Week Eleven: Cyberpunk and Steampunk

For this week, I read the novel Snow Crash. I enjoyed the virtual reality aspects of the story with its quirks of important questions, such as what happens to the mob when people move their business into virtual reality? The answer, they deliver some amazing pizza. It differs from the traditional in this genre with its use of drugs that alter the reality of people not only in the real world, but those in the augmented reality as well. Its a less touched upon subject as the augmented reality is often seen as the escape from reality, but it does offer the important questions of what a drug could appear like in this augmented world. The use of this drug as a form of mind control was mind bending as well, it created the psychological fear that one isn't safe in the real world or the created world.

This effects the reader in the sense that the reality we create for ourselves to shield ourselves from the horror of actual reality may be just as bad. It makes the reader contemplate if the created reality is worth the risks that standard reality comes with on a daily basis. If the end goal was just to escape reality, are you just substituting it for an equally bad one? It is believed that the created reality would somehow take us away from our own fleeting existence, possibly even establishing ourselves a legacy. The internet is an excellent example of this through its many forums and dormant sites. Anything that is put out on the internet will remain on the internet: It cannot be removed once it is put out there somewhere, even if it is deleted. For this week, it was the altered realities of a computer domain that had a lot of the same aspects in life that we come to see, nightclubs, fake-appearances, and drugs. However, it takes the level of drugs to a new directions as the drug Snow Crash will harm a user in the real world. Its implications won't just effect one in the augmented reality, but kill them in the real reality as well. In a way, the augmented reality creates a sense of arrogance as people would do things on there they wouldn't do in normal life. However, isn't that a reason why augmented reality was created? So we could accomplish the feats and desires we would never be able to achieve in our own lives? Real reality can be bleak, as in the case of Protagonist as he is a a courier pizza driver for the mob in real life, a nobody if you will. But in the augmented reality he is an untouchable swordsman. Reality is what one perceives as real, it can vary from person to person. Only thing is, what happens when reality for some becomes the real reality?