cyb - cyberpunk

Nice white guilt there homie.
I'm from a tier one first world country and I don't really see how I am wasteful. Nor do I understand why I am obligated to be worth anything to the world. I still think I am either way.

I need a disclaimer if this was intended to be mostly an artistic piece. If so, good job on the writing.

>>14910
Purely artistic statement my friend. I've been working on my writing and trying my best to work stuff out with myself through it. Developing my right brain, so to speak.

I love you family.

Taylor Swift, who needs ya? i didn't care when I didn't know about you, and I sure as hell (ha, hehehe,)don't care now. Really, did any of us?

>>14916
how dare you talk bad about tay tay

>>14918
>on a cyberpunk imageboard
>defending vapid celebrity bullsoykaf.

I bet you like it for the style.

>>14919
No you just don't have a sense of humor.

>>14910
I wouldn't call it white guilt, because its not a "white" thing. I think there is a sense of guilt we should feel attached to the fact that we take for granted so much that other people have to suffer so we can barely even enjoy the crazy great things we have.


Look at the insane things we can do on our phones that is possible for us because of the workers in china who barely get paid anything and have horrible living conditions building phones we break and\or replace at least once a year.


>>14909
>>14911

We should acknowledge the benefits we have because of where we live\money we have and use them to help others however we can

>>14925
this. nowhere in the OP was it stated that it was something "white", he said "an unhealthy consumer citizen of the First World".

>>14909
I don't need to feel guilt to want to help people. Other people want to get stuff done, learn things, create and express themselves. I like to as well, and see no reason not to work with other people to make a world of creativity and discovery.

>>14909
Hoi, OP! First Id like to say that I love you as well. Not so much in a traditional sense, but in some new-age /cyb/ way of saying namast3, I guess. I have a general compassion for most things, but I also have a raging nihilist and misanthropist inside of me, so I may not /really/ like you. But I digress.

Second: The first war was between the primordial broth and physical form. Physical form was better, stronger, more suited to serve life's general purpose of survival and endurance. All things that come into being, whether they are conscious of it or not, are part of the universal arms-race between all species. We do not have to conquer, but all life wants to thrive.

Taking this into consideration you must realize and accept that it is okay that one day this Earth may not be the Earth we know and love. It may stop being all green and natural. This saddens a part of me, because I love nature. But it also excites me, because we are nature and we are thriving. Life goes on, in every way you can and cannot imagine. Even after we are dead and gone, life will find a way to make something that will overcome whatever put us in the ground, even if that something is just another primordial spec of bacteria.

If humans will thrive off of a more closely connected life with our creations, then it is life's will for it to happen. If the next war is between this fleshy form and one that I merge with machinery, one of them will come out on top, and that is just how life goes on.

N4m45t3, lainon, let life go on, do not hate yourself for our great strides.

I've been wanting to post something like this for awhile now, but for some reason /r/ wouldn't let me post a thread when I tried, so:

I'm not going to be very poetic in how I present this. To be blunt, I understand what you're saying OP, because I'm that consumer too.

I sit at my computer daily for hours on end, paralyzed at the sea of information at my fingertips, scared to death of letting myself get invested and active in anything - whether that be something as simple as playing video games or trying to learn to program and do something useful with my life. So I just sit here for hours, passively consuming media and browsing on *chans while my time slips through my fingers.

I should be going outside and disrupting the status quo, doing schway soykaf and having fun, or learning more stuff, learning to program and reading things, or practicing my lockpicking and martial arts. For fuarrrk's sake, I should be doing something, but I just can't get myself motivated to do anything else other than be a fuarrrking passive consumer.

I'm going to be turning 21 soon and I'm starting to realize that I've wasted my whole life up until now, and will probably waste the rest of it if I don't find a way to save myself from this crippling apathy. I'm reading the Lain Zine, and there's all kinds of cool soykaf in it I could be doing, but I don't do fuarrrking anything at all.

How can we hope to stop being passive consumers and start living like fuarrrking human beings?

>>14998
We've evolved past human beings, there is no going back. The near-void of the internet is an irreplaceable part of your mind now. You'll always feel that tug on your brain stem if you try to leave.

>>14909
I cannot accept your apology. You sins are naught except from childish folly and there is no blood on your hands except your own.

For all your life you have been blissfully ignorant. Ignorant of the society in which you live and the slavery that supports it. Ignorant of the world around you and the changes taking place in it. As you know, this ignorance was no excuse.

Today, in a single, eternal instant you died and were reborn. With news eyes you looked upon the world and you saw the rot that festers beneath it. You came to understand a little more of the world around you and you wept. As you know, this understanding is no pardon, the tears no redemption.

But you have no need for excuses nor redemption nor guilt, that's why I cannot accept your apology.

We are all alone and we are all one.

Alone, you have done nothing wrong. You have kept no slaves, you have poisoned no streams. Your living within this society is no implication of approval. The material value that you have provided to it and taken from it did not force anyone to open sweatshops or be reckless with their pollutants. There are those among us who have done such things but they did them of their own free will, the blood is on their hands and theirs alone. Here, alone, you need never feel responsible for the sins of others.

We are all one. Humanity is a collective, through empathy, culture and society, no action is performed in a vacuum. Here, as one, we share but one pair of hands and they are drenched with blood and every day a fresh coat is added on top of the aeon old stains. For that we may weep, for that we have sinned, but here, as one, we are so very, very big. Our countless aeons of evolution, our millennia upon millennia of society and our centuries of exploitation are but a handful of years next to this magnitude. For all our majesty, we are but a child. Is it wrong for a child to pull the legs from a spider? Of course. Should they allow it to hang heavy on them for the rest of their lives?

You were reborn with the vision to see the sins of humanity. To see the blood that was ours staining the hands that we all share. Your soul knows, it felt that the weight had been lifted and it soared. Your mind languishes behind, weighed down by guilt. Cast off your guilt, it will not help you where you're going.

And anon? I love you too.

>>14998

Well, I started thinking about getting myself a proper life at your age, I'm nearly 25 now. So far I think I did much more than it seems. I'll *maybe* get le girlfriend soon, where I still thought it was impossible for me 2 years ago. There nothing much you can do beside stopping being a little bitch. Every time I feel or realize that I'm slipping, "Stop being a little bitch" pops in my head and I do my best to improve my current situation, even if this is something really short term related. There is no special trick beside. Self-indulgence is a poison as well as pride and isolation.

You meet people, see them living, get eager to be like them, or to live the same things, you live things yourself again and start to realize how much you missed, you grow thick of what you are or what you are not, and you'll meet a point where your will to change is stronger than the excuses you can come with to stay in what confy cacoon of inaction you are. Of course you can force things a little, but it requires to stop being a little bitch and overcome bullsoykaf excuses.

I still didn't achieve half of what I could but that's ok as long as the "don't be a little bitch" genius will be in my head. Get yours.

You can't get back in time, but you can live things in late. Strong friendship, love, and of course everything unrelated to relationship. It's way better than nothing. You need time to settle but can't get anywhere without trying.

Of course "you" is my personal experience.

Sage for incoherent and shallow rambling.

>>15017
I feel like I've been throwing up lately. Physically so, feeling a slimy presence coming up my gullet, but when I spit it out, nothing is there. I feel lighter than before.

What do you mean by "where I'm going?" I'm still working out where to even go from here. The closest I've gotten is by deciding I might never buy anything again unless I actually need it.

Even then, shit, that's going to be tough living here.

>>14919
Lighten up brother

Maybe not now, but when our Earth is completely dead and gone from the sea of plastic and the global warming cataclysm, this is my apology for not understanding sooner.

Why the hell would you appologize for that? More room to maximize the intelligence over spacetime coefficient of this universe. And "sea of plastic" That's kind of wasteful, but not it should go in a landfill instead, but it creates future jobs for sea skimming miners. Our garbage dumps are just future jobs. When we pull the last drop of oil out of the ground we'll be digging up the landfills to get at all that solid petroleum (plastic). People will be cursing us for burning it all up, but we'll still need petroleum based products for the foreseeable future, esp. the era of space colonization. The medical field especially. That you didn't recycle some plastic means it will be available to save future lives.

Countless people will benefit from the "2st generation petroleum" resources we're keeping out of the current cycle of technology. Just think of the child with a high quality synthetic heart made more cheaply from the garbage that escaped the recycling bin than the heavily processed multi-generation recycled toxic plastics of tomorrow. It's like we're burring oil for later!

The planet has Seven Billion people on it. When I was a kid there were 4 billion people. Your individual impact won't even be measurable in 10 years time!

We are a product of our environment. You wouldn't blame a doctor for bleeding you out a few hundred years ago because they didn't know any better and couldn't do any better at the time. We can't help that the systems in place are in the state they're currently in. Trying to save the world piecemeal is pathetic and won't work. We shouldn't worry about our individual footprint. What counts is engineering solutions so that the future society can do things more efficiently with less waste. As long as we're advancing the science then all is well. To put it another way: Even if you were born 100,000 years in the future, you'd STILL find soykaf to feel bad about. It would be like this: "I'm sorry my planet-sized brain uses up the amount of energy it does from our sun, and hastens the heat death of our universe! I know it's an immeasurable amount overall, but it's an amount that I can experience myself!" Meanwhile, ignoring that such an existence was billions of times more efficient at using energy than the Industrial Revolution. Once we're beings of pure energy people like you will apologize for not being born as an inanimate rock. It's asinine.

Priorities mate. Get them straight. If you were really sorry for existing then you'd make yourself a net benefit to the world by contributing something to the world. Make a song, write a FLOSS program, do something creative -- creative processes REQUIRE energy. Just make progress, and accept that you have to break eggs to make an omelet.

>>15174
Damn right.
I really hope we can get off this little blue-green marble before it goes busto for us though, how we as a complex race can find endlessly complex meaning and beauty to everything? In my opinion, that's well-worth preserving, even if in terms of every other race we are essentially a massive, horrific virus spreading over vast tracts of space and time sucking all resources we can.

OP's post drips with guilt, endless guilt, mostly directed at things they have little control over. It's sickening. I guess in a certain sense that means it's effective art, but that utter shame at progress almost reminds me of those people complaining how the Pioneer 10 plaque dared to have people vaguely representing those that made it to space on it.

>>14909
There isn't really anything we can do, though. Are you gonna stop living your first world life because of this...?

I'm probably one of the top poorfags in my general region, but I do realize I have a better life than others in different countries, despite my moldy asbestos-infested house. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up the small amount of comfort I have.

You were lucky enough to be born in a country where things aren't completely in the pits. Don't waste the work other's do to make sure you have a nice life. Make the most of it.

Ah, but, please don't take my post as a rude one! You sound like a very sweet and kind person. You're great, Anon.

>>14998
The easiest way to do something is to be obliged to do something. To be obliged to do something you have to put yourself in an unconfortable situation. It's hard to oblige yourself to do something everyday. It is easier to put yourself in some unnatural situation that obliges you to do something every day, even if it requires more courage.

For example, I had similar feelings two years ago, so I moved to a place far away from my friends and city, just close enough so I could work. Hardest year of my life, but I think I changed a lot and tought a lot, so it was worth it.

>>14998
You can do stuff, I believe in you. Just start with that board and something simple. Try taking first steps in: programming (in scripting languages preferably), cryptography, hacking a device you use everyday, server administration, cooking, amateur photography, making your own wine, simple soldering, ordering tea & deciding which one you like. You can do most of these things with things you already have - if not, you can do so for cheap. Will you do some of these, who knows what happens? You might find joy in these DIY tasks; you might feel like you've accomplished something. And you'll be right.

>>14909
I despise you and everything you stand for. I wwant to set the world and everything you love on fire just so I can watch the look on your face as everything you know is cleansed before you.

I watch every day as the privliged waltz by on their designer drugs, and step right over those beneith them. Untouchables... invisible to society. There is nothing worse.

Don't cry for those without. You're fuarrrk ing fake. Do something. Otherwise, it's just lip service. The least you could do is see them.

Why is this thread in here and not art?

bumping

>>14998

>I sit at my computer daily for >hours on end, paralyzed at the >sea of information at my >fingertips, scared to death of >letting myself get invested and >active in anything - whether >that be something as simple as >playing video games or trying to >learn to program and do >something useful with my life. >So I just sit here for hours, >passively consuming media and >browsing on *chans while my time >slips through my fingers.

Fuck that's exactly how I am. I can't start new things, whether it's a new video game, learning a new skill, finding a new fuarrrking channel on Soundcloud, I can't start it, it's fuarrrked. It's as if I like the idea of $THING more than $THING itself. But that's not 100% accurate, I sometimes like/am happy with $THING when I'm actually doing $THING. But starting is always so daunting, always a tomorrow thing, better do the same familiar shit, better refresh plebbit, better shitpost on the chans.

How does one break out of this kind of cycle?

>>17792
Instead of something new, do something (other than refreshing imageboards) that you have already done. Play a video game you already got 100% at. Watch a movie you already saw. Write something you already wrote about. Take a tutorial lesson for a skill you already have. Repeat that thing forever. Note: music doesn't work as well for this as other activities.

By the time you are done with it (forever+1) iterations later, you'll be so sick of repetitiveness in general that the concept of hitting F5 on an imageboard all day will be sickening to you.

>>17794

So like chainsmoking a whole pack to get sick of cigarettes and quit smoking?

Yeah sure, I'm just a passive consumer sitting at home doing nothing with my life, staring at this screen. My parents and the rest of the family is trying their best, and perhaps I benefit from the wage-slavery of many in an economy that is still about colonization (but it's corporations and capital instead of countries and soldiers). And that's perfectly fine. Every day you hear of or encounter people who live in luxury and never seem satisfied, always searching for more and doing anything to get it; and that's perfectly fine. There's also billions living in poverty with many not getting enough food to survive; and that's perfectly fine. You and I, we could just man the fuarrrk up and get out there and change these things, and it would be perfectly fine. We could just choose to ignore this and brew some more soykaf on the irc, and it would be perfectly fine. I could be in the shoes (if any) of one of those starving people and think completely otherwise, and that would be perfectly fine.

The world is as it should be. You can go and change it or leave it like that, either way it will be as it should be. You can try to trick the concept, twist the words and tell the world you altered it for the better or the worse, but the world is as it should be.

This means that OP should or shouldn't feel guilty, and the rest of you should or shouldn't try to cheer/brofist/crash-course him about his life. I should or shouldn't change my life, and should or shouldn't stop posting.

>>17803
Yeah, and bitching about yourself online is perfectly fine.

i know your just trying out some writing skills but i do feel this is a good topic.

for one id like to start by saying im not a sociopath or anything like that. I used to cry when id kill a tick even, or get upset when ants were being killed, and id never clean the cobwebs in my room because i didnt want to ruin the spiders homes. and i used to get outraged at how extravagant we lived here while people suffered, etc. etc. but ive reached a point in my life where i firmly believe that the only thing that really matters is your own survival. after all im totally capable of killing bugs, or letting people suffer (though i may not like it, which i attribute this to learned behavior actually) but i am 100% incapable of ending my own life. i believe everyone is incapable of this. I know this sounds like an exception thing but I really do think, and im gonna draw my support from that "people who survive suicide regret it", that those who commit suicide either arent thinking about the actual death side of things and just escaping, or believe they will live on somehow after death. and they only realize they made a mistake when they are about to hit the pavement or are already hanging 5 feet off the ground and then survival instincts kick in.

anyways i guess this next bit only applies if you dont believe in god I used to 100% of my own choice. not saying that means god isnt real because i switched my viewpoint and i have more experience which i dont, just that i did think about this a lot. but going off that whole the only thing you can be sure you must do is survive (and possibly reproduce, this too is a strong instinct), id say that means we did evolve with two things in mind survival and reproduction. this has a variety of possible implications that i wont actually discuss because it causes too much debate but it would mean that morals have no supernatural or genetic basis, rather they were survival oriented. everyone enforces certain morals and everyone lives a bit longer and has more kids which is the goal. this group enforcing morals usually has a degree of power, so not abiding by them means danger for yourself. and now im finally going to get to the point of this tirade. the morals that say care for others, dont be wasteful, be kind, etc. these ones arent actually enforced. In fact by following them I am actually set back in terms of how well i will survive comparatively. there's always some in competition in a species, especially with populations high (though I dont believe we have too high of a population). so giving away my money and possessions, or using less because people are starving on a different continent can only serve as setbacks. I like to think of it like this though, you are one of the top 10 in a class of 40 or so. A curved test is coming up, and the other 30 kids are getting ready and studying for it, and often times when wanting to learn its best to go to the people who know it already. so the 30 kids naturally want to study with the 10 top of the class kids. using my "moral system" the appropriate course of action would be to feign ignorance when asked or say something like "it kind of just comes to me when the test starts I dont know yet". teaching the other students not in the top 10 would only create more competition for yourself, you should always try and put yourself in the best position possible. basic example, could have flaws

>>17816
(cont)

however things such as taking care of the environment is still important, under this survival mindset you have to have the irrational thought that you will live forever. so this serves your interest to keep the environment in good shape. but of course say we could make our bodies into machines that pollution had no effect upon, this would be just as good a solution.


sorry if this makes no sense i kind of just went on typing. i guess tl:dr i believe morals have no solid foundation and that ultimately you really only have yourself. that sounds really edgy but hopefully my shitty writing maybe explained it better.

>>14925
Living with this kind of guilt is unhealthy imo. Unless you're gonna do something. If you're gonna go to china and take the place of a Chinese worker, then sure. But unless you're doing that, feeling guilty is pointless. Cherish what you have, be grateful, and live life to the fullest, even if there are others suffering out there.

>>17804
why do you imply that i imply that it's not? do you even?

you just gotta pick something and work towards bettering it.

i'm currently horribly depressed because I was unknowingly exposed to a ridiculous carcinogen for about 7 months at my job.

likely i won't live past my 50s

you just gotta deal, keep your self sane, and try to do good soykaf .

I feel this weird feeling too.
The feeling of being blocked. Totally blocked. Just wanting to see shity things on twitch to make the time go quicker.

But I maybe have a solution: The mistake here is that I consider entertaining myself as a consequence of the weird feeling. But maybe it's the opposite; it's because I love too much having fun on twitch, on imageboard, that I don't find a way to work and get productive.

There is a book I'm gonna read and maybe it will respond to a lot of my interrogation: Amusing Ourselves to Death of Neil Postman.
Another good book talking about it is : "Brave New World", a book talking about a distopy, but on the opposite of 1984. This book talk about not censuring book, but make their read irrelevant, that you just don't want to read them anymore because playing minecraft of watching games of throne is far funnier. That you don't need to oppress people, but in the contrary give them what they love and let them sink into it. (That's maybe why in some european coutry, drugs are legal, whereas it's proven that it destroy the brain).

And I've passed a little test: just block in your hosts file youtube, twitch and this kind of stuff which make your time go away. It just hurt to pass a day without being linked to the screen flow. Because it's what video is; a sea, where you don't need to move, just let you take away. You are passive and not active at all.


It's what we love that destroy us and make us ignorant. If people from the third world doesn't know that feel, it's because they are not as entertain as we are (with many other things too). And when I talk about entertainment, I talk about phone games in the subway, movies, tv, computers, ads every where, shows every where etc..

Really want to know what you think about this idea.

>>14998

Hey man. I was in the same situation as you were when I was 21. I couldn't code and wasted hours online reading "content" wasting my life away. I hadn't had a girlfriend and ridicuously unhappy with my life.

Fastforward 7 years and I'm now in a job I love doing interesting things in tech. I've built things that people use and feel on the cusp of making something really schway. I have decent friends and a great relationship.

What I want to say out of this is to just keep working on things. Try to get away from the internet occasionally (I learnt to code on a freebsd machine that I couldn't get wifi working on) and everything will work out dandy.

Feeling guilt about abusing the resources of our planet is dumb, because not only is the planet not sentient, but the planet is significantly more hardy than we are. The planet isn't one entity we're harming, it's a group of billions of smaller interconnected systems, which we are a part of. Even if global warming was 500 times worse than everyone is saying, we cannot destroy enough of the planet to have a long-term impact at the moment. We would only be killing ourselves.

Feeling guilt about your position in life compared to others much lower than you is okay, but don't get consumed by it, because then you're wasting your giving position. It's wrong in some ways that some are taken advantage of, but it's also wrong to ruin yourself over that. If given the opportunity, it is moral to try to help those who are less fortunate, but striving specifically to do that will only make you ignore other equally important things. Just look at modern progressives; in their march towards "progress", they've become exactly what they profess to be against.

>>17816

> i believe everyone is incapable of this. I know this sounds like an exception thing but I really do think, and im gonna draw my support from that "people who survive suicide regret it", that those who commit suicide either arent thinking about the actual death side of things and just escaping, or believe they will live on somehow after death. and they only realize they made a mistake when they are about to hit the pavement or are already hanging 5 feet off the ground and then survival instincts kick in.

How do you know they're telling the truth? If you fail a suicide attempt you go to a mental hospital, and there's no way they'll let you out if you say things like "I still don't want to live, I'll do a better job next time." You can't say this kind of soykaf to you're friends or family either, it would only attract scrutiny, they might even involve the authorities.

This is what I did after I tried to an hero. I still wanted to die, but I told them what they wanted to hear so they'd fuarrrk off. Nowadays I'm ambivalent about life and death, but I can see suicide in my future. The only reason I'm writing this is because I'm anonymous here.

>>17838
So... will your boss be getting an involuntary manslaughter charge any time soon?

Fucking hell it's spreading.

I really can't be bothered to refute this soykaf at the moment.

I'm just so tired.

>>17857
AFAIK I have no legal recourse until I actually get cancer

>My very life as an unhealthy consumer citizen of the First World designates me as a walking human rights violation, and therefore my existence itself is likely the most wasteful and worthless thing on the face of this beautiful blue planet.
I prefer to use the material safety of the First World to create, develop and help instead of remaining idle in the womb of security.

>>17851
i dont, my biggest evidence for people being incapable of suicide is that I myself am. yes i know how that sounds.

so in your case i would then make the assumption that you still arent thinking things through or arent understanding what death will entail. the other third possibility with suicide cases which i didnt mention was that being genetically defect could render a person capable of suicide. i mean that not in a bad way either, i really do just mean that the person was somehow not wired with this strong sense of perseverance.

again i know how much this sounds like im just making exceptions for every case that doesnt go with what i think. but i will say again that i believe this because I know myself, who has thought about suicide and contemplated it so much, is completely unable to commit suicide no matter how hard i try. id argue that the act of me arguing with you is just my brain rationalizing this irrational need to survive by any means necessary.

its funny because this isnt even as stretched or the farthest i take these views. i actually believe people cant even contemplate that they will truly die by natural causes. they always want to leave an impact on the world, or have kids, or "do something with their life" which i see as a way to extend their life past death which is impossible without actually extending your life past death, or so i believe.

i do know these are just my beliefs though. I also dont read much and i dont really borrow from anywhere, most of this is just from me walking my dogs and thinking. my point being that maybe if i read a bit more philosophy and what not i might be able to argue my points better and come up with better explanations.

Who's the artist of the middle picture??

>>17896
Literally not a single sentence in this post makes any sense. Grats bro.

>>17926
Shintaro Kago

OP here.

I'm glad this conversation is still here and the majority of it are thinking seriously about it.

When this revelation hit me, I honestly did weep. I was doing some work outside and just thinking when it happened. I realized how truly small and powerless that I was. It's been a couple months since then, and I still do feel small and powerless. But I also feel more brave, like I can take control of my situation, if not necessarily rein in the world toward a more empathetic will. I've realized that you can be small, but you still can set an example for others to follow. There's been this enormous cycling of my morals and ethics and... people have noticed.

I've stopped dressing to impress, and only wear what I find comfortable or personally interesting. If my hands are idle I will busy them in service of another human being, not for profit or recognition, but for the simple joy of seeing them smile. This includes cleaning my friend's homes, playing party dad and keeping stupid drunk college kids safe, treating even insects respectfully despite their lack of ethical capacity. Standing up and calling out bull soykaf with my voice, AND my actions. Lying is a thing of the past. Cheating is despicable.

It is in our best interest to be honorable, kind, and firm. We fuarrrk up sometimes, but that's human nature. We move on.

Be a light, Lainchan, even among the lowlifes. Be your best.