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Message: <blockquote data-quote="coyote6" data-source="post: 3639824" data-attributes="member: 1225">What he said. In cyberpunk fiction, there (generally) isn't something about the machinery itself that was dehumanizing; it was that the entire milieu was dehumanizing. You can posit that the cyberware in a game, due to brain or nervous system damage, actually does bad things to one's brain (chemically, electrically, whatever), and that would be cool -- but that's not a standard trope of the fiction I've read.Yes, but IMHO, it wasn't because they stuck the rapidly advancing technological devices in their bodies. And it was more than just rapid technological advancements; it was also cultural (the corporate culture, etc.).Have you read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Market-Forces-Richard-K-Morgan/dp/0345457749" target="_blank">Market Forces</a>? Plenty of dehumanization -- metric tons of it -- and no real cyberware, IIRC. Certainly no vatjobs or wired reflexes; but lots and lots of violence, alienation, and dehumanization.IMO, in (most) cyberpunk fiction, the cyber doesn't cause the psychosis -- it's more like one of the symptoms. The artificial impressions one gets from extensive cyberware might certainly tend to encourage feelings of alienation and such -- but I don't think it's s as simple as, "hey, we rebuilt you, now you're crazy because of it." No, you're crazy because horrific things happened to you to maim you and it was repaired with cybernetics and gosh maybe the horrific things messed your head up too; or you were crazy and went and had chunks of your body ripped out to make yourself more dangerous; or you were in a violence-filled environment, trained to kill without remorse, and maybe that's not conducive to good mental health.</blockquote>

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