It still strikes me as incredibly dangerous technology. I'm ok with it being used to help people who are disabled but I desperately don't want it to be available to the general public. It's only a matter of time until the brain starts receiving inputs in addition to sending outputs.
I think you'd have to be pretty insane in the first place to voluntarily get a brain implant just for the hell of it, so I doubt some cyber ghosts whispering into their brain would be anything they're not already used to.
The vast majority of the populace is too stupid to be trusted with any technology more advanced that a 2x4. People will adopt this in droves like the herd animals they are.
I doubt it will be forced on anyone. Rather they'll simply do what they always do and make it harder and harder to live without one, much like how phones are now.
They'll manufacturer a virus and force the cure through the implant. As others said, the spineless herds will adopt it out of fear for their safety. One generation after that, the chips will be mandatory at birth.
I'm considering branching out in to some physical labor job. There is a good chance that this will become the norm in IT and I'll probably not be able to compete in the future.
But that aside, allowing a disabled person to play games is incredible, in the near future he will be able to walk via a neurolink controllable exoskeleton. At the very least, if they can play games they can control his chair.
That was the first thing I was thinking, a mechanical exoskeletal controlled thru neurallink would be so cool.
He would not be able to feel anything but he could move around on his own.
Let's leave the obvious discussion of the ethics of transhumanism aside for a second and address something literally no one ever talks about.
Why the fuck would I want proprietary corporate hardware in my fucking head with proprietary software running on it? Why would I want my brain implant forced to update Windows 10 style? Why would I want to live in a future where every time I want to use my eye-camera(tm) I have to watch a 30 second ad projected into my consciousness?
Even if people aren't anti-transhumanism (and they should be) why is no one considering the obvious pitfalls that come with any new tech? I don't want Google to be able to access my brain and thoughts, actually.
People said the exact same thing about DRM-client, walled-garden video game stores, or app stores, or movie streaming, or ... you get the idea. It's going to happen. People are going to slop it up. And you'll be a conspiracy theorist for not wanting it.
This is what bothers me about cyberpunk in fiction.
They sometimes casually mention it, but mostly they just make it look so cool and badass with almost no strings attached. And I hate that they leave that lying on the ground but then force their corporate dystopia in other ways.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution kind of did it with the neuropozine but it always felt a little tacked on. It doesn't really play into the player's experience. I mean in large part because the player literally has magic genetics that don't need it for no reason.
So like, what I'm talking about is, from a gameplay point of view:
You have Company X cyber eyes and ears installed. You have to pay a monthly fee to "unlock" all the features. The eyes are bought on payment plans and if you miss a payment your eyes turn off. The eyes beam advertisements directly into your brain. When you are looking at products, brands Company X doesn't like are blurred out or have popups advertising their own better product. The eyes are tracked and recorded and sold to Las enforcement or other companies if you commit a crime or something. You have to pay for special licensing fees to enjoy copyrighted content or else it's replaced with blurs or white noise.
Constant "system updates" that change the performance of cyberware, and force installs whenever it wants, taking it offline for minutes at a time.
You buy a SmartGun with target tracking. But it doesn't work on some people because they paid for a plan to disable smart tracking against them.
Stolen from a BlackMirror episode, but the ability to be "blocked", so people who blocked you can't be seen or heard much like how you can't see posts on social media from people who have you blocked.
People hack your cyberlegs and match you in to traffic. Or cops press a button and you freeze in place.
You literally can't even get a car with remote start without paying a monthly fee but I can get anything I want without any strings?
In most cyberpunk settings the characters you are actually following have jail-broken implants. In 2077 if you pick the Corpo life path Arasaka actually shuts off all of your implants in the introduction of the game. Presumably the implants you're getting from ripperdocs have custom firmware.
I think that most cyberpunk fiction tropes were created before the internet, where everything is connected and electronic devices are no longer islands
Right. Even netrunner types might physically jack into an internet connection to do their thing. The Internet of Things where everything and anything has a wifi connection was much later - the first (economically unsuccessful) smart refrigerator was only in 2000, for example.
A good majority of primary/original source material for cyberpunk (IE, the books that really created the genre) absolutely covered this shit.
It's Hollywood specifically that glossed over it a lot. Partly due to time constraints, and maybe partly because it was too "deep" for them and their assumed audiences.
Look up William Gibson, arguably one of the main founders of the entire genre.
To be honest, it's not exactly easy to make a case where mega corporations won't abuse the massive power that they accumulate. I do agree though that the way leftist writers often portray corporations at a cartoonish level of villainous, with very little depth, nuance, or seriousness.
The mistake leftists tend to make is in assuming that capitalism is the problem and that total communism is the solution. They also fail to take note of how the left wing is just as much (if not more-so) in bed with large and wealthy entities exerting power and influence however they please.
Remember the original Deus Ex and how you could literally join the Illuminati rather than do the preachy good guy bullshit?
No? Deus Ex had one of the shittiest "choose your ending" endings of any game I recall, topped only by HR's literal "push the button for the ending you want" ending which I assume must have been riffing the first game.
Or do you mean the middle of the game where you meet Everett? Because the story is all on rails by that point. You don't get to "choose" to join, and there's no gameplay where you play as a badass secret illuminati agent. You're working for him while also working for the good guys.
Deus Ex is an entirely linear story after UNATCO. The developers were going to add an optional "Choose to stay with UNATCO" branching path but ran out of time.
Ah, okay, I understand now. I honestly wasn't looking at it as much from a gaming lens as a general narrative one.
I agree with you though. When we're talking about anything that strongly claims to an RPG, there should be a lot more latitude and freedom, allowing the player to dictate how they decide their character does things. And far, far less moralistic narrative pushing.
I can't even fathom how godawful tabletop RPG's must be with woke campaigns/groups. Like it's one thing to hear the kind of stupid shit WotC is pulling, but I doubt I could stomach even 15 minutes of that kind of shit during an actual game session.
no choice but to go into the digital ghost prison to save himself
Or you can not do that, and that's the end of the game so who knows what happens but based on the credits messages it's presumed he does some work for Hanako before he dies. Loyal corporate dog to the end.
No, I'm simply telling you that you're factually wrong. I don't care about your opinion of the endings. (though it's amusing you would "hate play" a game all the way to the end) You can use the soulkiller machine or you can walk away. That's the Devil ending. If we're sharing opinions I'd say you got the ending you deserve.
Does anyone remember that really mediocre mid 2000s shooter Haze? Dreadful as the story was, the one thing I really liked about it was the concept of the corpo soldiers having implants that would show them a curated version of reality, erasing their downed comrades from their view to prevent loss of morale, for example.
There isn't a shadow of a doubt it my mind that Google or Microsoft would show you their curated version of reality if they could get away with it.
The Syndicate (Wars) games also played with that idea, just in the intro videos. The citizens get a curated view of reality that shows white picket fences and robo-police as friendly neighborhood beat cops.
I have actually heard that excuse used for other shooters when it comes to bodies disappearing or the enemy being repetitive-looking clones, but I'll admit it always did feel like a bit of a gimmick to explain shortfalls in the game's technology. I think Deus Ex (the good one) had that as a fan excuse for the copy-pasted looking NPCs but uh, I think that was actually just because the game was really old and had texture and memory limitations.
Yeah the first scene in cyberpunk (Corpo path) shows some HR goon calling you and talking about how your stress levels are too high and to take some drug to calm down (or something like that). I can't wait for HR to have that much reach! /s
There are lots of people considering the pitfalls and sounding the alarms. It's just that everyone sort of realizes this is an inevitable path that humanity is treading toward, just like with AI and robotics.
I don't haunt social media so you may be right, but I've literally never seen a prominent voice discuss the proprietary nature of this tech. The only thing I can think of that comes close is Transmetropolitan.
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Hey good for him. If he's having fun using it, then that's one of the main goals achieved.
I haven't even tried VI yet. I'm still working through Civ V. It's just so different from IV that I've been at it for almost 6 years and I finally think I can 3v1 beat the damn AI on King difficulty.
I have the brave new world expansion on DVD. Back when games came on physical media.
As for favorite civ? I'm not sure.
It's hard to diss Pocatello's extra land from the get go, and being able to pick what you want from the ancient ruins. Then again Kamehameha can immediately disembark so you can quick discover more of the map and that's pretty handy too.
Haile Selassie is a tough nut to crack when doing the one city challenge. You'd think India would have a better bonus, but that seems to be only for civ happiness and food. Selasie gets a decent combat bonus for having less cities than it's attacker. Which is also handy when doing the one city challenge.
America's less upkeep for army cost and half gold land cost when buying tiles is very good too. And the minutemen are quick to produce and are fairly early to mid game if you rush a few things.
Heck, Nobunaga has that everyone fights at full strength even when outnumbered perk, which is also super handy. And early game samurai are a huge pain to deal with.
It was. With a DVD sized case and everything. I can take a picture of my physical PC copy if I really have to. And the expansion. I have them here at my desk.
It has it's own CD key on the back of the manual, and is not attached to steam, nor does it need a steam account. This was before they did that launcher thing a few years back.
If you prefer IV to V I wouldn't waste my money on VI. V at least had some fun mods and scenarios to make use of the new mechanics and make up for the dumbed down ones. VI I couldn't even get one game finished.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is better than any Civilization.
The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.
I hate the idea of a brain chip but for paralyzed people seems amazing.
At least Musk is taking the cyberpunk dystopian future in the cool direction rather the the lefts emotional stunted pink hair communism.
It still strikes me as incredibly dangerous technology. I'm ok with it being used to help people who are disabled but I desperately don't want it to be available to the general public. It's only a matter of time until the brain starts receiving inputs in addition to sending outputs.
I think you'd have to be pretty insane in the first place to voluntarily get a brain implant just for the hell of it, so I doubt some cyber ghosts whispering into their brain would be anything they're not already used to.
The vast majority of the populace is too stupid to be trusted with any technology more advanced that a 2x4. People will adopt this in droves like the herd animals they are.
I doubt it will be forced on anyone. Rather they'll simply do what they always do and make it harder and harder to live without one, much like how phones are now.
They'll manufacturer a virus and force the cure through the implant. As others said, the spineless herds will adopt it out of fear for their safety. One generation after that, the chips will be mandatory at birth.
I'm considering branching out in to some physical labor job. There is a good chance that this will become the norm in IT and I'll probably not be able to compete in the future.
But that aside, allowing a disabled person to play games is incredible, in the near future he will be able to walk via a neurolink controllable exoskeleton. At the very least, if they can play games they can control his chair.
I dunno, people say the same thing about smart phones but I'm 15 years deep into my IT career and have never owned one and I'm doing just fine.
Input amounts to sensory stimulation. A thing that people already go to great lengths to get. You can't stop them.
Agreed I can see it working wonders for the disabled and even getting people to walk again
That was the first thing I was thinking, a mechanical exoskeletal controlled thru neurallink would be so cool. He would not be able to feel anything but he could move around on his own.
I wish transhumanism would be about that.
Reality is probably gonna be VR porn brain chips for the masses.
Let's leave the obvious discussion of the ethics of transhumanism aside for a second and address something literally no one ever talks about.
Why the fuck would I want proprietary corporate hardware in my fucking head with proprietary software running on it? Why would I want my brain implant forced to update Windows 10 style? Why would I want to live in a future where every time I want to use my eye-camera(tm) I have to watch a 30 second ad projected into my consciousness?
Even if people aren't anti-transhumanism (and they should be) why is no one considering the obvious pitfalls that come with any new tech? I don't want Google to be able to access my brain and thoughts, actually.
Ignorance, convenience and laziness.
People said the exact same thing about DRM-client, walled-garden video game stores, or app stores, or movie streaming, or ... you get the idea. It's going to happen. People are going to slop it up. And you'll be a conspiracy theorist for not wanting it.
People will give away everything if you offer them even the smallest of conveniences in return.
It's absolutely disgusting.
This is what bothers me about cyberpunk in fiction.
They sometimes casually mention it, but mostly they just make it look so cool and badass with almost no strings attached. And I hate that they leave that lying on the ground but then force their corporate dystopia in other ways.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution kind of did it with the neuropozine but it always felt a little tacked on. It doesn't really play into the player's experience. I mean in large part because the player literally has magic genetics that don't need it for no reason.
So like, what I'm talking about is, from a gameplay point of view:
You have Company X cyber eyes and ears installed. You have to pay a monthly fee to "unlock" all the features. The eyes are bought on payment plans and if you miss a payment your eyes turn off. The eyes beam advertisements directly into your brain. When you are looking at products, brands Company X doesn't like are blurred out or have popups advertising their own better product. The eyes are tracked and recorded and sold to Las enforcement or other companies if you commit a crime or something. You have to pay for special licensing fees to enjoy copyrighted content or else it's replaced with blurs or white noise.
Constant "system updates" that change the performance of cyberware, and force installs whenever it wants, taking it offline for minutes at a time.
You buy a SmartGun with target tracking. But it doesn't work on some people because they paid for a plan to disable smart tracking against them.
Stolen from a BlackMirror episode, but the ability to be "blocked", so people who blocked you can't be seen or heard much like how you can't see posts on social media from people who have you blocked.
People hack your cyberlegs and match you in to traffic. Or cops press a button and you freeze in place.
You literally can't even get a car with remote start without paying a monthly fee but I can get anything I want without any strings?
In most cyberpunk settings the characters you are actually following have jail-broken implants. In 2077 if you pick the Corpo life path Arasaka actually shuts off all of your implants in the introduction of the game. Presumably the implants you're getting from ripperdocs have custom firmware.
I think that most cyberpunk fiction tropes were created before the internet, where everything is connected and electronic devices are no longer islands
It's also why it's always Japanese, on the 80s we thought Japan would be what China is today.
Right. Even netrunner types might physically jack into an internet connection to do their thing. The Internet of Things where everything and anything has a wifi connection was much later - the first (economically unsuccessful) smart refrigerator was only in 2000, for example.
A good majority of primary/original source material for cyberpunk (IE, the books that really created the genre) absolutely covered this shit.
It's Hollywood specifically that glossed over it a lot. Partly due to time constraints, and maybe partly because it was too "deep" for them and their assumed audiences.
Look up William Gibson, arguably one of the main founders of the entire genre.
To be honest, it's not exactly easy to make a case where mega corporations won't abuse the massive power that they accumulate. I do agree though that the way leftist writers often portray corporations at a cartoonish level of villainous, with very little depth, nuance, or seriousness.
The mistake leftists tend to make is in assuming that capitalism is the problem and that total communism is the solution. They also fail to take note of how the left wing is just as much (if not more-so) in bed with large and wealthy entities exerting power and influence however they please.
No? Deus Ex had one of the shittiest "choose your ending" endings of any game I recall, topped only by HR's literal "push the button for the ending you want" ending which I assume must have been riffing the first game.
Or do you mean the middle of the game where you meet Everett? Because the story is all on rails by that point. You don't get to "choose" to join, and there's no gameplay where you play as a badass secret illuminati agent. You're working for him while also working for the good guys.
Deus Ex is an entirely linear story after UNATCO. The developers were going to add an optional "Choose to stay with UNATCO" branching path but ran out of time.
Ah, okay, I understand now. I honestly wasn't looking at it as much from a gaming lens as a general narrative one.
I agree with you though. When we're talking about anything that strongly claims to an RPG, there should be a lot more latitude and freedom, allowing the player to dictate how they decide their character does things. And far, far less moralistic narrative pushing.
I can't even fathom how godawful tabletop RPG's must be with woke campaigns/groups. Like it's one thing to hear the kind of stupid shit WotC is pulling, but I doubt I could stomach even 15 minutes of that kind of shit during an actual game session.
Or you can not do that, and that's the end of the game so who knows what happens but based on the credits messages it's presumed he does some work for Hanako before he dies. Loyal corporate dog to the end.
No, I'm simply telling you that you're factually wrong. I don't care about your opinion of the endings. (though it's amusing you would "hate play" a game all the way to the end) You can use the soulkiller machine or you can walk away. That's the Devil ending. If we're sharing opinions I'd say you got the ending you deserve.
You should look into Ghost in the Shell. Watch the 80s movie first. standalone complex is good, but it's a little more lighthearted.
Does anyone remember that really mediocre mid 2000s shooter Haze? Dreadful as the story was, the one thing I really liked about it was the concept of the corpo soldiers having implants that would show them a curated version of reality, erasing their downed comrades from their view to prevent loss of morale, for example.
There isn't a shadow of a doubt it my mind that Google or Microsoft would show you their curated version of reality if they could get away with it.
The Syndicate (Wars) games also played with that idea, just in the intro videos. The citizens get a curated view of reality that shows white picket fences and robo-police as friendly neighborhood beat cops.
I have actually heard that excuse used for other shooters when it comes to bodies disappearing or the enemy being repetitive-looking clones, but I'll admit it always did feel like a bit of a gimmick to explain shortfalls in the game's technology. I think Deus Ex (the good one) had that as a fan excuse for the copy-pasted looking NPCs but uh, I think that was actually just because the game was really old and had texture and memory limitations.
Yeah the first scene in cyberpunk (Corpo path) shows some HR goon calling you and talking about how your stress levels are too high and to take some drug to calm down (or something like that). I can't wait for HR to have that much reach! /s
There are lots of people considering the pitfalls and sounding the alarms. It's just that everyone sort of realizes this is an inevitable path that humanity is treading toward, just like with AI and robotics.
I don't haunt social media so you may be right, but I've literally never seen a prominent voice discuss the proprietary nature of this tech. The only thing I can think of that comes close is Transmetropolitan.
Because it's "cool"
This could be revolutionary. If you can control video games, you can control other machines. Imagine prosthetic limbs that can by fully controlled!
Of course, I'm also imagining prosthetic limbs that can be shut down by their producers for wrongthink... Isn't that right, Doctor?
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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770705794117574692
Hey good for him. If he's having fun using it, then that's one of the main goals achieved.
I haven't even tried VI yet. I'm still working through Civ V. It's just so different from IV that I've been at it for almost 6 years and I finally think I can 3v1 beat the damn AI on King difficulty.
Favorite civ? Tall or wide? Expansions or no?
I have the brave new world expansion on DVD. Back when games came on physical media.
As for favorite civ? I'm not sure.
It's hard to diss Pocatello's extra land from the get go, and being able to pick what you want from the ancient ruins. Then again Kamehameha can immediately disembark so you can quick discover more of the map and that's pretty handy too.
Haile Selassie is a tough nut to crack when doing the one city challenge. You'd think India would have a better bonus, but that seems to be only for civ happiness and food. Selasie gets a decent combat bonus for having less cities than it's attacker. Which is also handy when doing the one city challenge.
America's less upkeep for army cost and half gold land cost when buying tiles is very good too. And the minutemen are quick to produce and are fairly early to mid game if you rush a few things.
Heck, Nobunaga has that everyone fights at full strength even when outnumbered perk, which is also super handy. And early game samurai are a huge pain to deal with.
Huh ... I'm not sure if I have a favorite. :)
Civ 5 was not available on physical media. I know because I bought was I thought was going to be a copy on DVD but it was just a wrapper for steam.
It was. With a DVD sized case and everything. I can take a picture of my physical PC copy if I really have to. And the expansion. I have them here at my desk.
A physical copy is useless if you can't install and run it without being online and without signing into steam.
It has it's own CD key on the back of the manual, and is not attached to steam, nor does it need a steam account. This was before they did that launcher thing a few years back.
If you prefer IV to V I wouldn't waste my money on VI. V at least had some fun mods and scenarios to make use of the new mechanics and make up for the dumbed down ones. VI I couldn't even get one game finished.
Alex Jones had the best take.
It's great now, but eventually you will need to have one to compete, like having an email address or mobile phone.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is better than any Civilization.
Civ vi? Yuck.