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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Max Headroom TV series, 2 seasons 14 episodes total is a really great cypherpunk series. If you watch it today, its cypherpunk and 80's nostalgic retro scifi.

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Cyberpunk is the gritty near future Blade Runner inspired style of max headroom (which takes place "5 minutes in the future") and the works of William Gibson. Cypherpunks are the gen x people behind things like PGP and Bitcoin. To quote wikipedia: "A cypherpunk is any individual advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change."

I made a typo.

Should have written cypherpunk (a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech")

No mate, cypherpunk is a totally different scene. Julian Assange was a notable cypherpunk, as were most of the people who have been accused of being Satoshi Nakomoto.

Cyberpunk is the scene you’re looking for.

Yes I made the same typo again _Cyberpunk_.

Favourite bit, as best I remember it.

Edison Carter asks why the cops have busted into some girls apartment and dragged her off:-

Edison: "What's her crime?" (she was in front of a TV)

Cop: (turns over a cushion) "Look! An off-switch. She'll get years for that."

I really enjoyed the show, but I’d suggest checking out the original TV movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future first. It provides great context for the series and stands on its own as a unique piece of cyberpunk history. Last time I checked, it was available on YouTube

Totally agree. 20 Minutes introduced the "Operator, get me out of here!" trope that showed up later in The Matrix...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZY-yQYVf38&t=825s

My parents named their car GPS "Mrs. Wiggins" after a Carol Burnett character.

My wife set her GPS to use a British accent. Following in that tradition, we've named her GPS "Theora".

The first episode of the show is a remake of the original movie, with a different ending in order to springboard the further episodes. While I agree the movie is worth watching, you don't really need to watch it to get the context for the series.

I would say you don’t need the tv show, if you watched the movie. The movie is just superior to the tv show in every way imho.

s/cypherpunk/cyberpunk/g

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