why are cyberpunk tabletop things so obsessed with decency and personhood being tied to how many surgeries you haven’t had

“if you have a prosthetic it takes out a part of your soul” like thanks shadowrun

in early cyberpunk, the point was more along the lines of “if we integrate technology into our bodies we risk becoming dependent upon the people and institutions who control that technology, who would then use that to enrich themselves at our expense”

unfortunately that was too anti-corporate for American mainstream culture so as cyberpunk moved out of its niche it became “uhhh it eats your soul I guess”

tags by @rubyvroom: 

#this is important context #if you weren’t around at the time it is easy to miss but #anti-corporate sentiment was pretty much the lynchpin of cyberpunk until there were movies and games making money off it #it was the 1980s you guys #the entire point was that corporations are evil and technology should be used to circumvent them and escape their control over our lives #and not be used to make ourselves into another product #now that the internet is entirely monetized and corporate it’s harder to remember that originally it was synonymous w freedom & independence

Yes, exactly. Cyberpunk is anti-corporations, not anti-body-modification.