[cgannett]

Disagree, corvids collecting bullet casings because they are shiny is heavily Shadowrun/WoD/Hellboy coded aesthetically. Regular birds gathering fiber optic cables for nests is EXTREMELY CYBERPUNK are you kidding? The image evokes so much: capitalist excess, tech waste involving computers/internet/cybernetics, war bad, environmental degredation etc... the only part about this concept that isnt heavily cyberpunk is that the bird isn't sick, dying, or dead and is somehow happy to find such a workable and durable nest building material.

[DroneBetter]

the bird's children may be crippled if it gets tangled in their feet while they're still developing, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stringfoot (which is in general a common sight wherever pigeons can be found); when my flat's fibreoptic was being installed, the cable-layers made a big deal of collecting the cuttings where they spliced the cable and ensuring nothing would be in reach of any animals.

[fluoridation]

>capitalist excess

...What? It's waste from expended munitions. The Ukranian war isn't a corporate war, it's a war between sovereign nations. The drones were produced by and bought from corporations (I assume) but the result of the arms race for better measures and countermeasures would have been the same if each country had produced its own gear.

>tech waste involving computers/internet/cybernetics

Again, something doesn't become cyberpunk just because it involves computers or electronics.

>war bad

I don't think cyberpunk is anti-war as a central feature. It's certainly compatible with that message, but you could write a cyberpunk story that is pro-war, as long that war is to counter the power of corporations.

>environmental degredation etc.

All in all, discarded fibers are more of a nuisance to people than to the environment, I think.

[mandolingual]

It's aesthetically extremely cyberpunk.

[fluoridation]

Cyberpunk is a genre of fiction.

[korse]

Gibson's fiction created an aesthetic and I am pretty sure more people are now aware of the aesthetic than the fiction with gave rise to it.

[mandolingual]

And an aesthetic. You can google it if you're unfamiliar!

[fluoridation]

I'm very much familiar. It's just incorrect.

[mandolingual]

So it is decreed! 'Cyberpunk aesthetic' is hereafter an incoherent concept! Well done, sir. Objective truth is defended.

[reformd]

> as long that war is to counter the power of corporations.

didn't know that war was an integral part of the theme, or countering corpo powers. never read any manifest, though, ... the farce seemed less interesting than the chrome ...

I thought cyberpunk was about the illusion of not being a laissez-faire self-made instrument ...

[panzagl]

> The Ukranian war isn't a corporate war

Citation needed.

[fluoridation]

Uh... The combatants are members of the armed forces of political entities, not of the private armies of corporations? Checkmate atheists?

[aspenmayer]

Since the conflict began in 2014, Wagner Group PMC has been involved in many operations in Ukraine, which seems to contradict your line of reasoning.

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

[fluoridation]

First, the bulk of the Russian forces are still armed forces personnel. Second, even if most of the Russian forces consisted of mercenaries, their pay and their tactical objectives would come from the Russian government, which also directs the strategic objectives. A cyberpunk corporate war is fought entirely between corporations, for corporate reasons.

What even is this argument? Why are you people wasting my and your time on this?

[aspenmayer]

Considering how the former leader of Wagner countermanded orders from above and was recalled, as well as Wagner’s usage of press-ganged convicts straight out of gulags, the unit was fairly irregular compared to the Russian military proper. Wagner’s other activities such as natural resource diversion from their legitimate owner/lessor seems to firmly put the organization proper in cyberpunk territory.

Cyberpunk as a concept is fairly subjective and subject to interpretation. Perhaps your conception of cyberpunk is more exclusive and prescriptive than others’? I wouldn’t interpret a difference of opinion about the tropes or ethos of cyberpunk in a normative way.

Just because folks see cyberpunk aspects in society or literature that you do not is not a contradiction of your own perceptions. It might be a case of prescriptivism vs descriptivism.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art, or both (or neither)? You seem to be saying that cyberpunk is only a literary genre, which is somewhat limiting the discussion when so many cyberpunk works have been adapted to other media, which then inspires other works which were never in written form to begin with. To limit your own discussion to written works is your prerogative, but it seems a needlessly narrow scope for the discussion of others who don’t share your view.

To say that we’re wasting our own time is to discount the fact that others are participating in the discussion in good faith for their own reasons. HN writ large isn’t a means to an end, HN and the individuals of HN are ends unto themselves.