Why Cyberpunk is no more, and what the corporate bad ending is now.

 So, Cyberpunk. Still one of the most important genres of science-fiction. Or atleast of the debate about Science-Fiction. The fear of dropping into a cyberpunk world is still running high, and every time we talk about the power of corporations the spectre of Cyberpunk looms over this debate. 

But... Is Cyberpunk even still relevant as a bad ending? Well, let's go through some of the core things: 

- The increasing power of corporations is still very much relevant. They way we see the modern tech companies increasingly grow powerful is threatening, their control over public debate and influence into politics very much growing over the last decade. The influence is in a different way though. Instead of the "contesting sovereignity" part of Cyberpunk, they are more getitng their influence from their influence on public debate.

- Human augmentation is a thing that is slowly getting more important. While most of the stuff we are seeing in this regard is still very crude, the development of "cyberware" is speeding up, and true augmentation might just be some years, or two decades away. Musks Neuralink might still be far from ready, but with this we can see that DNI (to talk in Cyberpunk-Style) or Computer-Brain/Brain-Computer-Interfaces (CBI/BCI) are coming

- The state monopoly on violence is not threatened. While Cyberpunk has many groups contesting for the monopoly on violence, this is currently not the case. PMCs have risen in use during the 90s and 00s, but their rise has been fairly low. They are still used in a "state"-context. The same is true for private police forces, while there are areas where private police forces exist, within the "western world" this is almost always in a supplementary role, and currently this doesn't seem to change.

- Classical pollution has dropped in importance. Cyberpunk (almost) always plays in a world that is full of smog, rivers that are burning, etc. This is still in the context of the 70s/80s, prior to the current reductions we've seen in classical pollution. Face masks to be able to keep breathing are (atleast in the western world) not a thing. Instead of the "classical" pollution, the current problems are way more with GHG emissions, and their effects, something that Cyberpunk doesn't talk about.

So, many of the crucial points of Cyberpunk are not, or only partly relevant. The world has changed, and so has the corporate "bad ending". But what is it now? 

We are still looking at pathways with increasing corporate influence. But instead of large manufacturing companies contesting state sovereignity in certain areas, and the monopoly of force completly collapsing in others, we are looking at different results. The "new bad ending" isn't really that developed. The last two decades Sci-Fi has heavily focused itself on high-tech (be it AI, biotech) or just dabbled in Space Opera. But we can draw a couple of pointers how the corporate bad ending currently looks.

- The companies still take over the world, they are just more subtle about it. The current bad ending has no company that formally rules areas. Instead they use their influence on the "cybersphere" to form society to their liking. This may happen either by using their social media algorithms, or more directly by lobbying politicians to change the election system to work online, and then manipulating the elections. With this the control is more subtle, but even more absolute than in Cyberpunk.

- The world doesn't look bad. Pollution is a gone thing in that world, GHG emissions atleast don't run rampant. The companies work on giving atleast the look of a livable city, in the places they are strongest. You may even have a very "Solarpunky" look at the surface, with individual motorized transport on the backfoot, increased green spaces, and a more playful city planing.

- The Cybersphere gets more and more important. In the bad ending, stuff like the Metaverse actually works out. AR or even full VR becomes important in most peoples lifes, with physical reality on the backfoot. 

- Resistance gets harder and harder. As the world looks good on the surface, and the tech companies subtly control public opinion, resistance gets harder and harder. While in Cyberpunk worlds, the resistance always had a scrappy underdog feeling, they had a large base to tap into for support. The resistance was mostly brutally supressed by violence. This is something that current bad ending doesn't have. The population is kept complacent by a kind of secure life, and gets pitted against change by the full control the companies have over information.

What is still missing is a name. Well, what about Infopunk? The core point of the new bad ending is Information, both as in "data", as in "information about what is going on". The companies control the world via information. And anyone resisting it will need to be good at manipulating the companies take on information. The "punk" might be slightly contentious, but in the end many "future worlds" have it in the name, and it isn't unfitting. Atleast not more than in Cyberpunk.