Back in 1994, my family was fortunate enough to get our first Windows PC. Ostensibly, it was for my mom’s work, but at fourteen years old, I became the primary user in our household. I had used DOS computers before, but Windows 3.1 was a game-changer! When we upgraded a year or so later to Windows ‘95, a whole new world opened up once again.

I didn’t just use it for solitaire (though it is STILL the best version ever made), I used clipart programs to make crappy covers for my crappy band's crappy music. I played with basic photo-editing tools, cursed over trying to make incompatible programs run, and brought home countless demo disks for games like Blake Stone, Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Realms of Arcadia, and found ways to make them run whether the computer wanted to or not. (Fun fact: Apogee’s founder, and I have the same name! I learned that from the Blake Stone credits.)

I spent many hours banging my head against the desk— figuratively and literally— but in the end I learned a lot about how computers work. Things that I still use to this day!

And then came the upgrade to Windows ‘98.

Now in many ways, I’m sure Windows ‘98 was an upgrade. But it was the first time I remember something happening that I detested. Something that still irks me about software development. The first time I put a CD-ROM in the drive, it auto-ran the installation wizard.

I know right? How dare they!

You see, up until then I had gotten used to putting the disk in and running the programs when I darn well felt like it. Now the computer was deciding when I would run it. How presumptuous!

I’m a little ashamed to admit how many hours I spent trying to figure out how to turn that feature off. I don’t remember if I ever managed, but one thing was clear by the time XP rolled around: These quality of life automatic features were here to stay, and more were coming.

Now, I can imagine some well-intended coders at Microsoft trying to make their system more user-friendly. After all, why put a disk in the drive if you don’t want to run it? What else can we make easier for the end-user experience? I do get it. But I still don’t like it.

Quality of life upgrades like this have always irked me. Clearly, I’m in the minority, as making things more automatic over the years has allowed more and more people to access tech without the need to bang their heads against desks. However, to me it always feels like some invisible hand forcing me down a path I don’t want to go. I like to have more control. Or maybe more accurately, I don’t like feeling like something else is controlling me.

There is clearly utility in making things easier for everyone. I love the biometric recognition on my devices, and how easy it is these days to create and publish all kinds of media online. But there is something lost when we make everything too easy. We often hear coders and tech company leaders using the word “frictionless” to describe their goals when creating their products. But friction is not inherently bad. In fact, we need it.

Friction, baby!

Last October, I published a short story on here, called Siloed. It’s generally frowned upon for an artist to explain their intentions to their audience. I’ve heard it compared to dissecting a frog: Sure you understand what’s going on inside, but you kill the frog in the process.

Well, not too many people read Siloed, so let’s murder this frog.

What I wanted to do with this story is present a hypothetical future where technology has made everything as frictionless as possible. The main character doesn’t have to worry about the weather, clothing choices, preparing meals, telling the truth, maintaining relationships with other people, working, or even raising her son. Everything in her life is designed to meet her needs before she even realizes them herself. And the result is an empty existence. The climax of the story comes when the main character almost realizes that her life is meaningless, but it ends on a dark note when she makes the decision to push that intuition aside, and resume her easy life.

Now whether or not I succeeded in telling an entertaining story that got that message across is something for the handful of people who read it to decide for themselves. (🥹) But it is what I was aiming for.

And this message ought to resonate. As frictionless tech has become more and more ubiquitous with our lives, can you truly say we are better off than we used to be? How many people are opting for edibles & Netflix instead of going out and socializing? How many kids are glued to screens instead of playing in the parks? How many people are finding online communities that affirm their own biases rather than participating in the crucible of face-to-face socializing?

How’s all that going for society? Do you think our mental health is improving? Our politics? Our overall well-being?

Too easy?

In The Matrix, Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the robots built the first Matrix as the ideal human world— a kind of heaven. The result was they rejected it. The people the machines were ensnaring found meaning through strife and struggle. While I’m sure there is a happy medium in there somewhere, I think that’s an accurate take.

Earth is often referred to as being in the “Goldilocks Zone” in our solar system. The habitable space where conditions are “just right” for life to evolve. Among other features of the Goldilocks Zone, Earth is situated in a place where we get some catastrophes, but not too many. For example, Jupiter attracts most huge asteroids with its superior gravitational pull, but not all of them. Thankfully for us, or else the dinosaurs would still be here, and mammals would never have gotten their chance.

Obstacles are necessary for evolution. Without challenges we wouldn’t even be here. We don’t want too many challenges— if we all spent our youths banging our heads against desks that’d not be great— but we can’t have everything handed to us either.

I maintain that if you invest a few hours into understanding all the automatic features on your devices, and then turning some of them off, a few things will happen:

1. You’ll learn more about the technology that takes up so much of your time

2. You’ll be surprised at how much of your life you’ve allowed to be guided by that invisible hand

3. You’ll use the technology a little less

4. You’ll be more frustrated in the short-term, and happier in the long run

It’s often said during a PR crisis, that you have to get ahead of the story. If you don’t craft your own message someone else will do it for you. I think that logic applies to our lives in general. If you don’t take control, someone else will.

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Given that I would like adults to read my work, and how many self-identified adults scoff at niche genre fiction, I probably should have avoided cyberpunk at all costs. For some reason, the genre tends to get a particularly bad rap with “regular folks.” As if themes of capitalist-colonialism, resistance to oppression, technology outstripping our morality, and the connection between consciousness and personhood, are somehow not relevant today.

That is not to say there are not ardent cyberpunk fans out there. There certainly are, and I have found the community to be generally well-informed and insightful people (and also a little “gate-keepy.”)

From the outside looking in, it is easy to dismiss the genre as all style and no substance. But many of us recognize that behind the sexy anime art, neon lights, and chrome-plated surface, the word ‘punk’ is just as important to the genre as ‘cyber.’ If you ever want to meet another group of generally well-informed, interesting, but also gate-keepy people, then check out your local punk scene. (And I say that with love y’all, but you know it’s true. 😙)

In all seriousness, cyberpunk ought to be treated with more respect in literary circles, and not just the classics like Snow Crash and Neuromancer (though if you haven’t read these, they are fantastic). Yes, the genre has its share of schlock, but name a genre that doesn’t. As I see it, cyberpunk is one of the most useful genres for analyzing the issues that are becoming more prescient in our lives everyday.

For example, but not limited to:

1. Wealth disparity:

Fans of the cyberpunk will be familiar with the refrain, “high tech, low life” to describe the main thrust of the genre. While this is generally true, the “life” is only “low” for the commoners in cyberpunk stories. There are nearly always super rich executives of “megacorps” who benefit from oppressing others— a kind of capitalist serfdom, if you will. And while our world is not quite there yet, we are certainly moving in that direction.

The main example I’ll point to here is that our middle class has eroded over the past 40 years. According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO pay has gone up 1085% since 1978 while the average worker’s salary has gone up only 24%. In addition, in 1965, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 15:1. In 1989 it was 44:1, and in 2021 it was 399:1. If you wonder where the middle class went, check the pockets of executives hoarding wealth. As the band Durry says, “trickle down sounds just like swimming upstream, picking up the scraps like a tree growing upside down.“

Meanwhile, a growing number of Canadians and Americans face an insurmountable cost of living crisis. The amount of personal debt people are carrying just to make ends meet is reaching a breaking point.

This, combined with the ever-increasing rate of technological advancement, the recent developments of AI, and quantum computing on the horizon, cyberpunk is looking pretty relevant to me.

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2. Technology outstripping our morality

OK, I admit this is a common theme throughout sci/fi, but it is central to cyberpunk. Anyone familiar with the genre will be equally familiar with the dehumanization of people in the pursuit of technological advancement. Whether it is as simple as enhancing our “meat machines” with metal and cables to make us “more than human,” or testing experimental tech on the poor, the devaluing of humans at the altar of technology is ever-present.

I’m not sure I need to harp on this one too much. We can all see similar things happening today, right? Whether it is Meta’s culpability in the depression, body dysmorphia, and suicides of young women, or the growing number of young men seeking companionship from AI girlfriends, the evidence is all around us for anyone willing to look.

If you want to expand further, you can see similar concerns on a global scale. For example, the consequences of our ignoring decades of climate change warnings are becoming more prevalent, with the number of natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires increasing in both frequency and intensity year after year. We’re seeing these things in Canada and the USA, but the real threat is to people who live in some of the poorest countries on earth.

Anyone taking bets on how serious we’re going to take this crisis until it starts hitting richer countries harder? The pocketbook is the bottom line, not human well-being.

3. More accurate predictions than most

One of the hallmarks of great sci/fi is its ability to predict the future with alarming accuracy. When I used to teach literature, I loved having my high school students read E.M. Forster’s ‘The Machine Stops.’ If you haven’t read it, it postulates a society where people all live alone in their own rooms underground. Everything they need is provided directly to their rooms, so there is no need to go out. They can talk to each other over video calls, but generally people don’t have good social skills and they have a great deal of anxiety about going out. They spend their days watching shows that other people make, or they make entertainment themselves to share. They also think of new ideas and give them to “the machine” which runs their world.

If that sounds a lot like today, please bear in mind that Forster wrote this story in 1909. Imagine how wild and crazy it would have seemed to his audience! Nowadays, when people see the neon lights, augmented humans, and urban sprawls that make up most cyberpunk stories, they probably react in a similar way. But just because something seems absurd to you, doesn’t mean it isn’t prescient!

In 2006, Mike Judge released one of his most prophetic works, Idiocracy. It begins with the true premise that uneducated people tend to have more kids than educated people. He extrapolates that to the extreme, asking if that trend continues long enough, over time what will society look like? In the film we end up with a ridiculous society where they drink Mountain Dew instead of water, elect a wrestling star as president, and people regularly spout terrible health advice with the utmost confidence. Good thing it was just an absurd comedy movie!

My own Nekonikon Punk series is set about 80 years in our future. In the time between now and then, tech executives decided that they could solve the housing and financial crisis by establishing old fashioned townships. That is, workers could come work for them and they would be provided with a nice apartment in a company-run town. Eventually, these companies got tired of government regulation and paying taxes, so they seceded from the USA and established themselves as independent city-states along the Pacific coast. The USA didn’t let them go without a fight, and there was a war known as The Great Secession. But eventually the companies (who made all the weapons, maintained the shipping infrastructure, and controlled the finances) won their independence. Once in full control, the narcissistic tendencies of the leaders blossomed, and the workers in these city-states had to accept increasing restrictions, reduced salaries, draconian laws, and privacy invasions. Afterall, they were stuck there. Their homes were tied directly to their allegiance to the company.

If this sounds like an unrealistic vision of our future, then you and I certainly don’t see things the same way. I’m not saying it WILL happen, but it COULD happen. I was discussing stories with a group of high school students last year and despite my painting the bleak picture above, the majority of them said they would take the deal if a company offered them a nice place to live along with a job. And given the cost of living crisis our youth are facing, I don’t blame them.

I could say more, but let’s wrap this up.

History also tells me my audience doesn’t like overly long articles and anyway, I think I’ve made my point.

I have regularly been an advocate of “putting the ‘punk’ back in cyberpunk.” And I don’t mean the gate-keeping 😉. I mean the core tenets of punk:

1. Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves

2. Stand up for justice even when it is unpopular

3. Be unabashedly yourself and accept others who do the same

4. Authenticity is important. Style isn’t.

More of this in our current world will help us avoid the worst predictions in the cyberpunk stories we read.

Despite what my writing might suggest, I am ultimately a hopeful person. The desire to write these stories comes from a hopeful place. I believe we can overcome the challenges we are facing today, but it requires us to actually face them. Cyberpunk literature is a great way to start thinking about how we can avoid the worst of where we might be headed. Even if it’s not your cup of tea, the genre deserves more respect.

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What did you do?

Did you admit your mistake?

Or, did you stick to your guns, double down, and try to win?

It’s human to want to win! But is it really the best course?

What is good faith?

Arguing in good faith means that you approach arguments with a genuine desire to learn and develop your understanding of the subject. Even if you discover that your position is wrong, you will be satisfied because you learned why you were mistaken and adjusted your beliefs accordingly. With such an approach, it would be incoherent to think of “winning” the argument by “defeating” your “opponent.”

When arguing in good faith, the person representing the opposing side would not be seen as an “opponent.” Rather, we call them interlocuters; they are your partners in learning more about a subject by presenting objections to your position. As you each present arguments back and forth, you both refine your positions to make your arguments as robust as possible. In the end, if you have done your jobs, you both will have benefited from the exchange.

This is the ideal of argumentation that we all ought to strive for. If not, then what is the purpose of arguing?

Of course, approaching others in good faith is difficult. One needs to set aside ego and a desire to prove one’s intelligence at someone else’s expense. And as I already stated: It’s human to want to win.

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The Problem

Why is trolling and dunking on other people a common occurrence online? A popular explanation is that humans have evolved for face-to-face interactions, and online discourse is inherently more detached and anonymous than our brains are hardwired to handle.

When speaking face-to-face, we rely on a vast amount of non-verbal communication to better understand one another. Empathy is a crucial component of our exchanges because our “…ability to share others' distress is a critical component in eliciting prosocial behaviour.” However, when our interlocuter is behind a keyboard in a different location, we experience a sense of detachment that can make it easy to dehumanize the person who is disagreeing with us.

Additionally, the environments themselves are designed to boost incendiary posts by promoting rage-inducing content. Social media companies make their money off selling your data, and the longer you stay on the platform, the more data they gather. Making you angry is a tried and true method for keeping you on the hook.

Since online discourse lacks the social rewards of face-to-face communication, people seek other sources of validation. And since inflammatory rhetoric is what gets boosted by the algorithms, social media sites and comment sections are fertile ground for trolls seeking to enrage others.

It is no wonder that good faith argumentation has eroded online. In its place, many people have resorted to a perverse, mean-spirited competition for status, while others lurk, often not willing to put their ideas forward for fear of being the next target.

True Resistance

Can anyone honestly say their life is better for having engaged in bad faith online argumentation or trolling? I seriously doubt it.

So then, who benefits? Clearly the richest and most powerful people in our world have designed this system.

To what ends?

1. It helps make them richer as they gather and sell more of your data

2. It allows them to guide people’s perspectives by keeping them focused on meaningless arguments rather than consequential events.

3. It keeps us divided against one another rather than united against those who would exploit us all for their own gain.

That is why a good faith approach is more than just an effective way to get to the truth. It is a moral imperative! In the face of algorithms that are designed to divide us, good faith is the truest form of resistance!

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How to do it

1. Seek understanding rather than victory. If you approach online arguments with this objective, then it won’t matter if people disagree with you. In fact, you should welcome it.
   

2. Don’t worry about getting the last word. If someone has shown themselves to be a bad faith actor, then let their comment stand. If you have taken the high road and been charitable in your approach then let your words speak for themselves to anyone else who may read them.
   
   In other words: Let go, or be dragged
   
   In other other words: Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
   

3. Steelman rather than strawman opposing arguments. Too often, you’ll see people try and rephrase arguments so that they are easier to defeat. That is called a “strawman” argument because it is easy to knock over. Instead, try to frame their argument in as strong a form as possible. Only then will your objections be truly tested against their argument.
   
   One great technique for arguing in good faith is to phrase your interlocuter’s argument in terms that they agree with. If they say something like, “That’s not what I meant,” then endeavor to reword your framing of their points until they agree that your interpretation of their argument is accurate.
   

4. Look for daylight. No one completely disagrees with everything. Seek points of agreement with your interlocuters and then slowly build off of those points of agreement until you find the spot where your opinions diverge. That is where you need to focus your mutual attention.
   

5. Be aware of your emotional response and take time before replying. When someone disagrees with you, it is human to react emotionally. However, that does not always lead to the most productive discussion. One of the strengths of online discourse is that you have the time to step away, consider your response, write it, save the draft, walk away, come back to it, edit it, all before finally hitting send.

Remember, we’re all more alike than we are different! If someone is trying to convince you otherwise, they likely have an agenda that is not in your best interests.

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• You go to a restaurant, the food is overpriced, the service is poor, and a 20% minimum tip is expected.

• Your municipal taxes increased, but the roads are worse than ever.

• You feel sick, but you’ll just tough it out because your family doctor is booking four weeks out, and the ER is so full you’ll wait all day sitting around other sick people. (Hope it’s not an infection!)

• You learn to live comfortably carrying a little more debt each day, as the number slowly ticks upward.

• Better not drive too much, oil changes are at least $100, and those tires need to make it till the end of summer!

• Oh no! You’ve got three family birthdays next month and people generally get you $30-$50 gifts, so you’re obliged to do the same.

It’s relentless.

The consequence of more than four decades of cutbacks, shrinkflation combined with inflation, and companies maximizing efficiency while chasing endless growth: We’re stretched. Thin.

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I work in public education and I see it every day. Overworked teachers, administrators, specialists, and virtually every other employee. There is so much need but never enough resources to go around, despite the fact that we live in an age of abundance!

Kids are also more stressed than ever, largely because they are coming from homes that are more stressed than ever. Food and housing insecurity is on the rise and parents are feeling the squeeze too. Their kids come to school carrying these worries and it gets expressed in a number of disruptive ways. Now the kid is suspended and the overworked, underpaid parent needs to leave their job to pick the kid up. They blame the school. “Can’t they handle this kid?” That increases stress on education professionals exacerbating the issue further.

There is lots of talk about teacher “burnout” in nearly every education discussion. 30% of new teachers quit the profession within the first five years, and in 2014 (pre-COVID!) 85% of teachers said the work/life balance was negatively affecting their ability to teach effectively, with 35% reporting it as a “significant” issue. None of this is new information to most people, but how have we let it get this bad?

Cutbacks + increased demand = 🗜

(That’s a vice emoji BTW. I’m working with the “squeeze” metaphor)

And make no mistake. The vast majority of people doing these jobs are wonderful, loving, kind, people doing their best. They’ve dedicated themselves to a career based on taking care of others.

But they’re being squeezed in the name of efficiency!

And its not just education. We see it in other areas of the public sector. Nurses and doctors working in understaffed, overflowing ERs. People living in rural centers needing to drive further and further to see dentists, optometrists, pediatricians, and even family doctors! Rising utility costs and increased taxes, yet poorer roads and fewer services.

How did this happen?

One big mistake was thinking governments should operate like businesses. It’s an attractive prospect at first glance: Let’s streamline things. Close smaller schools and hospitals in favor of larger centers we can focus resources on. Only to then creep back more services to make things more efficient:

• “We can fit 30 kids in this class, right? How about 32? Well, then it’s not such a difference to go to 35, right?”

• “We’re not using these 30 hospital beds 50% of the time. Let’s close this wing and combine it with another.”

• “We’ll have the SLP specialist “train” the teacher assistant on how to do this program rather than do it herself, because we only have one of her and there are 50 kids on her caseload who each need daily practice to improve their speech!”

But with each successive cut the pressure on the system ratchets up. After forty years, we’re reaching a breaking point. Governments should never have acted like businesses. In fact, they should regularly provide services for the public good that are not profitable. I don’t resent paying taxes. I do resent paying one of the highest tax rates in Canada and not even having a doctor despite living in my current community for three years!

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Would it really be a problem to build beyond capacity? If those 30 hospital beds weren’t closed, then maybe our hospitals would have accommodated the increased demand in the pandemic with less stress and fewer lives lost. If teachers and administrators were not working 15-20 extra hours/week and teaching 30 students at a time, perhaps they’d have the bandwidth for the increased needs the students are presenting.

Would it really be so bad if people’s jobs were easier? Who would that hurt?

The corporate world is no better. The relentless pursuit of growth has shredded our once robust middle class over the past forty years and the trend continues. For an increasing number of people, they no longer have careers, they have gigs. Companies elect to hire “contractors” to do integral jobs because it is cheaper and they don’t need to provide benefits.

We sacrifice so much in the name of profit.

How to change it? The system seems rigged doesn’t it?

• We have plenty of data telling us that we should be breaking up large monopolies like Facebook. Google, and Amazon. But it doesn’t happen.

• Legislators are too deeply in the pockets of corporate lobbyists. Why do corporations spend all that money? Its a safe investment in their increased growth.

• Algorithms designed by these same companies control the media we consume, pitting us against one another, rather that seeing the real source of our hardships.

In 1982 there were 13 billionaires in the world. In 2023 that number had risen to 3323! If you don’t think that consolidation of wealth came at the expense of the middle class, then you are not paying attention.

Society is suffering and more of us are feeling a harder squeeze each time we wake up.

I know I am. Aren’t you?

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In the past decade, things have not gotten better. We may be living in a time of unprecedented rates of change, but one thing has remained constant in human history: lies spread faster than truths.

In our current media landscape, it seems to me that every day fewer & fewer people care less & less about whether their beliefs are true. This famous bit from The Colbert Report used to be satire, but something has changed in the intervening years. Maybe people are just getting tired of the onslaught. We’ve been told countless times how a news diet controlled by social media algorithms leads to echo chambers, group think, and the spreading of misinformation. And the resounding response seems to be: WE DON’T CARE.

As I’ve argued in a pervious post, a partisan society benefits the powers that be financially. But it also helps them maintain the status quo. A divided people are less likely to unite to stand up for themselves. Rather than come together- say to demand serious changes to our tax policies, fight corruption in our institutions, and demand changes to our elections to make them more representative- people unite into their tribes and argue with anyone who holds an opposing point of view. For too many of us, membership to a tribe is more important than believing true things.

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A lot of this sentiment boils down to the fact that many people see themselves as soldiers in a cultural/political war. If I can win a battle by fudging the truth, my supporters will reinforce the sentiment and amplify the message. That moral victory is more important right now than strict adherence to the truth because all is fair in love and war.

But are we in a war? It seems like we have to be. If there are opposing sides and they both are fighting a war against the other, then THAT pretty much meets the requisites. In this sense, the extreme sides of any issue can be said to be fighting endless wars. But are most people in that radical category or does it just seem that way because social media amplifies them over more moderate individuals? A war between the extremes may be raging, but the better question is: Is it a war the rest of us ought to join?

Here’s the thing: How you answer that question largely depends on your media diet. According to the authors of that study, consumption of biased media doesn’t have a measurable effect on people’s knowledge of facts, but it largely affects their beliefs above and beyond what those facts logically support. I ask you to really take a second and consider the source of your beliefs no matter which “side” you are on. If you think “woke leftists want to murder babies,” or “police are regularly hunting people of color,” or “Biden was the most corrupt president in US History,” or “Trump staged his assassination attempt,” then I urge you to really scrutinize your facts and honestly question whether your beliefs exceed their rational conclusions.

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There will be people who are mad at that last paragraph. They will call me a moral coward for “bothsidesing” the issues. As if just pointing out that the facts at hand do not support the conclusions, is the same as equivocating the issues morally. (It’s not, by the way.) But again, I urge you to gut check the source of your ire if you do feel that way.

If you are uncomfortable when reading a point-of-view that challenges your own, that is a perfectly normal way to feel, but just because you are experiencing cognitive dissonance doesn’t mean the other side is wrong. We often make moral judgements based on “gut feelings” and rationalize them later. When we feel cognitive dissonance, our gut reaction is to resolve it as quickly as possible and an easy way to do that is to tell yourself that the source of that dissonance is morally wrong, and you are on the right side. Your discomfort is merely your righteous indignation.

But maybe…just maybe…you are feeling cognitive dissonance because deep down, somewhere, you are realizing you are incorrect about something. Examine the facts, look for the inconsistencies, and realize you might need to change your opinion. It might be scary because your friend group is still ideologically captured. Maybe it feels shameful because you have stood on your soapbox for so long and you don’t want to eat crow. But don’t turn back now! To do so would truly be moral cowardice! Embrace it, adjust your thinking and guess what:

…the world didn’t end and you are one belief closer to an accurate representation of reality.

Why is this so important? Because accepting ideologies without proper scrutiny is exactly what makes you predictable and therefore more easily controlled. If leaders can know with relative certainty how you are going to react to a message before it is released, then they have the upper hand. What’s worse, if they can do so while not having to worry that you will care if their message is true, it makes their job even easier.

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Will this inevitably lead to authoritarianism? Yes. There are real conspiracies in the world. There is real corruption. And authoritarians are always looking for ways to gain power. It is often said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance- and in the digital age we need to be as vigilant of our own beliefs as we are of external threats. If we stop caring about the truth, we expose ourselves to manipulation through the “big lie.”

In Orwell’s 1984, the mantra: War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, was used to demonstrate adherence to the authorities. One didn’t need to believe the words, performing the act of saying them meant your spirit was broken and you were ready to serve mindlessly. Daily we are inundated with false news, misinformation and disinformation, and AI is already starting to exacerbate the problem. It is understandable that people are getting worn down, joining their tribes, and caring less about truth.

Resist! Make Orwell fiction again! Don’t let yourself be ideologically captured by extremists of either side of the political spectrum. Read or listen to the news from a variety of trained journalists. Listen to longform podcasts; choose a few you disagree with and listen to the whole thing. Think for yourself and realize that you can understand some else’s point-of-view without adopting it as your own.

The vast majority of people reading this will likely agree that “other people” fall into these traps, but they themselves are immune to such ideological capture. While, it seems clear to me that none of us (myself included) are as resistant to cognitive biases as we imagine we are, I do hold out hope that things aren’t as bad as they seem. We just need to stop playing the games that the political and economic powers want us to play. We need to see them for the enemies they are rather than our neighbors. A recent study at Berkley lends credence to this hope. They found a simple, yet effective strategy to increase trust on either side of the political divide: Inform people that the “other side” is not as radical as you think they are.

That’s it! That’s the single message out of 24 other solutions that “was top-ranked in reducing voter support for undemocratic practices and also highly effective in reducing support for partisan violence and easing partisan animosity”

Why?

Because it is true.

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The interplay between technology, power, resistance, corruption, morality, existential philosophy, history, and religion are all major themes in my stories and I endeavour to find an audience who cares about this stuff as much as I do— especially when it is packaged into a narrative that is dipped in the chocolate of fast-paced, action-filled plots.

My current work-in-progress (WIP) is the Nekonikon Punk series. When it is finished the main narrative will span three books: Ctrl Break, Ctrl Alt, and Ctrl (undecided right now). I am already pretty sure I have at least one prequel book in the chamber (my head) and various other stories I want to tell within this world. I may decide to release those as an anthology of short stories, or expand them into full-fledged novels. At any rate, my point is that I am finding Nekonikon to be fertile soil for the types of stories I want to tell. Who knows how long I’ll be expanding on this fictional world?

Nekonikon is dystopian by its very nature. It is a city originally established by three megacorps where they have placed their headquarters, production facilities, and worker housing. Eventually, they established their own municipal governing body and became disillusioned with the deliberative, slow moving American government with its taxes, antitrust laws, and endless regulations. Before long, Nekonikon had its own private army and seceded declaring itself an independent city-state. It went to war with the USA along with a group of other similar city-states along the Pacific Coast, eventually ending in a peace treaty establishing their sovereignty.

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I honestly don’t think this is a very far-fetched concept. Have you ever worried about our younger generations and the world which they are inheriting from us? We haven’t left them much. Combine the cost of housing, post-pandemic inflation, climate change, the social security crisis, the widening wealth gap, AI threatening the job market, with the great plastic island in the Pacific and its no wonder dystopias are commonplace in YA and NA fiction! It is safe to say the next few decades are full of uncertainty and our youth are greatly affected by the future they are facing.

So imagine a company comes along, led by some CEO that makes more money in a year than some entire nations will in a decade. He (let’s face it, this CEO is a ‘he’ in our current world order) offers you- a young person- a stable job that includes an apartment. As long as you work for him, you have a decent place to live and wages enough to afford food. How many people would jump at the chance? Then that company starts whittling away your rights. You give up your privacy and in exchange for increased surveillance, you gain some minor conveniences. The company establishes its own community of workers with some pretty strict bylaws; you don’t have much of a say, but hey it keeps out the riff raff. Now that company establishes a governing body. You don’t get to vote, but you’ll keep your mouth shut if you want that promotion that comes with the slightly bigger apartment with a better view…and so on.

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In short, a strongman comes along and offers stability and security in an uncertain world. I believe people would flock to it. Maybe you disagree, but current trends towards authoritarianism certainly seem to support my stance. And frankly, I don’t blame them. It is us who have failed our youth. We left them this mess of a world and simultaneously stood by as schools dismantled civics classes in favor of increased STEM subjects. I have nothing against STEM, but we reap what we sow when that’s become the primary focus of education. We need a better way!

I don’t have much hope for preventing this kind of future, but I do hold out hope that we will always have people who resist it. There are still many of us who care about democracy and lament the crumbling of our societies’ foundations over the past 30 years or more. The fragmentation of our politics, the mistrust of institutions, the lack of well-rounded education, all serve the wealthiest at the expense of the poorest. But despite their concerted efforts, the ideals of freedom, privacy, and genuine human connection remain strong. That is what I want to write about. And that is what I hope you want to read.

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It might surprise the youngest of you, but there was a time when the average person could only name the president, vice president, and maybe a few other political figures like their local governor or state representative in the House. What has changed?

No matter your age, one adage remains unsurprisingly true: follow the money!

It’s likely if you took my test, that along with presidential candidates you named people like Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG!), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC!), and Matt Gaetz. Aside from being well-known political figures, who have legions of devoted followers, and are vilified as evil by “the other side,” do you know what else they have in common? The majority of their funding comes from individual donors in sums of under $200/donation.

It’s true! In 2023-24, 64.29% of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s funds came from small individual contributions <$200. For AOC, it was 69.9% and for Matt Gaetz it was 53.91%. The reality is that individual small donations are a significant force in American politics.

On one hand, this is a very democratic thing: People voting with their wallets and banding together en masse to participate in democracy the way the rich and powerful always have. If it were that simple, I’d be all for it. But there is a darker underbelly to this trend that is quite dystopian.

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In the year 2000, shows like Survivor, and Big Brother kicked off the reality TV craze that dominated television for the next twenty years. We all know ostensibly that these shows are not really reality, but nevertheless they give us “real” heart-wrenching stories about the contestants. Shows like American Idol asked viewers to vote each week on who would remain until the end, but these votes were often not based on musical ability, but rather a “behind the scenes” look at the person’s life, their character, their struggles. Cue the sad music.

Producers and show-runners would clip out sections of interviews to skew our perspectives, contrive conflict, and boost ratings! It quickly became clear that the crazier and more outlandish contestants became the audience favorites. And audiences themselves would divide into tribes supporting one contestant and vilifying their rivals.

Sound familiar?

Why are political candidates like MTG, AOC, and Matt Gaetz able to raise so much money from small individual donations? Because they learned the same lesson from the rise of reality TV celebrities that Donald Trump did: Extreme views divide the audience and rally the base to vote for you.

Combine that lesson with the rise of social media algorithms that promote extremism & hate and you’ve got yourself a recipe for the current political landscapes found in countries all over the world. Our political leaders have learned that divisive politics pays- and money is what it’s all about.

Make no mistake, when you overreact, when you share clickbait headlines without taking the time to read the whole story, and when you cling to your tribe, YOU ARE PLAYING THEIR GAME! Joe Biden went from comparing Donald Trump to Hitler to having tea with him. They’re all on the same side, and it ain’t yours!

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So the question remains, how does one resist oppression in such a landscape? The truth is your beliefs are not your identity- or at least they ought not be. We all have different beliefs about the way the world should be and it is a good thing when we disagree. But social media algorithms and political tribalism has too many of us believing otherwise. It is not a sign of a healthy democracy that if I know your opinion on abortion, then I probably also know your opinion on gun control and climate change! Those three things have nothing to do with each other outside of a political tribe. If you find yourself in such a tribe, the best thing you can do to resist is to seek out opposing viewpoints and consider them with good faith.

That is not an easy thing to do. It will feel like you are betraying your camp. It will feel like you are betraying yourself! But eventually you will realize that other people have interesting points of view too. And we can learn from each other if we actually listen to each other. In fact, the dichotomy of the “two sides,” left and right is a false one used by your oppressors to control you!

Be open to your neighbors; chances are they are good people just trying to get by the same as you. And despite the differences in your beliefs, you will have a lot more in common with them than with the political candidate you donated to because they “owned those morons on the other side who want to destroy your country!”

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What it misses for me (or at least just grazes) is the anti-authoritarian essence of cyberpunk. Within the capitalist dystopias, where grizzled detectives slurp noodles at rainy night markets, mysterious hackers navigate digital realms while uploading computer programs the way mages cast spells, and leather-clad vixens with robotic forearms speed by on neon motorcycles, there is a pervasive message that the common person ought to resist the forces of oppression. These forces are usually “megacorps” run by narcissistic megalomaniacs. (Gee, I wonder why that is.)

In short, I think it is important to stress the “punk” in cyberpunk.

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I love punk, but I feel the need to be cautious because I have found among all the possible “identities” one can identify with, “punks” seem to be the most gate-keepy (Yes, I’m making that a word). (By the way, have you ever noticed that once you start using parentheses in a writing session, it’s hard to stop?) Punks are kind of the original hipsters. The more obscure the reference, the more cool you are. And god forbid you like something “mainstream” lest you be denounced as a “poser.”

But the side of punk that I love is the genuine acceptance of everyone as long as they are forthright and honest about who they are and what they like. Never have I felt more accepted than in the mosh pit of Cafe Ole’ in the late 90s, as a local band named Soup did a RATM cover show. (Seriously, Halifax’s music scene back then was amazing!) No one cared about anyone’s identity. You could be any ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender orientation, or hair colour- it didn’t matter. Wanna mosh? Great! Wanna stand by the side? Great. Wanna hang out, on the front steps? Great. Just come as you are and everyone’s fine.

That’s the hope I see in the cyberpunk worlds I enjoy. Today, in the real world, it seems nearly everything is filtered through a lens of identity politics. I believe this is an intentional distraction to keep us divided and ignoring real threats. But in cyberpunk dystopias people know who the actual enemies are. The worlds are populated by multitudes of people of all parts of the identity rainbow. And the great thing is that it’s not commented upon. No one cares. They know who deserves their ire and it is not some made-up boundary. It is the real oppressors.

My main rule for morality is that so long as everyone involved is consenting, they are all adults of sound mind, and there is no undue harm being caused, then go for it! Caring about anything else is you not minding your own business. There is a lot we could learn from the background characters in cyberpunk stories. We should focus on the real problems staring us right in the face each day and prevent these dystopias from ever occurring (or perhaps we’re already too late).

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When addressing the question, “Why are we here?” Dennett argues that scientists tend to answer the first interpretation: How come? They explain the evolutionary process taking place over billions of years. Everything from the big bang all the way up to our present state explains how come we find ourselves as mostly hairless apes with large brains, hurtling through space on a giant ball we call Earth.

But it doesn’t answer “What for?”

Asking “What are we here for?” assumes that there is some kind of design- some kind of purpose we are here to fulfill. Many scientists would answer that there is no evidence of such purpose and therefore it is not a question worth exploring in a scientific context at the present time. That is a fair answer and one that I am inclined to believe. However, answering the question of “Why are we here?” by only addressing the How come? feels unsatisfactory to many people, which is why the second interpretation persists. One can only feel “fulfilled” if they are fulfilling a purpose.

This is not a new issue in philosophy, and it’s one where I find myself sympathizing with the Stoics, Taoists, and Existential Nihilists of the world. The similarities and contradictions of those worldviews aside, this issue gets to the very heart of both character motivations and themes in my novel, Nekonikon Punk: Ctrl Break.

One of the main themes of the story deals with a similarity in how dogmatic religions, colonial forces, and capitalist organizations exert influence on a populace: give them a purpose. Answer for others the question: “What are you here for?” and you will find adherents. Religious, colonial, and capitalist institutions all find a great deal of their success by creating potential purposes that people can fulfill by taking actions which benefit the system. Members of organized religions report feeling more fulfilled, the universalization of Western perspectives has taken root in many former colonies, and we’ve all heard of stressed out consumers engaging in “retail therapy” to feel better.

The only way I know to resist these control systems is to determine your own purpose. As Wagner says to Bao in chapter 28, “…nature abhors a vacuum. If you don’t invest in understanding yourself, someone else will fill the gap with their own philosophy. Inevitably, you will adopt it as your own. That is how people allow themselves to be controlled: by their own lack of concern.” Or as Socrates said over two thousand years ago, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

This brings us to character motivations. Juan- the main character in Nekonikon Punk: Ctrl Break- is motivated to protect. In other words, protecting others is his purpose. This does not change for him throughout the story, but what he finds meaningful and worth protecting does. At the beginning, he is training to be a guard and he finds a degree of fulfillment in protecting the Krelborn-aligned denizens of Nekonikon. However, as the story unfolds, he begins to find value in less privileged and less competitive areas and denizens of the city-state.

Rafiq is a foil for Juan in this regard. He does not share Juan’s desire to protect, nor does he share his moral compass. Rafiq has not discovered a purpose for himself and therefore has allowed Wagner’s propaganda to provide that purpose for him. This is why he can stay loyal to Krelborn in the face of atrocities and Juan cannot. The main difference is that our hero has his own purpose. As Dennett might say, Juan knows what he is here for and Rafiq does not.

Greta is another character that contrasts Juan in this area. Her motivations are wholly selfish. Her purpose is to give herself the best life she possibly can, even if it comes at the expense of others. She is capitalist greed incarnate. Like Juan, she can see through Krelborn propaganda. However, unlike Juan, she remains “loyal” because it is a world she fits into with her selfish motives. As Beeson tells Juan in chapter 24, “Everyone has the hole. The want. The hunger…But, not everyone becomes selfish…Some fill the hole helping others. Most help themselves.”

The role of purpose is central to the motivations and conflicts in book two, currently in progress. By this point, all of the prominent characters have well-established purposes which motivate their decisions and actions. However, some of them find more meaning in their purpose than others. One antagonist’s entire motivation in book two is an existential crisis as highlighted in Dennett’s distinction: She knows how come she is here, but cannot figure out what for.

As I work through the second book, I welcome any discussion on the above topics to help me work through the strands of the plot. I know where the story is going, but discussions like this help me figure out how to get there.

So, let me know what you think, and thanks for reading this far!

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When writing the first draft of Nekonikon Punk: Ctrl Break, this was something I was keenly aware of from the onset. I knew which characters were going to turn heel, what major events were going to occur later in the story, and how the climax was going to resolve. What I wanted to do was not be too obvious about it, but sprinkle in enough lines here and there to give people validation if they made a point to track those clues as they read.

I was eager to hear how clever I was from my initial beta readers. They would tell me how I struck the balance just right and praise me for my skill, especially as a first time fiction author.

Have I set that up obviously enough? Do we all know what really happened?

Yep. I was fooling myself. They did not get it!

MINOR SPOILER AHEAD- If you haven’t read Nekonikon Punk: Ctrl Break yet, why not go support me, give it a go, and come back to finish this post?

One major example was Rafiq. I thought I was so clever early on, making him a friendly rival to Juan, but hinting enough here and there that it would be surprising-but earned-when he turns against Juan in the coffee shop. Boy, was I wrong!

When the first reader came back with a comment like: “That’s out of character. Rafiq seemed like a supportive friend.” I admit, I got defensive. How could they not get it? It was all right there! When more beta readers had similar reactions, I had to pull myself out of denial, and rewrite large portions of the beginning to try and make it work better.

This is just one example (of many) where my I am grateful to my beta readers who humbled me, forced me to reflect, and ultimately made me a better writer. I had to take myself out of my “author head” where I knew all the twists and turns of the story, and place myself in the “reader’s head.”

Of course, I don’t think it is possible to get the balance perfect. Everyone brings their own baggage to any media they take in. Meaning is created by the interaction of the audience with the medium, and so each person will create their own meaning as they read a novel, listen to a song, or watch a film. However, I am happy with the balance I struck.

In the final draft of Nekonikon Punk: Ctrl Break, I think I may have beat people over the head a bit with my early descriptions of Rafiq and his interactions with Juan, but it certainly makes the coffee shop scene land better for the majority of my readers. It also helped me understand Rafiq’s motivations more and opened his character up for some fun developments in the second novel, which I’m currently writing.

Just one more reason why I am so thankful for my wonderful beta readers who helped make my dream of writing a novel come true.

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One of the main themes of the story is the nature of power and how different people define and express it. Colloquially, “control” is often used interchangeably with “power” -as is “dominance”- but upon close scrutiny it is clear they are actually quite different.

Power, in my estimation, is more closely aligned with concepts like freedom and autonomy. It is having the ability to do what you want when you want. Those who crave power want to be free from as many external restraints as possible. Control, on the other hand, is the use of such external restraints. It’s an exertion of external force onto an agent. In a jiu-jitsu match, for example, one seeks to control their opponent’s movements and impose their own will upon them. Do you need power to do this? Yes, of course. But note, they are not the same thing. Control is a type of resistance against an obstacle, whereas power is a state of being that either enables you move obstacles or prevents those obstacles from getting in your way in the first place.

Domination is different also. It is a type of overwhelming control. Again, jiu-jitsu provides a suitable example: If one merely controls their opponent, they may eke out a win in the match by running out the timer. But if one dominates their opponent, they will overwhelm them with superior skill and/or strength and likely submit them very quickly- and leave quite a psychological impression doing so.

So it is with Krelborn’s motto. First they use their Guards, to dominate the populace through force. With potential resistance quelled, they then establish their state and make laws which allow continuous control of their denizens, while allowing them relative freedom. That sustained control leads to Krelborn’s prosperity. They see it as their recipe for their success and they define that success as “power.” This is why Wagner held the “RepublicRats” in such distain: “You see, as private corporations and individuals became wealthier than nations, they too desired power and they used their wealth to get it. Many RepublicRats actually ceded power to these private entities in the pursuit of personal wealth. Can you believe it? Imagine having your priorities so backward.”

However, in their “soup conversation,” Beeson presents Juan with an alternate view. He argues that competition is not a virtue, but rather a vice that leads people to seek power through domination. He acknowledges that everyone seeks power (in his words, they are greedy) but he prefers to associate with people who seek power through cooperation. Through helping others and working together we accomplish more and prosper with our fellows rather than at their expense. He sees the trick of capitalism as one where people have been convinced power is a zero sum game. He argues that obtaining power through competition only leads to more and more people on the losing side and fewer and fewer on the winning. We see this play out in the real world as multimillionaires and billionaires consolidate their wealth at the expense of the middle class and the wealth gap continues to widen.

Juan ultimately adopts Beeson’s mentality and throws it in Wagner’s face later on in the story: The arrogance of this reply was more than Juan could take. “You call this heaven? Take a closer look out that window you’re so fond of! More people suffer here everyday. You value competition because you won early and then rigged the rules to keep it that way! Every time there is a winner, there is inevitably at least one person who loses. As you consolidate power, more and more people land on the wrong side of your so-called progress.” He took a second to collect himself, “This is not heaven. This is something much different for most of us.”

I’ll admit to initially thinking I would drop the “Dominate, Control, Prosper” slogan. It sounded cheesy and derivative of other dystopian fiction to my ears- and perhaps it does to yours as well. But the more I thought about the themes and message of the story I wanted to tell, the more they grew on me. Their simplicity highlights the rote thinking that is required of unquestioningly loyal subjects like the Guards. It also, hopefully, turns off the reader whom I can only assume is a more critical thinker than poor spoiled Rafiq.

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Meaning is created through a relationship between the writer and the reader, so I cannot (and would not) tell anyone who thought such things, that they are wrong. However, I did intend some deeper connections to Faust when writing the novel and used the character names as clues to what I was going for. It would spoil the fun and some of the plot points in the second book for me to list them all, but I thought it would be worth explaining some of the connections in broad strokes. Hopefully, some readers could take these points and run with it to create some of the meaning I was hoping to elicit.

One of the most meta connections is in my own motivation for the type of story I wanted to write. In the prelude to Faust, a theater manager, poet, and clown are arguing about what kind of experiences should be had by audiences at the theater. The poet wants to write something of great meaning, with philosophical questions and lessons for the audience. The manager argues that audiences do not care about all that and they just want to be entertained; he insists the poet write something with lots of action. The clown just wants to put butts in seats. NPCB is my attempt to be both the poet and the manager. Hopefully, my readers enjoyed the action and found the plot well-paced. However, I still wanted to include philosophical points such as Weber’s state monopoly on violence and Rawls’ veil of ignorance. Additionally, I hoped my readers would draw connections about how capitalism, colonialism, and religious dogma share mechanisms of social control. I suppose, I am also the clown in this scenario for hoping against hope that I could develop a large audience as a first time author.

Despite the differences between the two stories, they do share similar themes and motifs. Juan does not sell his soul, but he is tempted by a desire for greater power. His whole journey takes him on a quest to find the righteous path as opposing forces try to manipulate and tempt him to choose power over his conscience. Also, the magic in Faust is used to solve problems and drive the plot in much the same way technology is used in NPCB.

The character of Greta Twardowski/Metalfist is a clear allusion to both Mephistopheles (AKA Mephisto) and the Polish character Pan Twardowski- who like Faust sold his soul to the devil. In NPCB, Greta is Juan’s companion, but does not understand the path he chooses. As Metalfist, she is motivated by a desire to claim Juan’s “soul” and seeks to punish those who have influenced him against her. I hoped to explain that in the conversation between Wagner and Bao about her “resolving her philosophy,” but certainly you should expect more development in book two.

The last point I’ll make is that I think a lot of the connections make more sense if you turn things on their heads. If NPCB is critical of religious dogma, then things in Faust that were considered positive should be considered negative in NPCB and vice versa. For example, dark magic in Faust, is similar to the hacking done by our heroes in NPCB. Characters in Faust that are more heroic, like Wagner, are more villainous in NPCB.

The fact that I wanted to write this, implies that I am not confident that I was as successful as I wanted to be in alluding to these connections in NPCB. Hopefully, this post shed some light on my intended connections to Faust and you are motivated to reconsider aspects of the novel in a new light. If you did enjoy this post, let me know and I will write another outlining the connections between NPCB and Little Shop of Horrors.

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With this first post, I’m going to explain how I came upon the setting. The name and location came very early in the process of writing the book. Originally, I tried drawing my own map and it turned out to be incredibly difficult to make it look like a legit land mass. So I started scrolling through the topography of the Pacific Northwest on Google maps, looking for an area that fit.

I knew I wanted something near the coast that had a main road splitting in two directions allowing me to create the three sections, Cogstown, Harborside, and the Battery, and reserving a spot in the middle for Skid Row to be surrounded by these three regions. Symbolically, I also wanted Skid Row to be the lowest point so that the garbage from the Megacorp townships would trickle down into it, lending irony when one of the Guards in the story muses that the garbage runs from Skid Row to their town.

As I was scanning the areas, I found exactly what I wanted. An area near Seaside and Ecola State Park in western Oregon. Adding to the serendipity was the fact that I wanted to reinforce the themes of power and control through a legacy of colonization. I knew I was going to write Penny Fame as a displaced Native American woman fighting the same systems of oppression that fueled the colonial expansion of Europeans in the Americas. As I did research into the area, I learned the Rouge River Wars further to the south were the perfect historical backdrop for what I wanted to say.

I was also looking for a “cool cyberpunk sounding name” for my fictitious city state. As I searched the area, I came across a place nearby called Necanicum, which is a great name, but not exactly as “cyberpunky” sounding as I wanted. In researching, however, I found that in the 19th century some European settlers misunderstood the original meaning of the name and bastardized the sound of it, calling it Nekonikon. Not only did that name have a nice ring to it, but it also fit in the theme of colonialism that I was going for. I could see the arrogant and ignorant Megacorp CEOs choosing such a name for their stronghold.

So within a day, I had gone from not having a clear map, to finding exactly what I wanted, with an excellent backstory, and name to boot. I came up with the title “Nekonikon Punk,” that same day. Over the following months, I tried a variety of different titles, but nothing landed the way I wanted it to. By the time I finished the first draft, I had settled on my original title, with the colon “Ctrl Break” following. By then, I knew I was going to write this as a series and wanted to keep “Nekonikon Punk” as the umbrella title.

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