The Cyberpunk Genre

Cyberpunk is defined as a mix of hackers, mega-corporations, and artificial intelligence. Cyberpunk themes arise in many films and books, especially science fiction works. In the Matrix there are
· Hackers (Neo, Morpheus, the Resistance)
· Mega-corporations (Agents, Smith, the programming code of the Matrix) and
· Artificial intelligence (Sentinels, adapting skills of agents, realism of the matrix program).
Always, it is the artificial intelligence that causes the mega-corporations to spawn to dangerously controlling levels, threatening the role of humanity, which is defended by the hackers. In other words, mega-corporations attack humanity, hackers protect humanity, and artificial intelligence allows the mega-corporations to bleed into humanity, making mega-corporations a threat. Without Artificial Intelligence, the mega-corporations would never be adaptive enough to fully adapt and evolve quickly enough to penetrate and threaten mankind. Without hackers, mankind would lack means of responding to the threatening combination of mega-corporation and artificial intelligence.

Other examples of cyberpunk themes in:
George Orwell’s 1984
· Hackers (Winston Smith; Emmanuel Goldstein)
· Mega-Corporations (The Party, Big Brother)
· Artificial Intelligence (Ingsoc, Newspeak)
Although Ingsoc and Newspeak aren’t exactly hardware devices, they are a type of linguistic technology that dangerously perpetuates the Big Brother’s influence. The slogans “war is peace; freedom is slavery; and ignorance is strength” are brainwashing technologies. You can mix and match those combinations, for example, “peace is slavery; war is strength; ignorance is freedom” and create various associations that could be valid in various contexts. If someone is being given cruel and unusual punishment, warring against that could be a form of peace; if freedom is nothing to do, being bound into a slavish regimen could be more productive and, thus, a warped kind of freedom; ignorance of atrocities could be a way of making you stronger, but usually it just debilitates or you could say that ignorance allows less information to clog your natural intuition, resulting in more freedom” etc. The first sentence of the book, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” alludes to the bizarre, warped nature of the book, but simultaneous acceptance of it (Orwell 1). Any of those cases can be logically made, with the right linguistic spin and contextual connections. The “hackers” of 1984 must not only understand the technologies of the mega-corporations, but they must manufacture certainty in dissolving it and using it against them. The best trick someone from the hacker allegiance can do is to use the A.I. technologies to their advantage.

The trick about the Matrix is that it is a spiritual battle, not a physical, one necessarily. Some Hindus believe that no one should be trained in everything, which is a waste of time. You can do the jack-of-all-trades and/or the gung fu route, but all knowledge is interesting and good because it can help create freedom.

Albert Camus’s The Plague
· Hackers (Father Paneloux, Dr. Rieux)
· Mega-Corporations (The Plague)
· Artificial Intelligence (The virus itself and indifference)
In a VERY abstract sense, French writer, Albert Camus’s THE PLAGUE could be considered something of the cyberpunk genre, although this is certainly not the typical classification, but an example illustrating how the Hacker-Metacarpi-A.I trifurcation can be stretched to a broad range of genres with a lively enough of an imagination. The “hackers” are simply surgeons, doctors, and people of faith fighting the disease. The mega-corporation isn’t a physical body, here, but the plague represents what most mega-corporations do in the typical cyberpunk novel – they infect. Finally, the indifference to the virus is “artificial intelligence” used in the novel. Again, this is an incredibly abstract connection, but the doctors, the plague, and the virus operate with the same methodology as the typical cyberpunk thriller.


Matrix as a Cyberpunk Parable http://awesomehouse.com/matrix/parable.html
Lots of connections to the bible that are not cheesy references. The three types of maladaptive people are those
· Oblivious -- oblivious to the matrix
· Bored -- bored with freedom (Cypher)
· Tempted -- tempted by the matrix (mouse and the red dress, people who eat lots of candy, people who are tempted by pornography, and “comforts” that make you situated and numb (TV chair holders for all of your TV remotes)
Or, if you are neither of those people, then your aligned:
· Successful – is excited about the challenges of freedom, and continues on connecting with more people on a human level.

These three types of deviations from the Matrix are actually found in the 13th chapter of the Biblical book of Matthew from the New Testament in the “parable of the seeds”. The parable of the seeds discusses the four outcomes from when a sower scatters seeds on the ground. There are the seeds that:

• Do not take root. These seeds drift away in the winds, or are scattered by birds; they are oblivious and never root.
  
• Take shallow roots. These are the seeds that take root in concrete cement, so their rooting is shallow; they are bored and are uprooted easily.
  
• Get tangled in thorns. These are the seeds that take root, but then get entangled in the temptation of thorns; they are tempted and uproot because of that distraction.
  
• The seed takes root. These seeds persevere but are victorious in the end. In the Matrix (Neo, Morpheus, Trinity), in The Plague (Dr. Rieux and Father Paneleux), and in Hackers (Dade Murphy and the other hackers), these people endure pain, but are victorious in the end.
  

Orwell, George. 1984. England: Penguin Books, 1947.
Tavris, Carol and Wade, Carole. Invitation to Psychology. New York: Longman Publishers, 1999.