HOPE FOR A CYBERPUNK FUTURE

These events should come as no surprise to us, for we saw them coming all along in both our dreams and intuitions.

The world is at a turning point, and the concepts underlying the "cyberpunk" theme will become all the more prominent in the years to come—political and economic turmoil, dehumanizing effects of technology, and increasingly polarized groups of people at all levels from the local to the international. Humanity is entering into a contractive phase, the structure of which was made clear to us decades ago by a brilliant man named Ralph Nelson Elliott. To say that it is "bad" is as foolish as cursing the night, for in all reality it is a natural event. What it is, is a manifestation of the collective fear/desire complex of an entire race of unusually sentient apes.

Those that came before us—William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, John Shirley, etc—will and rightly should be hailed as prophets of a new aeon. The clarity of their vision of a dark technological future is astounding considering that it came about at the beginning of the greatest bull market in history. And the players in the subsequent drama that unfolded—the George W. Bush's and Bill Gates's of our time—will and rightly should be forever branded as traitors.

Where Gibson and Dick left off, I will follow. I have chosen to carry their torch because I have always felt their message. Being a child of the 1980's, this is my birthright. Growing up, I had the opportunity to witness the greatest financial and technological boom of all time. But unlike the majority of my peers in the Nintendo Generation I was also granted the wisdom and insight to know that the neon electric decadence of the 80's and 90's is going to hurt like a coke binge hangover. Like the phases of the moon, the waves on a beach, or the Fibonacci swirl of a spiral galaxy, this is only natural. And fortunately, I also know that there will be a day to follow night.

John Jacobs

August 30th, 2005