genre markers and how cyberpunk is used a bit too broadly as a term these days

>what is and isn't [post-] cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is traditionally predominantly focused on the sort of social commentary through the lense of a corporatized dystopian future

Post-cyberpunk is considered post because it has moved past using the future to comment on modern things and instead to focus on more philosophical aspects of the idea of a cyberpunk setting, so you'll see a much bigger focus on transhumanism, post-humanism, and what makes a person a person in post-cyberpunk works.

>cyberpunk = allegorical and typically corporate dystopian

>post-cyberpunk = philosophical and grounded in more abstract human concepts like the struggling with the idea of a consciousness

It's why in GitS it's much less Bladerunner or Shadowrun and more just like regular Hong Kong and Japan except some folks are fucking robots and cyborgs

It's cyberpunk from the perspective of the people who are usually the un-examined villains of cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk is tits, chrome, blood, EVERYTHING IS SHITTY.
Postcyberpunk is optimistic and less EVERYONE IS OUT TO FUCK YOU UP.
At least that's what I remember from whatever I read.

BUMP

Cyberpunk is dead.

Just like this thread.

Arguably, since it's about (post-)humanism rather than explicitly about social issues, but I do find the distinction to be of little importance to make. It's using the same tools to make a different point.

I believe cyberpunk as a subgenre of sci-fi is independent of tonal classification.

GitS is in fact still in the cyberpunk genre, it's just not Neuromancer "time to sell some drugs and die" tone.

You can just preface with 'dark' or 'hopeful', etc.

>explicitly about social issues

You got the themes of free flow of information vs. information control. Questions about reality, memory, and self. Politics, class division, etc. I don't see how it can't be about social issues. Even the whole thing with artificial intelligence is just the same old "how do we treat slaves/poor/etc." type of thing.

Perhaps poorly worded on my part, but what I'm meaning to say is that social commentary isn't "the point" of GitS. That's not saying that it can't have any social commentary, just like a story about moralism can't also include themes of love. I'm also primarily thinking about the first movie here, which I believe to be peak GitS.

Ultimately, GitS doesn't end on a note on how we should treat information, or about underhanded internal politics in a government, what it more than anything else tries to communicate is some idea about the post-human. About when something stops being human, and what's next on the evolutionary ladder.

There's some thematic tied to ethical treatment of AI (a social issue) in stuff like Stand Alone Complex, but the first movie isn't really very concerned with the social issues relating to a being like the Puppet Master, it's concerned about the post-human significance of just such a being.

I see what you mean, but mentioning social issues isn't the same as being a work about social issues.

>it's concerned about the post-human significance of just such a being.

As a plot. In theme it was very much revolved around the impact of all this tech on the average people. You got a garbage truck driver whose entire life was a lie. You got a criminal whose reality was warped. Even Motoko is questioning whether or not she ever was human in the first place. The fact that there's an artificial creature with an artificial self sort of give the "who gives a fuck, it's all subjective" as we learn that a fake creature's fake self can be real. Why else is she so obsessed with the Puppet Master? It's not because she's bound by duty to catch the criminal. You got several scenes where she questions her reality.

I don't see how a movie has to be specifically about a subject to be a movie about that subject. How many war movies are about how awful war is without the plot of it being "look at how terrible war is." Apocalypse Now was about an agent travelling to meet with a rogue officer and assassinate them. That was the plot, yet the real story were the smaller stories they came across during that travel. That was the point of the movie, not the finale with Kurtz.

>Even Motoko is questioning whether or not she ever was human in the first place.

It's strange that these shows almost never go for the "it doesn't matter, eat fuck kill" answer. For a lot of the stuff, I find myself saying "go ask a coyote how much he cares".

But I have that opinion of a lot of 'philosophical' sci-fi. Much of it seems overcomplicated and/or not really trying for answers, just making 'edgy questions'.

Because it's not intended for people who think that "it doesn't matter" is a satisfactory answer.
This is like asking why you should watch a horror movie if you don't see any reason to be scared.

Well I often don't see horror movies as scary. They're kind of funny with most of the characters usually committing suicide through poor decisions.

But I believe there's room in cyberpunk for simple answers.