“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” 

That opening line of William Gibson’s Neuromancer just might be one of the most powerful opening lines of any novel in the last 50 years.

I’ve been farting about cyberpunk themes for months now without every having identified them as such, but it’s there. I’m not about to dive headlong in any given direction either, but merely giving a nod to a… to a vibe… that’s never too far removed from my consciousness. It’s a sub-genre of the only genre that has gone to any lengths and depths to explore the direction the world has taken. Technology is a strange thing. We often talk about artificial intelligence and androids and cybernetic humans without ever acknowledging how technology and data have transformed how each of us interacts with the world. We are data/information driven creatures now and our interactions with the world are largely driven by the flow of data/information coming from the devices that seem implanted into our hands.

Why create androids when you can impel people to behave like androids and control their motions through the implants? Is it just the first step or is it the final step of evolution? It’s a dream come true for merchants and governments. The 2016 election, after all, was controlled by turning up the volume of misinformation and disinformation coming through the implants. There is so much to explore here. The only thing that would have made it more sci-fi is if Google Glass has caught on widescale and the information could be “seen” the way we have imagined that cybernetic humanoids see the world as they navigate through it. Even that’s not necessary. We look up from our devices and transposed over everything we see are thought-dreams and data and subliminal messages we’ve just taken from the screens built into our hands.

Nice jacket. I should buy that. Then I should take pictures of myself wearing that and publish them.

Lovely sandwich. I should eat that. I should take pictures of it before I eat it and tell everyone what I’m about to eat.

Beautiful beach. I can take pictures of my knees with a view of the blue water between them. People will see those pictures and want to be like me and come here too.

Oh what an interesting person! I will be like that person and people will see me and want to be like me too!

Anyway…