Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia
1 2021-03-31T12:45:56-07:00 Natalie K Meyers 4b3948ab8901940da5f2eb884c2cc86b3dc6ac22 33948 10 Zaidi, Leah. 2021. “Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia.” Presented at the FITC Sessions, March 11. http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/. meta 2021-04-13T15:04:17-07:00 3/11/21 Zaidi, Leah. 2021. “Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia.” Presented at the FITC Sessions, March 11. http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/. presentation Zaidi, Leah Natalie K Meyers 4b3948ab8901940da5f2eb884c2cc86b3dc6ac22Media
resource | rdf:resource | https://scalar.usc.edu/works/refusal/welcome-to-the-cyberpunk-dystopia |
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created | dcterms:created | 2021-03-31T12:45:56-07:00 |
Version 10
resource | rdf:resource | https://scalar.usc.edu/works/refusal/welcome-to-the-cyberpunk-dystopia.10 |
versionnumber | ov:versionnumber | 10 |
title | dcterms:title | Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia |
description | dcterms:description | Zaidi, Leah. 2021. “Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia.” Presented at the FITC Sessions, March 11. http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/. |
content | sioc:content | When COVID-19 began, many of us looked to science fiction and found that pandemic stories didn’t fit the reality that emerged – we were looking in the wrong place! High-tech, low-life, and an uncertain future places us in a cyberpunk dystopia; COVID-19 is all about order and control, and this has implications for what and how we design in the present and for the future. This presentation will demonstrate why we’re in a cyberpunk dystopia and how we can design our way out of it. Objective Understand the value of dystopias and how they can be applied in human-centred design initiatives. Five Things Audience Members Will Learn What is a dystopia The role of dystopias in society Why we’re living in a cyberpunk dystopia The design implications of a cyberpunk dystopia How to use dystopias strategically |
url | art:url | https://www.crowdcast.io/e/cyberpunk |
default view | scalar:defaultView | meta |
was attributed to | prov:wasAttributedTo | https://scalar.usc.edu/works/refusal/users/4374 |
created | dcterms:created | 2021-04-13T15:04:17-07:00 |
type | rdf:type | http://scalar.usc.edu/2012/01/scalar-ns#Version |
source | dcterms:source | http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/ |
date | dcterms:date | 3/11/21 |
bibliographic citation | dcterms:bibliographicCitation | Zaidi, Leah. 2021. “Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia.” Presented at the FITC Sessions, March 11. http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/. |
format | dcterms:format | presentation |
creator | dcterms:creator | Zaidi, Leah |
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Crisis narratives frame our response
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"Stories of futures in which disaster strikes and we rise to the occasion are a vaccine against the virus of mistrust. Our disaster recovery is always fastest and smoothest when we work together, when every seat on every lifeboat is taken." (Doctorow 2017)
Yet, half the seats on many of the Titanic’s lifeboats were empty. The tragedy of the Titanic is an event retold over and over not only because the loss of life on the doomed voyage of the unsinkable ship shocked the world, but also because "it didn't have to be that way." Since then, the very name of the Titanic carries connotations about hubris(too big to fail full steam ahead regardless of the conditions) and constructed scarcity(let's cast off without enough lifeboats and later when people's lives depend on them we'll deploy them half-empty)."This is the thought experiment of a thousand sci-fi stories: When the chips are down, will your neighbors be your enemies or your saviors? When the ship sinks, should you take the lifeboat and row and row and row, because if you stop to fill the empty seats, someone’s gonna put a gun to your head, throw you in the sea, and give your seat to their pals?"
-Cory Doctorow, “The Dangers of Cynical Sci-Fi Disaster Stories.” Slate Magazine. October 13, 2020.
This genealogy of refusal explores such crises and the ways in which we respond to them. Our aim is to re-frame crisis narratives in librarianship so library staff called upon to compensate for scarcity have other ways of contending with need. As explored by Drabinksi (2016) and in our companion short piece, crises, both real and constructed, are behind the narratives that frame our individual and collective responses to disaster, scarcity, and refusal.
As articulated by Bert Spector in Constructing Crises: Leaders, Crises, and Claims of Urgency (2019), crises can be both real and constructed. And either way, crises are a powerful tool for leaders. Real crises are borne on the wings of natural disasters or a global pandemic. Constructed crises tend to fall into different smaller narratives (such as "A once glorious kingdom under threat"), but can be utilized in conjunction with real crises to form a larger narrative. Typically they manifest calls for urgency which always stem from the desire for power. Constructed crises are often utilized to claim (or hold onto) power and resources, especially in an urgent or 'exceptional now' manner.
In this genealogy, we will examine the role of crises, scarcity narratives, and the power of "No." As you explore our genealogy of workplace refusal we invite you to consider: How long should we do more with less? Is it ok to simply exist? Instead of demanding exceptional resilience in the face of adversity could we focus on surviving with some semblance of quality of life? How do we know if there actually IS a crises? Or if resources are, in fact, scarce? In the words of Leah Zaidi, could we design our way out of the cyberpunk dystopia we are awakening to find ourselves in? (Zaidi 2021)