From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!gumby!destroyer!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!The-Star.honeywell.com!umn.edu!kksys.com!orbit!pnet51!anthro Fri Sep  4 09:41:28 EDT 1992
Article 6745 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:6745 rec.arts.sf.misc:3014 alt.cyberpunk:1467
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>From: anthro@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Paul Bramscher)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: _The Turing Option_
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Date: 31 Aug 92 15:25:01 GMT
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Jeremiah.Blatz@dartmouth.edu writes:            
                                        
> Several hundred years ago people were forced to build large forts      
> around their cities/homes to protect themselves from others with
> castles who wanted to kill them and steal their possetions. Around the
> previously mentioned fortifications hundreds of people huddles around
> in their houses made of mud, straw, and manure. Families needed to have
> lots (say, 5 or so) kids in order to continue their bloodline. Hardly
> anyone could read. Famine and epidemics were rampent, and no one had
> medical care.
> This was how the most wealthy cultures lived. 
>
> Today, this more describes the least well-off cultures.


Sounds an awful lot like a typical American metropolis.  Our castles are our
mansions and skyscrapers.  The castle walls are goon squads, police, private
security agencies, and high-tech security.  The houses made of mud are the    

ghettos or, worse, the homeless.  As for health care, well, that DOES belong
in a different newsgroup.  Suffice it to say that it's not a pretty picture.

That's all the spirit of cyberpunk.  It combines leading-edge technology with
an ancient, and stagnant social system -- plutocracy.  Rule by the economic
giants, the physically powerful.  A vast separation between the have's and
have-nots -- as seen in their access to technology.

Cyberpunks are have-nots, forced underground, there to obtain the technology
that otherwise would be far beyond their means.            


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