Been devouring the Steampunk magazines – thanks to a heads up from BoingBoing and Warren – a xerox subsidy that saw me getting caught in pre-longweekend traffic. grr.
On my first pass through I’ve skipped the plethora of fiction, preferring the articles examining just what is Steampunk. Mostly defined as a sub-genre of Cyberpunk, that definition in turns helps define just what is Cyberpunk. All of which is just a long excuse for me to quote the following (from Varieties of Steampunk Experience, Steampunk Magazine, issue #1):
… the Cyberpunk movement which imposed the present melancholically upon the future, decrying what we are presently losing by showing a world where it was lost
… Cyberpunk specializes in exposing the reader or viewer to worlds in which they shouldn’t want to live in
… many Cyberpunk fans find themselves nostalgically ignoring these facts and long instead for the very worlds of cybertechnology, hacks and black rain they write about
Now, I’m gonna out myself as a total n00b here, but I’m definitely one of those of latter case. Until I read that sentence, it’s never occurred to me that my favourite cyberpunk writers are painting the world as it shouldn’t be. I’ve always understood cyberpunk to be dystopian, but I guess I’ve never taken that a step further to fully understand what that means.
As I digest this fact one thing becomes apparent. If the most compelling visions of the future are dystopia’s, and thus there’s a void of utopian visions out there, then – as seems to be the case – people are gonna work with what they’ve got. It’s pretty hard to define a future by what it shouldn’t be. So you can’t blame people for atleast trying to select the best from a bad? bunch of ideas.
Which sees my now getting my hippy on (much as it pains me), and typing these words: maybe then we need to envisage a shiny, happy world where we’re all friends and everything’s worked out just fine. And then try and work backwards from there to now, and imagine just how it might be possible?
And maybe, just maybe we can do so without the post-Apocalyptic trope. Have you noticed how Climate Change has now replaced The Bomb as the destroyer of the world? e.g. – one of the best short-stories I’ve read lately: Paul Di Filippo’s Wikiworld.
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 
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