@jenniferplusplus Tangentially, a few years ago after playing Cloudpunk (2020) (that I recommend), I realized that especially the more authentic cyberpunk video game universes have to played from a position of privilege, because it would simply be too hard to play a truly down-and-out character given the massive inequalities inherent to the genre.
@jenniferplusplus I’m not sad so much as disappointed, but there are a lot fewer computer terminals conveniently located near hackable cameras than I’ve been trained for
@jenniferplusplus Where are my flying cars? When do I get a new life awaiting me in the off-world colonies, a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure?
@jenniferplusplus The late great John Prine said it best, "we're living in the future... driving rocket ships and talking with our minds. Wearing turquoise jewelry. And standing in soup lines."
In my freshman year of college (1996) I was asked to write a fiction about my life after college.
I wrote a story about a dystopian future of a destroyed environment, consolidated corporate power, surveillance capitalism (before there was a term for it), and an underclass of hackers who thought they were free, but had to trade lives of convenience for their freedom.
The teacher gave my draft back to me saying "Where are you in this story?"
I wrote that I was the first person protagonist, the alcoholic peeing in an industrial park.
The actual assignment was "My life after American University" so I added one line to my final copy, "It all went wrong after American University." I got a C-
I'm not an alcoholic, but I think the rest isn't that far off.
Half the students were president of the US, CEOs, etc.
I told the professor that my essay seemed more probable then theirs.
I was a jerk[1] but I was right. Aside from the fact I'm not in that position and it's not raining acid rain that's too toxic to touch, the rest isn't off.[2]
[1] I was a jerk, but I was also deeply depressed, and suicidal for pretty much my entire college career. There's a second story on how Unix and the Free Software movement saved my life.
[2] I didn't anticipate the fires that made the sky orange. I assumed that would be from industrial deregulation.
The very short version is that I was very depressed. I felt worthless, I had only a couple of friends, and my girlfriend, who I had felt was the only person who could love me, had broken up with me before college.
On top of that, both because of neudivergence, and because of the depression, I didn't socialize well. I didn't say hello, I would blurt things out in a blunt and thoughtless way, etc.
It made it even harder to make friends- and basically impossible to meet, nonetheless have meaningful connections with women.
In the winter of 1997, I learned about "Linux", in part from a friend, and in part from a homeless man who slept in the computer lab I worked at.
I didn't go home that winter break. I stayed in the dorms. For part of it, I wasn't even allowed to return to my own dorm room, having to be in a temporary dorm. My computer was too big to lug, so it stayed in my dorm.
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