Horses weren't needed and they became pets; same for average human.
This can only happen perfectly if the manufacturers eventually start to come after those who are self-reliant, which I believe is in line with the psychology of humans.
Funny thing is this is ALSO analogous to what we have done certain animals.
Further analogy: Holding $100 US dollar bill in front of the pets, one can make them do lots of tricks. The pets are willing; like dogs that want to play, they will send tons of CVs to potential owners and give do anything to gain advantage in an interview.
I wonder who decides which humans are needed and which ones are not (whom you call pets) and will it be someone other in the future than who has made those decisions today and in the past?
What exactly will be different in the future from the current situation?
The most correct use for this analogues of owners, hermits and pets is as tool of desconstructing the cyberpunk genre.
It's no longer human culture in animal nature; but owner culture in anthroposcenic nature.
What happens when one that can live centuries in an intellectual enlightened form lives in a world of pollutatition, cities, old infastructure—and of course the organic leftovers?
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Noteworthy to say this makes up perhaps half of cyberpunk's foundations—one should not ever define cyberpunk solely with this idea.
The distinction between a pet and a cattle is that the cattle the owner has a dependency to but a pet may one can dispose at will. To the treatment of pets I would say that the treatment has less relevance than the complete stripping of autonomy for after your existence has become an instrument of one's will, your the meaning of your existence ceases the moment one finds a better tool. ALSO I would argue that this – especially, in the historical sense – may well be the essence & causality of this WHOLE thing.
That's not comparable to Russia today. Now there are surveillance cameras, internet surveillance and machine learning, but not back then.
Also it wouldn't have happened hadn't it been for Gorbatjov who introduced the glasnost (transparency) policy reform. Another Stalin, and history would have looked different.
I did not intend it as a serious point. However, the Zuboffian trade that you mention will end in most of the species having no autonomy left to trade for comfort, completing a historical trend: land ownership for service access, self-sufficiency for product quality et cetera
Horses weren't needed and they became pets; same for average human.
This can only happen perfectly if the manufacturers eventually start to come after those who are self-reliant, which I believe is in line with the psychology of humans.
Funny thing is this is ALSO analogous to what we have done certain animals.