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Comment by devjab | Hacker News Reader

Cyberpunk was always the “real sci-fi” in terms of what was actually going to happen wasn’t it? Murder drones, corporations having more power than nation states, the EU block becoming regulatory, climate havoc, the gig economy and a continuous restructuring of centralised society.

It also didn’t have a lot of happy endings. Because the world didn’t end, it just got continuesly shittier.

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Some would argue we are already living Cyberpunk, just without all the cool stuff.

BTW, why single out "the EU block becoming regulatory" as something negative prophesied by Cyberpunk? I have recently watched a video about the timeline of Cyberpunk 2020/2077 (which is just one universe, granted), and the EU sounded like the only ones who had their shit together, even though they were facing sabotage from all directions.

The world of Cyberpunk RPG essentially has EU be a lot nicer NUSA, with considerable economical domination (thus the use of eurodollar, which was one of the names floated for what became Euro currency), Soviet Union as this really schizo place but which on basic human decency scores miles above post-USA America, and an alliance of African nations as the unexpected black horse who made huge resurgence in space (which also contains probably the only really "free" nations - the old ESA space habitats and their allies).

This is also reflected (and probably heavily influenced CP2077) in Ghost in the Shell, where European Union, in somewhat fluctuating alliance with Soviet Union, is probably among the best locations to live.

I didn’t mean the EU being regulatory as negative, I was just giving examples of how the cyberpunk I read in the 90ies is basically reality now.

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