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We need to tell a better story than cyberpunk

IMHO the relationship between hacker culture (de facto, ideals, values etc) and cyberpunk (fact and fiction) is a complicated one.

On one hand it's very easy to fall for the coolness associated with cyberpunk but on the other hand we should never forget that cyberpunk was meant as a dystopian vision of the near future. That is, not desirable. But in many respects we are already there which complicates things further.

There is of course a great deal of overlap in values and ideals. Making fact and fiction increasingly harder to distinguish.

“The future is there... looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.” ― William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Cyberpunk may be now but we deserve better. I'm not sure that solarpunk is the best alternative narrative for hacker culture to embrace, as suggested in the talk above, but surely we could could come up with something better, perhaps emphasizing the collective nature of much of what is considered hacking. I have no solutions or concrete suggestion but I believe this is a meaningful question to ponder.

As a side note

Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who does.

from esr's 'How To Become A Hacker' never felt less relevant.