CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2017/01/top-signs-were-living-in-cyberpunk.html
To go along with everyone else's "Wait, did the world become cyberpunk and I didn't notice?" I should point out the following facts:
1. From Robocop. "OCP traditionally dabbled in not for profit industries like healthcare, prisons, and space travel." All of which are now common works.
2. Hacktivist anarchist groups out to bring down government and corporate conspiracies actually exist.
3. Underground journalists and leakers are actually the biggest threat to First World security in the opinion of the Powers that be.
4. The FBI hired hackers to open a terrorist's phone.
5. The entirety of Enron was black comedy Frank Miller couldn't have written. For example: They fixed the California elections to put a action movie star in as governor while simultaneously shutting down half the state's power plants to create an artificial energy shortage. This while they were bankrupt from hiding all of their losses for a decade. That's some Shadowrun stuff right there.
6. The governments bailed out all the megacorps for gross financial stupidity.
7. The world's largest mercenary company, G4, does a large number of the West's prison system as well as corporate security.
8. Bionic limbs created by 3D printers are real. The latter because people can't afford the metal ones.
9. News networks (take your pick) exist as for profit entities catering to the whim of their audience's bias.
10. A reality TV show star and billionaire is the President after a guy who favored unlimited surveillance and use of assassination robots.
11. The fact unlimited surveillance exists and was used to help American corporations in deals.
12. The fact assassination robots exist.
13. The fact you can buy non-lethal versions of many assassination robots online.
14. A cellphone sized computer can be a weapon.
15. Phones and computers can be plugged into your head, albeit through your ears.
16. Detroit, as in Robocop 2, alas did actually declare bankruptcy. They also built a statue of Robocop because, unironically, they really wished they had one.
17. The world's eighth largest pyramid is a Bass Pro Shop in Tennessee.
18. The working class pay 95% of all taxes versus 5% by corporations when it was reversed in the Forties.
19. It's possible to buy a carbon fiber katana over the internet. Ditto mirror shades and a bullet proof trench coat--all shipped to you overnight.
20. The police now have Special Forces units in every city and many places have them driving APCs as well as tanks.
21. Social media resulted in spontaneous revolutions in several Arab countries. The crackdowns were pretty damn awful to say the least.
22. Virtual Reality is a thing with actual games being shipped for it.
23. Mass data mining occurs just to find out what you would buy from a online store and why.
24. Amazon has sold dumb AI for your house and Microsoft has done the same for your computer.
25. China is now the predominate economic power in the world due to how much leverage it has over the United States.
26. The Soviet Union may have fallen but we're back to Russians making sinister plans to take over the world, only now with computer hackers.
27. Electric self-driving cars exist but no one uses them versus oil guzzling military-looking ones.
28. The world's largest environmental disaster was paid for in fines which left the oil company fine.
29. It's impossible to tax most trans-national corporations due to their multinational nature.
30. Criminal syndicates with ties to terrorism have forced governments to treat with them.
31. Global warming has reached the point of "so obvious it's flooding cities" while corporations still foster people denying it.
32. Countries have places where there's not enough to eat or a central government but citizens possess Ipods.
33. A wetworks black ops against Iran's nuclear program was conducted entirely by hackers.
34. People have died playing video games because they didn't stop long enough to pee.
35. North Korea may have attacked America's movie industry with computer sabotage.
36. The fact mercenary-for-hire criminal hackers is an actual profession. They even have names based on what kind of hat they wear.
37. The fact artificial worlds people live much of their lives in are common pastimes online now.
38. The fact some postage is now being delivered by flying robots.
39. The fact individuals are still trying to make artificial islands to be lawless tax-free corporate states. Double points that these invariably become scams to bilk investors.
40. All of this is actually right on time for 2020.
