> Efforts should be undertaken to reverse the negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies and leverage media as a means of engaging the public .... If technology is to become a more intimate partner in enhancement of the human species, then DoD personnel must help alter distorted cultural narratives. A realistic, balanced (if not more positive) narrative will ... remove barriers to productive adoption of these new technologies.
Yeah, because cyberpunk science fiction exploring how much of a dystopian hell this planet could become are nothing but "negative" and "distorted" cultural narratives. We're totally not living in a cyberpunk world right now.
We're very cyber, but we're not very punk. We're not the utopia whose depiction was what cyberpunk was a reaction against, but we're also not the dystopia that cyberpunk itself depicts.
Fiction is very good at exploring "what if one thing was different?" scenarios, but worldbuilding all the implications that come from even one difference is almost impossible.
What kind of prosthetics are possible, and what will forever remain magical thinking? Would these likely even be replacing, e.g. organic legs with robot legs, or will we prefer to genetically engineer — either in vivo or as a sequence of [in vitro, culture, 3d bioprint, transplant]? Will this mean an end to wheelchairs? Or cause IRL furries? How does this impact DNA as a source of identity in law? Will military prosthetics count as hidden weapons?
> but we're also not the dystopia that cyberpunk itself depicts.
In most cyberpunk media, there is a middle/upper class who have enough money to insulate themselves from the dystopian hard edge of society. They continue to live in pleasant suburbs or high-rise buildings, they buy everything they need and dutiful follow the rules and stay on the garden paths created by the corporations milking them.
The "punks" are those cast out of the garden, because they don't have enough money or because they lost favor with the corporations for some reason. They congregate in the shadows, stealing and hacking to make ends meet because they have no other choice. The people in the comfortable middle class may not even notice these punks existing; their lives are structured to shield them from exposure to the punks.
The folks who work for the federal government really do fret over how their work is perceived by the public. It's definitely on their minds, for good reason. In the absence of information, one tends to assume the worst. If we want to move forward as a society, some baseline level of trust must be established. This is one way to effect that change, through constructive communication.
What they're talking about is more like helping pump out lots of Marvel movies so the masses' view of cyborg tech is less Terminator and more Iron Man, so they're more likely to accept having chips put in their brains to make them better soldiers.
This comment sums up my general feelings towards most mainstream cinema. Expensive propaganda that appears harmless to the public...with strict agendas.
