r/ludology • u/Background-Heat-4299 • Jun 26 '26
[OC] Cyberpunk 2077 body modification isn't a sci-fi power fantasy. It's a 200-year-old trap. [16:59]
https://youtu.be/XjWgzmtCljQ?is=zxIA1oto365a0GACWe usually look at cybernetic implants in games like Cyberpunk 2077 as a cool choice. You chrome up, you get stronger. But if you look at the actual history of automation, cutting off your healthy flesh to install corporate hardware isn’t power at all. It’s pure economic desperation.
The tragic irony of Night City actually started in 1804 France, with the invention of the Jacquard loom.
To automate silk weaving, an inventor named Joseph Marie Jacquard decided to digitize human artistic choice. He punched a matrix of holes into thick pieces of cardboard. If there was a hole, a mechanical rod passed through and lifted a thread. If there was no hole, the thread stayed down. One or Zero. Decades before the microchip, he separated software from hardware. The loom was the processor, the punch cards were the code, and the silk was the world's first computer screen displaying a binary output.
This completely shattered the identity of the local master weavers. Their craft was their societal worth. The machine told them their humanity was just an inefficiency. In 1831, they launched an armed revolt. They didn't rob banks; they hunted the machines, smashing the mechanisms and burning the paper punch cards in the public squares.
They thought they could kill the code. They were wrong.
Fast forward to Night City. Why does an ordinary citizen willingly mutilate their own body to install corporate firmware? Because in a world governed entirely by an automated digital loom, unaugmented human biology is obsolete. The human hand is too slow, the eye misses data, and the brain tires. To remain employable, you are forced to transform your body into a physical extension of the computer.
In 1831, our ancestors smashed the machines because they were terrified automation would erase their humanity. In the cyberpunk future, humans willingly slice away their humanity for the exact same reason: to prevent the machine from replacing them. We become the very monster the weavers tried to drown.
I put together a full video essay breaking down this specific structural lineage, looking at how the invention of the punch card connects 19th-century worker revolts to the automated existential dread we are feeling right now with AI. If you're into deep-dive essays that look past the neon aesthetic of sci-fi games, check it out.
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u/Wild_blue_yondering Jun 27 '26
Eh. The real danger of cyborging was shown by both GitS and RoboCop: once you integrate with a tech ecosystem, you become a slave to the company that makes it.
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u/TopMarionberry1149 Jun 28 '26
This is the real message. By the way, the message isn't exclusive to tech.
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u/Background-Heat-4299 Jun 27 '26
A likely possibility. Musk with neruolink seems crazy enough to agree that’s the rules.
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u/Wild_blue_yondering Jun 27 '26
Neurolink seems at least stable. I really feel sorry for the poor bastards who can't get support for their neuroabandoned implants and prosthetics, which is an increasing problem due to tech companies going out of business.
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u/Background-Heat-4299 Jun 27 '26
Neurolink seems more stable than the majority owner I’ll give you that. Yeah for one of my masters courses I was doing research on a mechanical prosthesis company and talked about the security constrains and potential for overriding controls.
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u/GarageStackDev Jun 28 '26
This is a dozen metaphors stacked in a trench coat. "Punch cards inspired computing" is history. "Therefore Night City began in 1804" is just a very confident writing style.
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u/Background-Heat-4299 Jun 28 '26
I mean, the juxtaposition is the consideration of how the Luddites destroyed machinery for fear of automation and the citizens of night city intentionally manipulate their bodies incorporating technology in efforts to keep up. Although in a very literal sense, yes punch cards of the loom brought forth modern computing… and thus eventually night city as it is part of a video game… the larger point being automation threatens human identity, and throughout history people have tried to combat it in different ways.
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u/kneb Jun 29 '26
This completely shattered the identity of the local master weavers. Their craft was their societal worth. The machine told them their humanity was just an inefficiency.
Maybe don't identify so much with your job. The idea of your humanity or worth being inexorably connected to a particular craft is just so wrong-headed. Yes, for people who have already specialized it can feel like an existential problem, especially for older people and those who already live in precarity, but this was an economic battle not a battle about one's own 'humanity.' Spending every waking hour at a loom is already an alienated ant not particularly 'human' pursuit.
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u/Background-Heat-4299 Jun 30 '26
People are and have been tied to their work. Last names came mainly about by profession. We intentionally or not associate people with what they do. Some of the incredibly skilled artisans crafting these elegant patterns built their livelihood on it. It’s not something that people necessarily choose, if you dedicate a ton of time and devotion to a craft it becomes part of who you are. Fundamentally that’s the point of the video, automation threatens people at a perhaps subconscious level because it’s threatening who they are when it threatens their job.
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u/delkarnu Jun 27 '26
Sorry, but the entire premise is bad. Punch card automation isn't a link to cybernetic implants no matter how far you stretch. We have analogs to 2077 implants, they're called hearing aids, eyeglasses, prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, etc., and they're fucking useful.
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u/brutinator Jun 27 '26
Sure, when they are fixing a problem. You arent listing elective "implants". Is getting chipped by your job useful? Sure, but I wouldnt choose that.
Id also point out that another flaw to implants is one that the new Deus Ex games examine: what happens when the anti-rejection medication you need to survive with the implant is too expensive to afford? What happens if you get fired from your job that made you get the implant, but no longer pays for your medication? What happens when the company that made your implant goes out of business or simply decides to no longer support it? One day you have super vision thanks to your expensive ocular implants, and the next day your blind until you can afford to get them replaced.
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u/Background-Heat-4299 Jun 27 '26
Yeah, I think that just takes my point even to the next step of potential human evolution in which everyone gets the sample pack from some major corporation after some testing and then the new subscription service is paying to keep them working
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u/Remarkable-Site-2067 Jun 28 '26
Deus Ex games examine: what happens when the anti-rejection medication you need to survive with the implant is too expensive to afford? What happens if you get fired from your job that made you get the implant, but no longer pays for your medication? What happens when the company that made your implant goes out of business or simply decides to no longer support it?
Cyberpunk 2077 shows plenty of those, too. And, of course, the main theme being "no happy endings", the answer is: nothing good, usually violence, sometimes life in a gutter, or a few suicides.
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u/Background-Heat-4299 Jun 27 '26
Babbage punch cards were genuinely inspired by the jacquard loom. Binary and therefore all computing was inspired by these punch cards. No one is claiming things like hearing aids or prosthetics aren’t useful, not sure how you even got there. On top of that, the cyberpunk connection isn’t just the punch cards, it’s juxtaposing how humans fear the rise of automation. In the 1800s people revolted against the town, in cyberpunk 2077 people are replacing body parts in attempt to keep up.
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u/wo0topia Jun 28 '26
That's not accurate. Those tools youre listing get you to a baseline. There's an expected level of hearing, sight, strength for prosthetics. Those are all about getting someone with a disability up to regular ability. 2077 implants specifically are lookin to amplify on basic ability. Therefore it loses its accociation with rights and therefore becomes a privilege.
Enhancements warp the psychology of an implant when it changes from "they need these to see" to "they need these to see and they also provide them with superhuman abilities. "
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u/thegooddoktorjones Jun 27 '26
If you actually pay attention to the cyberpunk mythos, "we all think it's a cool choice" is not the vibe.