[semi-extrinsic]

Regarding automatic face recognition: I believe most US/European citizens, at least those who travel on airplanes, are in the facial recognition corpus of the intelligence services by now. What they do (I'm guessing) is use the cameras at passport checkpoints in airports. There they get many thousands of frames of your face from various angles, and due to the strict ordering in the queue they can match all those to your ID when your passport is scanned/entered into the computer.

[dumb-saint]

Yes, I think modern airports are a good prototype for the sort of dystopian environments we can expect in the future. It will only get worse until the entire thing collapses, as it always does -- Stasi, McCarthyism, Gestapo, you name it. This time it's more scary because the technology is sci-fi compared to the previous iterations.

I am more and more convinced that the cyberpunk guys got it right in terms of predicting future trends :(

[pdimitar]

[Apologies for off-topic]

As a relatively new cyberpunk fan, let me give you a few points:

(1) Cyberpunk is very much about being realistic about human nature. Some of us (like me) assume malice by default. You might not believe me but I get saddened every time I am proven right. This is coming from a 36-year old programmer supporting his mother and girlfriend.

(2) We don't assume altruism by default because (2.1) history is [mostly] not on the side of this sentiment and (2.2) we are touched by ambition and greed ourselves and we realize that we could become just as bad (if not worse) given the same power as the current spy agencies / corporate hires / whatever else.

(3) We understand that "pure capitalism" and "corporatism" leads to the 0.5% having 95% of the capital, assets and anything else valuable. So when you see a dark art piece on DeviantArt showing people miserable on the streets while a high-tech shiny vehicle surrounded by police-men passes by, and a few huge adverts are glowing in the background, don't be quick to say "2edgy4me". ;)

(4) We also know technology is seen as a way of gaining an unfair advantage over everybody else -- and most of the time technology is not used to the majority's advantage. If somebody invents AI by themselves, do you think they'll just share it with the world? LOL no. The "Transcedence" movie script is the most likely scenario -- the AI becomes sentient, escapes to the internet to evade attackers, and then talks to you through a smartphone or a tablet.

=== The general cyberpunk audience is wide and interesting but it mostly boils down to two types:

(1) Rebelious teenagers who would give everything just to prove the bad adults that if their thoughts and feelings are ignored, the world is gonna go to shit (and to be fair, they might have a point). Some of them are toxic, some are not -- but they're mostly an okay bunch. Still, I give them kudos for going outside the typical teenager boxes. Getting engaged in cyberpunk fandom consciously implies some level of critical thinking, IMO.

(2) A group of rather dark-souled adults who stopped believing in the "bright future" a long time ago. Again, we're touched by greed and ambition ourselves, we're very conscious about the balance of power around the world and we don't kid ourselves.

I hope this helps you understand the cyberpunk bunch a bit.

EDIT:

As mentioned by @Fnoord a few comments below, "Ghost in the Shell" is your absolute Bible of a starting place in the cyberpunk genre. The anime movies and the series touch on a plethora of problems that don't even exist yet but are extremely likely to exist pretty soon. And they are a masterpiece in exposing the corruption which all of us would be vulnerable to.

Order of watching:

http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2922/in-what-order-...

[foobarrio]

+1 For Ghost in the Shell. Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig was great.

I'd recommend Diamond Age. The shows shows almost the death of Cyberpunk (poor people) into Victorian Style Steampunk (rich people).

[techer]

Thanks for that. Can you suggest some additional reading?

[Fnoord]

Not sure if manga qualifies as reading but for manga/anime cyberpunk I can recommend Ghost In The Shell. It deeply touches these subjects, from multiple angles.

Then, since you specifically said read, there's Philip K. Dick, who wrote loads of books on this genre. When people think of Blade Runner they don't even know its based on a novel by him [1]

If you're referring to a book which studies cyberpunk as a genre from a documentary PoV then I wouldn't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_...

[pdimitar]

+1000 for "Ghost in the Shell", I am ashamed to have forgotten to mention this absolute masterpiece which remains unbeaten in this genre to this day.

[pdimitar]

Apologies, not yet (correction: see my edit in the parent comment). It's a newfound "love" of mine only for 2-3 months now (and I am a busy guy). I am just getting immersed in the art and short comics aspect for now. I haven't gone to reading the Blade Runner fanfics just yet. ;)

FWIW, Tumblr and DeviantArt have a lot of art and fanfic work in the cyberpunk genre. Pinterest too, to a lesser extent. You should start there.

[techer]

Funny that I saw Ghost in the Shell when it was originally released in the cinema but for some reason didn't think of it as cyberpunk!

Time to dive into it again it seems!

[billmalarky]

I've finally just started reading Snow Crash since I told myself I would one day roughly 15 years ago.

It's excellent.

[dumb-saint]

Thanks! :)

[DanBC]

The US overtly explicitly gather the photographs and fingerprints of visitors

https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/border-bio...

> Select travel procedures and biometrics to learn more about the Department of Homeland Security’s program at U.S. ports-of-entry, which verifies the identity of the traveler using the electronic fingerprint data and digital photographs.

[knz]

Visitors and Permanent Residents.

I would love to know the rationale of greater scrutiny of PR's - I suspect it would be quite hard for someone to forge a "green card" (it has a lot of obvious security features built in) and it needs to match your passport anyway. It's not a big deal but it always stuck me as a waste of time.