The term “dark future” is similar to “dystopia”, for which it is often a synonym. This refers to any work where the hypothesized future of mankind is in some sense “dark” – rather than bright, cheery, or optimistic. Typical “dark futures” are those shown in the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a highly ironic twist on the bright, cheery and optimistic future, so while it can be called a dystopia, it is not really a “dark future”. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is obviously both a dystopia and a dark future (although its focus purely on political ideology as the instrumentality of evil is somewhat eclectic, relative to current-day writing). Other terms for dark future could be “gritty future” (as opposed to the gleaming, antiseptic, super-scientific utopia) or “air-conditioned nightmare”.
Cyberpunk is a science fiction subgenre which arose in the early 1980s. Its paradigmatic work is William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) in film. The main ideas of cyberpunk are a rather dystopian future of urban decay focussing on: a polluted, highly technological planet, mostly ruled by megacorporations; the extensive presence of all manner of computers as well as the “cyberspace” or “Net” – one of the main realms of economic/political/social interaction, where so-called “cyberjockeys”, who electroneurologically “plug themselves into the Net”, make illegal transfers and seizures of data; as well as various interpenetrations of electronic, chemical and electromechanical technology and human bodies, e.g., computer-based virtual reality, genetically engineered androids or clones, micromachines carrying out various life-enhancing functions in human bodies (nanotech), extensive casual use of mind-altering drugs, superpowerful artificial arms grafted onto living humans, electronically enhanced vision, and so forth. The sensibility of cyberpunk is somewhat similar to that of the film noir or the darker detective story, where the protagonist is caught up in the intrigues of very powerful forces (such as shadowy Artificial Intelligences that exist in the Net), and tries with difficulty to maintain some core of authenticity and decency in the face of ever more vicious schemes and plots by the powerful.
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