1992 - Is there a cyberpunk movement? (Cyberpunk Manifesto) - Gareth Branwyn

Texto

- The future has imploded onto the present. There was no nuclear Armageddon. There's too much Real Estate to lose. The new battlefield is people's minds.

- The megacorps ARE the new governments.

- The U.S. is a big bully with lackluster economic power.

- The world is splintering into a trillion subcultures and designer cults with their own languages, codes, and lifestyles.

- Computer-generated info-domains are the next frontiers.

- There IS better living through chemistry.

- Small groups or individual "console cowboys" can wield tremendous power over governments, corporations, etc.

- The coalescence of a computer "culture" is expressed in self-aware computer music, art, virtual communities, and a hacker/street tech subculture. The computer nerd image is passe, and people are not ashamed anymore about the role the computer has in this subculture. The computer is a cool tool, a friend, important human augmentation.

- We're becoming CYBORGS. Our tech is getting smaller, closer to us, and it will soon merge with us.

- Information wants to be free.

- Access to computers and anything which may teach you something about how the world works should be unlimited and total.

- Always yield to the hands-on imperative.

- Mistrust Authority.

- Promote Decentraliztion.

- Do It Yourself.

- Fight the Power.

- Feed the noise back into the system.

- Surf the Edges.

[from mondo2000's USERS' GUIDE TO THE NEW EDGE; page 65-66; 1992]

Contexto

"In 1992, I wrote a post on The Well BBS entitled "Is there a cyberpunk movement?" The post was an attempt at summarizing what cyberpunk was, both as a literary genre, and how its depictions of near-future worlds were imploding onto the present of early 90s high-tech nerd culture (hackers, gamers, industrial/electronic music, tech artists, and cyberpunk zine publishers).

Apparently, the post struck a nerve as it quickly spread beyond the confines of The Well, was dubbed a "cyberpunk manifesto," and ended up in the pages of Mondo 2000 magazine, Rudy Rucker and Mondo 2000's book The User's Guide to the New Edge, and as lyrics on Billy Idol's 1993 record, Cyberpunk (but those are all stories to be told here later in the series)." https://web.archive.org/web/20220226013108/https://boingboing.net/2020/02/24/a-new-blog-post-series-explori.html

Billy Idol lo incluyó, modificándolo un poco, en su album de 1993 Cyberpunk, album en el que colaboró Gareth Branwyn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(album)

Pueden verse las letras de esta versión aquí:

https://lyrics.lol/artist/37816-billy-idol/lyrics/1036555-opening-manifesto

Gareth Branwyn habla de esta colaboración aquí: https://garerthbranwyn.com/2014/02/24/the-internet-is-punk-rock/

Además aparece en...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/2a7yne/opening_manifesto_for_is_there_a_cyberpunk/

https://web.archive.org/save/http://www.sterneck.net/cyber/branwyn-cyberpunk/index.php

https://www.digitalmanifesto.net/manifestos/135/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkFuturology/comments/2445g3/cyberpunk_manifesto_gareth_branwyn_1991look/

https://web.archive.org/web/20021002111346/http://www.totse.com/en/technology/cyberspace_the_new_frontier/cyberpnk.html

https://www.digitalmanifesto.net/manifestos/135/