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I was talking with a friend about Neuromancer, which begins with the hero living in China, the “bleeding edge of technology.” A dystopian novel fittingly released in 1984, it ushered in the era of cyberpunk. A sciencefiction trend where the future was gritty, authority was not to be trusted and technology was personal augmentations.
Now in 2024, a dystopian present which failed to heed any of the screaming warnings of Cyberpunk. While the U.S. and U.K. have shown how fast an authoritarian leaning right wing leader can kill off a large chunk of their population with a criminally negligent pandemic response it is China that is the world leader in dystopia.
While some might argue Russia with it’s aggression against the Ukraine and intolerance of homosexuality is the leader in totalitarian nightmares, this is done with the elegance and sophistication of a Kossack’s boot. In other words Russia is doing what Russia has done since the 1600’s and with more or less the same tools. Even it’s outreach into subverting global politics is more a product of quantity than quality: Stalin would be proud. (Stalin is said to have produced the pithy quote “Quantity has a quality all it’s own.”)
China on the other hand has introduced to it’s own citizens ‘the social credit score.’ Not only does China monitor all of it’s residents (while making sure…
