/cyber/ - Cyberpunk & Science Fiction

Once lab-grown meats become widespread, rural areas and the farms therein will fall even further into obscurity. The way backwoods hick towns champion "conservative values," fundamentalist Christianity, and extremely closed-minded worldviews have already contributed to this.

As the world pushes further into an eco-friendly green era, people will begin growing vegetables in artificial environments that are not strictly tied to having shitloads of land.

Who knows? Maybe they'll be swallowed up by urbanization and the sprawl. Maybe they'll remain a haven for Luddites seeking refuge from the "horrors" of the cyberpunk big city. Maybe they'll see a resurgence in popularity after automation takes over and we're all living on Universal Basic Income.

>>46544

>being this wrong

Cities are a transient stage in civilisation. Economics has favoured them ever since the Industrial Revolution, but once we hit the Automation Age there simply won't be any reason for so many people to cram together. Expect a resurgence in small-town living.

>>46544

>The way backwoods hick towns champion "conservative values,"

But you can't be cyberpunk and a liberal at the same time, dummy. If you think you are, you're nothing but a Japan-fetishizing cunt who thinks goggles with purple lenses are cool. You don't actually get what cyberpunk is about. The ones who do are conservative. No exceptions.

>>46555

That might be why they put "conservative values" in quotations. There's different kinds of conservative.

>>46544

Wrong.

>>46548

Wrong.

Expect more of the same, but with more robots.

>>46544

I hope you starve to death when the system goes through a huge tilt.

I hope you lie, weak and more pathetic than you are now, consumed by your own body, as healthy and able Cletus prowls the empty city streets search for some scrap materials and some circuitry which wasn't fried.

He looks at you with pity mixed with disgust, as he knows you can't be helped

He adapted and survived, while you were blinded by your hate and false sense of superiority

Out where I live you already have cars, trucks, everything bristling with technology.

Tracks have several radios, HF, Satellite Packet, Trunking Networks, UHF local comms, mobile phone repeaters, the works.

The vehicles have computers that monitor everything from the temp of the water, the oil pressure to if the driver is tired.

Cyberpunk in Rural areas will look the same, just more advanced tech. As connectivity rises I imagine hidden server farms, data dumps and illegal internet activities. Just like with the drug trade now.

If its undesirable for the city as it will be around people, it will be in the rural areas.

>>46544

>As the world pushes further into an eco-friendly green era

How many centuries before we start seeing even the slightest evidence that this is in the horizon?

Because, as it is, we're destroying nature more and more every year.

>>46549

I'd wager something like this would happen. Cities would have the most interesting and financial power to keep living standards up to some degree of "habitable" while smaller towns can't even hire lawyers to defend them, and since they don't represent that many people, even politically they don't matter.

Pollution and desertification would literally destroy everything not part of a city, where atmosphere can be controlled to some degree.

>>46548

Then again, this is also an interesting point. Big industries require a lot of people, which leads them to mass together but automation sorta solves that "problem". I still don't think that will work since people will just change jobs and industry staying close together does help them to some degree, plus the service industry is still a thing and it will favour big cities with monuments and landmarks to visit.

>>46555

>you can't be cyberpunk and a liberal at the same time

You can't fight against the interests of millionaire global corporations that want to control you by any means and hold the political belief that every man should be free to do live his life as he pleases as long as he isn't violating the rights of anyone else?

You do know that the opposite of "liberal" is authoritative, right?

>>46775

>You do know that the opposite of "liberal" is authoritative, right?

Maybe on a technical level. But most groups across the world who identify as "liberal" are pro-government. But let's not get into an autistic semantic argument, k?

>>46780

>Maybe on a technical level

Words have an actual meaning, they aren't technical. Liberal comes straight out of "liberty" and it's the antonym of authoritarian.

>most groups across the world who identify as "liberal" are pro-government

You mean progressive. They can say they are liberal as much as they want, if they still need some authoritarian figure to enforce their rules, they aren't liberal at all. Most liberals despise those little shits anyway, crying to papa gubment when they need a strong arm to save them from the offensive people.

>let's not get into an autistic semantic argument, k?

Oh, we're not even scratching this shitshow. In terms of cyberpunk, punks themselves would be mostly Progressive actually, embracing technology and supporting change in society all the time. Only a minority would hold to old traditions out of respect and because they acknowledge their value.

Most corporations would actually be Conservative, preferring to maintain the status quo and stagnating culture and the mind so they could keep control using the same methods for as long as possible.

If anything, it's incredibly ironic to a disgusting level that the ideology that most aligns with the punks (Progressive Libertarians) has been so throughout co-opted by a bunch of faggots that couldn't be possibly more pro-corp, buying from Apple and Starbucks and falling pretty to Hollywood while believing the government always has their best interest in mind and will change to meet their requests.

>>46783

>Words have an actual meaning, they aren't technical. Liberal comes straight out of "liberty" and it's the antonym of authoritarian.

Except that's not true and that's not what it means.

>>46548

>cities

>transient

The first city was made in 3800 BC, nearly 6000 years ago dumbass

>but once we hit the Automation Age there simply won't be any reason for so many people to cram together. Expect a resurgence in small-town living.

>implying robots = free shipping

Retard…

>>46785

Definition of Liberal:

"Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality."

Definition of Authoritarian:

"favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom"

Literally just googled both terms and those were the first results. If you want to argue otherwise you're gonna have to do better than "nuh-uh, that's not how it is!"

>>46802

Conglomerates of humans have been happening for a long time, yes. But not on the same scale since the industrial revolution. If you had a graph showing you the density of population per square kilometer, you'd have a major spike in certain spots at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that slightly expanded and increased as time went on, something far more massive than any city seen before.

>implying robots = free shipping

Shipping doesn't have to be free, it just needs someone to pay for it, usually the client or final user. And considering that we've already reached globalist levels of trade, where things produced in China are sold in America, we've already gone past that point. Shipping might not be free, but it's not a reason to keep things together that much.

And that's not even what the other Anon was talking about. People join up together in clusters because a single factory requires hundreds of people. A large industrial park can house thousands for several jobs and those employees are not gonna commute every day from a local village nearby, they'll get an apartment or something similar nearby their workplace.

People move and settle the closest they can to where they'll be working. If you have a place with lots of jobs, there will be lots of people nearby as well.

Conversely, if a factory no longer needs that many people (if it uses robots instead, for instance) then there aren't that many jobs and people don't cluster so much.

In fact, going with your problem about "free shipping", it becomes far more profitable to spread out and cover ground. Your company settling where no other in the same field has gone before means you're closer to the clients, so robots do spread people around quite a lot with a double effect.

For reference, search for "chinese robot postal office". It shows a very large postal office in China staffed with about 2-3 guys and a few hundred robots that do most of the work, with those 2 tasked with special tasks or making sure things are going alright. Instead of 50-80 people sorting packages, there's only 3. Extrapolate to an industry and you can see what that means.

>>46544

>>46544

You will die and Cleetus' dog will gnarl on your bones. No matter how many video games you played, movies you've watched, or little scenarios you have cooked up in your head where you make it out alive because you "think you can", that comment alone let everyone reading it know that you will die because you are stupid.

I am laughing.

>>46808

>semantic argument intensifies

You just had to go full autist, didn't you?

Well, this is a complex question.

I live in France, in the countryside since 10 years. I used to live in the suburbs of Ermont (Near Paris)

It is possible to find cyber-stuff even in remote areas (Old Factories, Industrial Zones, Plants, Sewer installation or other like infrastructures), but this is way more hard to find. You expect to find such things near mid-cities.

Also, my countryside isn't representative of cyberpunk style, because even in 2017, French countryside is still relatively empty compared to big cities, of course, Eastern-europe, Nothern USA and Asia would be good candidates to Rural-cyberpunk.

The more the population, the more the infrastructures and buildings, so, your chances increases.

>>46813

If you're gonna use words without knowing their meaning, it's your fault when someone calls you on that.

In fact, this would be a shitty community if everyone just let people use words how they see fit and allowed language to lose it's meaning.

Wanna know what's really ironic? The "progressive liberals" of today that expect the government to back up their little tyranny do the exact same thing you do and even complain about "autistic semantic arguments" when they are called on their bullshit too.

I guess that explains your non-argumentation?

>>46824

You sure showed me.

>>46825

You sure showed me.

>>46808

>>46824

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liberal

>2. (US) Someone left-wing; one with a left-wing ideology.

Frankly, I'm not fond of pointing this sort of shit out but you're the one who's twisting and using words without regard for their usual meaning. And, as far as I can see, for no reason whatsoever.

>>46802

>The first city was made in 3800 BC, nearly 6000 years ago

Yes, but a clear majority of the population was rural. Humans had an overall rural-based lifestyle up until the Industrial Revolution, when the majority migrated into cities and we became an urban species. I stand by my claim this will reverse post-automation, because the very factors that caused cities to become so popular will disappear. Cities will hollow out like Detroit did when manufacturing jobs vanished. They won't stop existing, but they will stop being the norm.

>implying robots = free shipping

Automation = more stuff can be efficiently made on a smaller scale. You won't have to ship in half the stuff you do today. Besides, shipping will only become less expensive. Even today, you can already set up a machining shop in your small-town garage if you're so inclined. Logistics will advance in leaps and bounds once smart algorithms start organising everything.

The main problem will be stopping a gov/corp alliance from extending copyright and artificially enforcing scarcity.

>progressive shazbot ruins thread

back on topic, I live in a pretty rural area of eastern WA, a lot of retired compsci professors and computer engineers moved over here and brought a lot of neat stuff with them. before email we had a BBS set up so a few guys could play a turn based game remotely. cyberpunk in rural areas wouldn't be too much different than cities, it's just technology. i imagine there wouldn't be any underground hacking groups or anything else like that, rural communities are small and not rife with drugs and degeneracy like cities

>>46775

>>46780

>>46783

My take on this semantic disagreement:

The definitions of liberal vs conservative can easily be interpreted in very different ways.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/liberal?s=t

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/conservative?s=t

Non-political definitions of each word:

>Liberal as in used liberally, often, a lot of; of liberty, which is to say, freedom

>Conservative - as in used conservatively, not often, not a lot of; resistant to change; I suppose the political philosophy of "conservatism" is right wing because it is resistant to change brought by progressivism

These definitions can be used in different contexts. Liberal can either mean large, powerful government (the popular use of the word), or, numerous freedoms. Specifically, I believe the freedoms referred to in these contexts are personal freedoms, rather than economic freedoms.

Conservative can be used to mean small government (popular use of the word), or few freedoms.

Also, leftist policies generally grant many personal freedoms (or as they are also called, social freedoms; such as freedom of sexuality, freedom of speech, etc.) and few economic freedoms (high taxes, mandated health care, excessive business regulation, etc.) Rightist? policies are generally the opposite - fewer personal, or social, freedoms, and more economic freedoms.

This is how you can have socially left policies (many social freedoms) and economically right policies (many economic freedoms) at the same time. There is not one left or one right. I suppose the 4-directional political spectrum may be is used to account for this, among other things.

They are also politically defined differently based on where the person you are asking is from. Liberal parties in Europe and I think even Canada are different from in the US.

On topic:

I think the gathering of people in cities in recent times is less due to industry itself and more due to the fact that there are already a lot of people there, making it a good place for modern industry. I'm mostly using Portland, OR to back this up but it applies to other cities as well.

In the Industrial Revolution, most industries were more like trades than they are today - textiles, lumber, and finished goods. Now, most city jobs are either in the tech or service industry. Factories are built farther away and create communities around them, a more organic version of what >>46808 described. I believe the practice of building "official" factory communities was also more common in early Industrial Europe than it was in the US.

Besides that, the non-specialized jobs aren't any different in urban vs suburban areas. There are always fast food and retail jobs. As mentioned above most factories are not in or near cities.

As for rural vs urban/suburban (since they are basically the same in terms of industry - Mountain View is pretty much suburban afaik, but San Francisco has plenty of tech companies as well and it is completely urban), I don't think it would change much since people are already not living very close to factories. People live in cities because they like city life. Rural areas are and have been for a long time, fairly free of major industry, especially as of late with the systematic elimination of the coal industry in the US. Some towns still thrive on logging, but that's the only industry that really exists out there. Tight knit farming communities aren't common in the US because farms and ranches are and have historically been very large compared to Europe, where, if I'm not mistaken, you more commonly have farming villages.

So basically, I see no reason it would be any different. If anything cities will get bigger and the sprawl will expand, with organic factory communities fading away due to increasingly fewer human workers required to maintain the factories. Rural areas will still be extremely isolated.

>>46922

(cont.)

I think artisan "industry" (if you can call it that, it seems like the two are antonyms) will likely continue expanding as the human touch becomes less and less common in manufacturing. This could bring a return to a more Middle Ages? type of city, with craftsmen setting up shop in cities. I know in Portland and other hipster infected places this kind of thing is increasingly popular. The most common examples I see are breweries, coffee shops, and soap makers. Tailors, cobblers, tanners, and the like could easily make a comeback. The "vintage mountainman aesthetic" is already practically the norm here, and is even seeing a fall in popularity as far as I've observed. Services like barbers are also popping up, as opposed to the generic "Great Clips" or other Asian salons.

I've also seen yuppies populate once rural, conservative towns - usually with universities. A great example of this is Missoula, MT. I think Bozeman has received similar treatment.

This is quite a rant… It's hard to compose a coherent piece in this text box and I didn't think to do type it externally and paste until I was done…

>>46923

>Tailors, cobblers, tanners, and the like could easily make a comeback.

I'd frickin' love for cobblers to make a comeback where I live. Lately I've been in a "buy once, buy quality, buy for the long term" kind of mood. I'm tired of expensive sweatshop sneakers falling apart after only a year. My next daily-wear shoes are going to be repairable.

>>46924

I agree completely, but didn't mention how I felt about this potential change because it isn't really /cyber/.

It's the one good part about hipster retardation. "What's old is new" eventually results in an accidental return to some traditional methods.

I'm particularly grateful for the increase in popularity of artisan soaps. Modern mass produced "soap" is full of harmful chemicals and usually dries your skin as a side effect. I've been using real, natural soap for over 6 months now and my skin feels so much better. I also don't feel like I have to shower as often because it helps to properly hydrate the skin rather than remove everything from the surface and drying it out. It also lasts exponentially longer. I bought a ~4.5oz? bar over 6 months ago, and it's only 2/3 used now. I am still using regular shampoo though, only because I haven't found a company that makes inexpensive shampoo bars. I used a regular bar for a little while but it was a pain because it doesn't really lather, making it harder to clean my hair with. Once I have the means I'll definitely be switching to real soap for all my bathing needs.

More tanners seem to also be popping up, or at least leatherworkers. I see a lot of yuppie companies making leather bags and such. Leather wallets and shoes have always had their place among wealthier men, though it seems that known brands like Prada and Gucci are losing popularity in favor of smaller artisans. I'm not very specifically informed on popular fashion though.

>>46924

I'd recommend lightly worn military surplus. You can get a good pair of boots for $40 or less that will last you for 8-10 years. Longer with a little super glue, leather scraps and spray on sealer.

>>46931

I'm long since past the combat-boots-as-casual-wear phase of my life. I'm just looking for plain no-logo sneakers, but repairable, and not made in a third-world sweatshop.

>>46925

>I am still using regular shampoo though, only because I haven't found a company that makes inexpensive shampoo bars

Wash your hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar. It cleans out my hair better than any shampoo and conditioner I've tried.

>>47921

Let's change that, punks.

>>46540

That's why I like that artist: futurism in open landscapes and the countryside is always ignored

>>46540

Don't you read any of the major cyberpunk works? They often make mention of it. Massive automated farms and isolated rural areas and shit. Gibson's "Count Zero" has a whole section in a farmhouse that looks like a shitshow on the outside but inside is all reinforced with a high-tech biomedical lab, genetically and cybernetically augmented guard dogs, and automated defenses.

>>48960

>That greenhouse plantation

>tfw you will never have one of your own

why did you give me this feel?

>tfw I will never drive KITT into the sunset of a rural Eastern Europe country

Rural areas are interesting to bike through at night, i've done it a few times.

>>49409

Hey bud!

I live near a forest and I do just that,

Once a car passed by and they saw me for a sec.

People just don't get the appeal of riding a bike in complete darkness at 3am by

-10 celcius…

I don't live in eastern europe though.

That would be lovely.

why would u call urself liberal uness ur like a classical liberal like thomas jefferson.

liberal is a derogatory term describing uneducated people that dont understand politics

When you're in cyberspace, how can you tell urban from rural? I mean, I've got fiber running in front of my 'ruburbia' acreage, though I sure as hell can't afford it. But in the midst of all of the other cable modem subscribers how can you tell where I'm shitposting from?

In real life though, it's the lunatics with polebarns that are creating motorized abortions that inspire academics to study swarm behavior and hysteresis to provide corps the basis to make something like Big Dog. But we had it first. Without the theory and math and patents. Farmers helped give the impetus for personal computers and until recently there was a UNC dairy operation that direly depended on a venerable Apple II. Surely cyberpunk thrives on urban environments but it was nurtured by yokels until it be fashionable enough to garner favor with a more sophisticated crowd.

>>49508

I've noticed that too. It seems like a lot of things start off as something a handful of rednecks are tinkering with, but it doesn't work well enough to depend on, or isn't very versitile. Then some university or r&d firm spends billions of dollars to make a version that works well and costs several million dollars each, made with the latest tech and manufacturing processes. Then, now that the finer points of the design are known, Cletus builds one out of worn out car parts, plywood and a metric fuck ton of zip ties. Then finially it gets handed off to urbanites for some polish. Simplifying the build process and swaping out some of the more improvised parts for more common off the shelf stuff.

Cletus's design is almost free, and might survive a nuclear blast, but you are going to need an end mill, a welder, and a belt tentioner from a 1987 jeep wranger.

The urbanite's design isn't nearly as cheap, or as durable, but you only need a hand drill, some jb weld and you can get 90% of the parts on amazon.

Most rural cyberpunk I've seen centers around remote compounds either with secretive important people or hidden facilities.

>>46540

>>49784

Gibson wrote a few chapters in Count Zero, Virtual Light and most of his last book The Peripheral in rural areas.

It's fun for me, who grew up in a trailer, looking at his take on hicks in the high-tech future.

In Count Zero one of the characters has a super computer in his barn.

>>49788

Ah I remember that section of CZ. He had quite a lot more than a super computer around his place

Lol, photos from my Russia on 8ch.

К И Б Е Р П А Н К

>>50488

Get the hell out of here before I hack you, Russian.

>>50571

Droog, you can't hack what's already broken.

>>49017

i want a video game or tv show made out of this conept of weird mundane life that would be rural cyberpunk and this is a fantastic concept of that honestly

>>50672

i currently live in a town of 5,000 people and me and a friend are fixing up an abandoned house and getting the paperwork to own it this year and were expecting to make it a voice controlled smart home with an ai named jane, idk why but my friend is dead set on getting that last part. oh and im planing on hiding a flatscreen, my computer and his xbox in the shell of an old panasonic projection tv

>>50673

also we have a perfectly sized living room and bed rooms for vr and intend to make all three rooms vr capable at some point

>>50674

and no im not blowing smoke, ill be posting pics when we make more progress these things and not just basic house renovation

from my experiences, the cyberpunk aspects of rural life currently boil down to:

>internet connected agricultural equipment (IoT)

>megacorp gene modified crops

>proprietary software and specialized OS for agricultural equipment (the farmer may own the tractor, but the software is licensed) so some farmers hack their equipment

>metadata based farming techniques

>drone overflights of fields/agridrone services

if I had to take a guess where all of this was headed, i would say it is likely that once everything goes full automated, farmers will just rent/sell land to megacorps who will conduct every step from farm to table using automation

>>50577

The farm in the foreground is shooped into Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.

The Psycho-Pass anime actually ends season 1 in a wheat field I think.

>>46548

someone still has to manage and survey the machines

cities provide major commodities you can't find in wheatspace

>>46548

if anything, cities will become even more prevalent and even more dense since you'll need operators to be close to machines, sorta like has already happened with industrial towns being a thing and now cities being hives of computer operators

>>55930

>responding to posts from more than two years ago

Do you even push the tempo, motherfuckers?

>>51409

imagine telling your dad or granddad how you farm back when they started

>>55948

>>55955

>the virgin narrator

> chad farmer

but in all seriousness that's really interesting to someone from a small/moderate city not really near any farms

>>55950

Likewise, "organic" food isn't the big savior people hype it up too be. Literally just bog standard crops and livestock, but grown and raised without the pesticides and such that enable more food to be grown without the losses in yields and such that you'd get without it. Excessive use isn't good, but we're kind of reliant on pesticides because of how well they work.

As for genetic engineering, that's incredibly unlikely to be an issue unless someone intentional makes poison food or lets it crossbreed with the wild population, since in layman's terms its just speeding up the existing selective breeding process.

>>55980

Pesticides don't really do shit. They kill off the insects that weren't resistant and the predators or aids, the eggs and resistant ones still live so over time the pesticides serve nothing but to poison the food because they put more on it thinking that more will kill them.

>>55981

Such a small margin of success can still translate to having much more edible crops being harvested though. We're talking about agriculture on a scale large enough to feed millions, sometimes even billions here.

Mostly edible is better than not edible at all.

>>55980

>As for genetic engineering, that's incredibly unlikely to be an issue unless someone intentional makes poison food

anon…

>A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto.

>>55984

Well fuck, not even surprised.