I need to get this straight because there are some idiots who unironically believe this shit:
The science-fiction genre was not created by Marxists or socialists. Sure, communists infiltrated sci-fi publishers back in the 1930s and rejected anything that went against their views, but this was to get fans to think that a communist or socialist revolution was the only way to get the sci-fi future they wanted. However, the genre dates back to the 1600s (nearly 200 years before Karl Marx was even born) with stories like The Other World, New Atlantis, and The Blazing World. Even after the commie infiltration of sci-fi publishing houses, science fiction stories that were clearly not Marxist or socialist were still written and published such as Atlas Shrugged.
I only bring this up because I see some idiot RWers who judge the whole genre based on the themes of Star Trek and think that sci-fi is nothing more than promoting Fully Automated Gay Space Communism when that was never the intended purpose.
@xianc78 nobody cares about proto non-sci-fi by randoms 
b e a r d
@xianc78 reminds me of the RWers saying cyberpunk is all about promoting transgenderism/transhumanism. zero clue what they're talking about.
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lil ranty
@Dicer @xianc78 @Witch_Hunter_Siegfired original versions of cyberpunk had transgenderism as well but it was treated much like transhumanism was where you had to go through therapy and shit if you didn't want to go insane. which, to be fair, is how it ought to be treated in real life too. as far as i know, there aren't rules for it anymore though you just basically make a trans character and that's that.
in cp2077, there is no real concept of cyberpsychosis/humanity really. there is no reason to not just load up on as many mods as you can. the only real thing that causes distress is the chip with johnny loaded onto it. i don't think it's quite the same thing, but still in that same sort of realm i guess. there are mods that give you higher chances of entering cyberpsychosis the more chrome you have and they actually make it work pretty well with the gameplay, it's a shame it wasn't added into the game. i think they went with "making a game using the property of cyberpunk" rather than "making a game that is cyberpunk" if that makes sense. they went more far cry, less elder scrolls... so i think a lot of the "RPG-ness" kind of went to the wayside.
but typically, yes, cyberpunk settings show a dystopia of society via things such as transhumanism as well as what it means to actually be "human" through things like body modification. it's the central theme of blade runner, with the replicants being "more human than human" but then treated like secondary citizens and slaves. it's also sort of a theme in tron legacy, where the ISOs are not really seen as programs because they aren't perfect and are therefore wiped out, but because of that imperfection they are better than a computer program could ever be.
transgenderism in cyberpunk may be something that creators point to now as being "look how inclusive we are in the future!" or something like that, but originally it was absolutely intended to be "look how decadent we are in the future despite and due to our advancement as a species."
personally i think it loops into both aspects, the first being the decline of society and the second being the need to cram everything into some hyper-idealized "perfect" state instead of letting things fall how they do. rather than trust that God made you the way He did for a reason, or even just accepting that you are the way you are, you get to thinking that you aren't perfect the way you are and that's a bad thing, you *need* to be something else. and that begins to strip away your humanity. that is the core of my belief when it comes to transgenderism, and it's why i got to hating it so much in the first place because it seemed like when i'd try and tell people that they should relax and try to feel comfortable with who they are, they seemed so repulsed by the idea that i'd end up being bullied even by authority. didn't really make sense to me and still doesn't, as someone who has a physical deformity that cannot be fixed and has had to just accept it (vitiligo, which i honestly hate being fetishized as of late). it was taught to me from a very young age that this is who i was, and now i wouldn't change it even if i could. there are "treatments" but they come with potentially lofty side effects and may or not even work, and i relate it to transgenderism in that regard because it seems quite similar on that front. i honestly think it is better to attack things like this from a psychological standpoint.
obviously it isn't as simple as "oh you're totally right i can just accept myself now! thank you for the infinite wisdom!" because these people are actually mentally ill. that's the end goal, though, to accept and embrace your imperfection instead of trying to force a change and using that change as a social bargaining chip. it feels very manufactured and, well, "inhuman." if the human condition is a struggle, but that struggle ultimately makes us who we are, then trying to remove that struggle, to remove the human condition, only results in more pain and a downward spiral.
i think there is a scale between something like a wheelchair for a person who can't move their legs and a sex change for someone whose brain is trying to tell them they are the wrong gender in regards to how much technology can and should be used to improve someone's quality of life, and that scale might be different for some people, but it really drives home how that scale is used in cyberpunk settings to show a lack of "humanity" and what happens when that humanity is lost.
i feel like that's one of the main tenets the cyberpunk genre's dystopia, right alongside the corporatism and neon. unfortunately, cp2077 doesn't really delve into that at all and is instead a lot more focused on the style than it is the substance in some ways. edgerunners was a lot better in that regard, but that shit is way too bleak and kind of poorly written/rushed lmao. but i think it is baked into the genre enough that it makes itself known even in the subtext, and i don't think that's going to be something that transgender/transhuman activists/sympathizers are going to be able to remove while still having an accurate representation of the genre.
and then of course, you have the idea that some of it is just purely for sexual/aesthetic reasons as well, which plays into the whole cyberpunk theme of turning everything into a commodity. there are lots of layers to it which makes it so interesting, and so much more than simply "awesome, trans stuff!" or "ewww, trans stuff!" ideally, it should be making you think, ponder, and theorize.... not really skills many people possess these days lol.
That's a rather difficult position to hold when one the most highly regarded works in the genre is Dune.
"OK SO WHERE DOES THE SOCIAL COHESION COMES FROM?
DO MACHINES CONTROL MAN?
DO WE EUGENICALLY BREED COMPLIANT AND DOCILE POPULATIONS? AND IF SO -- WHY NOT LEADERS AND ARTISTS AND THINKERS?
DO WE MEDICATE ANTISOCIAL TENDENCIES AWAY?"
AND IT WAS COOL FOR A BOOK OR TWO AND THEN IT WAS ALL GHOSTWRITTEN BY A GHOLA OF DUNCAN IDAHO
Herbert suffers from an under-recognized problem when historically-ignorant readers read “science fiction” decades or centuries after it was written: they mistake science for fiction—where it was simply forgotten science.
When the science in SF survives the passage of time, we regard it as simply ordinary science or as an insightful prediction of the future; when it turns out to be wrong, we may write it off as fiction. This leads to a bizarre insistence on treating scientific content as purely literary, shoehorning it into some literary framework like Freudianism or feminism—which is about as likely to yield genuine critical insight into classic SF as a read of Moby-Dick by someone determined to remain ignorant of what a ‘whale’ is. ...
...
Herbert made use of psi (still taken seriously at the time), extrapolation from the use of pheromones in insects to humans (though pheromones don’t even affect sexual behavior), various wooly ideas about transgenerational memory (never passed from woo to reality—sorry, “epigenetics” ain’t it either), Walter’s theory of warfare (crankery), and multilevel group selection (possibly under highly limited circumstances, the extent of which is still debated), Californian Human Potential Movement beliefs about trainability of raw human abilities exemplified by Dianetics etc (a profound disappointment)… As they are presented as part of worldbuilding, it’s easy to simply accept them as fiction, no more intended as science than manticores.
This works fine for Dune 56+ years later, because they are fun, and aren’t the focus. ... In contrast, Herbert’s Destination: Void, which is devoid of interesting plot or characters, and is a long author-tract about his idiosyncratic interpretations of early cybernetics & speculation about AI, is unreadable today.
The Foundation Trilogy is indeed brilliant in its own, entirely different way; but where Azimov excelled was in abstract ideas, while Herbert made far more interesting characters.
Herbert on the other hand neatly sidestepped it by sheer force of imagination - creating a vast host of exceedingly bizarre individuals each serving as forces in their own right. It was undoubtedly the more intriguing approach, as far as all that goes.
HE ANSWERS THE "OK WHERE DOES SOCIAL COHESION COME FROM" QUESTION WITH "PICTURE-PERFECT GENETIC MEMORY"
THE INTERSTELLAR CIVILIZATION IS BOUND TOGETHER WITH AN INTERGENERATIONAL CONSPIRACY OF WITCHES COORDINATING IT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
@xianc78
Dude just enjoy the genre and don’t go on internet reading other opinions that just a bad choice .
Nobody fucking cares. Its escapism. Use your brain and not some politicoomer's.
@merchantHelios Combining ancient technology with space travel does make an interesting setting.
@Evil_Bender @merchantHelios Is that one of the Air Ships from Skies of Arcadia?
Boy and His Dog, A.jpg
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Never heard that before, lol