#metapunk

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries will be remembered as a time when the struggle polarized—when the ancient culture war came down to two basic ways of life: one predicated on control, competition, and fear; the other on freedom, cooperation, and wonder.

The first path is an eerily feudal future—a corporate, consumerist police state constantly at war with itself; the worst nightmares of cyberpunk realized.  The second path leads us somewhere new—a world of environmental and spiritual renewal, liberation and mutual prosperity not bound by the hegemonic forces of state, church, and market.

It’s the blue pill: the devil you know—or the red pill: a life uncertain but open, free of the rusted legal-economic machine that shackles you, if only you’re willing to free your mind.

It’s the classic spiritual battle for the fate of humanity common to all literature and mythology: wisdom and compassion trying to overcome ideology, greed, and paranoia.