I am cyber-subversive.

What does that mean? No, I’m not a hacker. I’m not a digital troll. I’m not an activist, or Antifa, or Anonymous, or a blackhat. I’m just a dude at a computer. A writer, artist, and digital designer with a love of cyberpunk science-fiction, and a disdain for authoritarianism, fascism, and technocratic kleptocracy.

What we’re seeing happening in the United States today is very concerning, and it’s something I feel I can no longer ignore or stay silent about. I’ve been silent for the past 8 years—longer than that, in truth. I’ve always been apolitical, choosing to keep quiet regarding my political opinions (of which I’ve historically had very few). But now, in today’s highly volatile political climate, it’s difficult to remain quiet lest I become complicit in the governmental dysfunction playing out before us. It’s not a time to be submissive. It’s time to be subversive.

A Nascent State of Awareness

I was largely disinterested in politics until my mid-twenties when Obama came to office. Up to that point I always considered myself an Independent, not aligning with Right or Left, Blue or Red. I was a Purple Centrist—but truly I was indifferent, because politics were boring. O, that they would become so once more.

As I matured and expanded my worldview, I became more invested in the social issues of the era. 9/11 was probably the big wake up call that made me start paying attention, and the subsequent Bush-era conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama showed up, however, the differences between Republican and Democrat—previously indistinguishable to me—became more apparent, and I began to lean more to the Left, though remained mostly indifferent.

It wasn’t until 2016—and I think a majority of people share this sentiment—that I felt that politics were no longer avoidable. They had overtaken the daily news cycle, like a bullhorn in our ears at every moment of the day. Our reality television president was always talking, always on screen, always at the center of our daily lives. And yet, I stayed silent. I consumed the news, shared the memes, brooded and stewed, and felt my blood pressure rising day to day. I remained publicly apolitical, waiting for the term to quickly pass. And then Covid… and Ukraine… and January 6th… and Gaza… and so much horrible shit happening day to day, contributing to my pre-existing issues with anxiety and depression.

A Disintegrating State of the Nation

Slowly but surely, during the Trump presidency, my Independent alignment inched further and further left as more dangers arose. The metastasis of Christian Nationalism1, the controlling stance on women’s bodies and abortion, the prejudice toward immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities, and the rise of white supremacy2 and Neo-Nazi groups. It was hatred. It was spite. And it was a clear and present danger. A danger that we allowed to thrive through inaction.

And then in 2021, we entered our much-welcomed Biden reprieve. Not the president we wanted, but the president we needed at the time. Someone—anyone—who would give us respite from the wild ride that was Donald Trump. We gained a morsel of hope for the future, a smidge of confidence that a Democratic presidency would reverse all the wrongs of the past 4 years. We expected them to undo all the corruption, the degradation, the destabilizing of our government…

But no. Biden slept on the threat, taking a calm, cool-headed approach to finding a path forward to stability. But that’s not what our country needed. There was no guarantee that the reprieve would extend beyond Biden’s first term, and we needed fast action. The people wanted change. Transformation. A mothra-forking revolution. But instead, Biden maintained the new status quo, playing nice and within the bounds of the established rules, despite the dirty politics on the other side of the aisle and a slow decline in public confidence3 and trust in the Democratic party. We stayed calm and carried on, and the clear and present danger remained.

Biden’s sole term was four years of peace. Four years of progressive hope. And four years of Attorney General Merrick Garland4 sitting on his thumbs, letting the slow-moving criminal cases5 against then-former President Trump age out of relevance. Yes, Trump was convicted of 34 felonies6, but that wasn’t enough to bar him from seeking a second term. What we needed were consequences. Punishment. A clear stand against fascism. Instead, Biden, Garland, Robert Mueller7, and Jack Smith8—our hopeful heroes—gave Trump four years to weasel his way back into office and let himself off the hook from any and all consequences.

And now, here we are.

A Dark Vision of the (Not Too Distant) Future

The world we’re seeing emerge today is nothing we haven’t seen before. It has manifested in movies, video games, comics and sci-fi novels. It has echoed across many a page in the writings of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, and others. Formerly fictional themes that resonate today include the consolidation of power among corporations, the erosion of democracy, AI- and data-driven algorithmic governance, surveillance capitalism and data-mining, wealth and power disparity, and the rise of resistance and rebellion.

In his Sprawl Trilogy, William Gibson envisioned a world where multinational megacorporations act as governing bodies in fragmented enclaves and lawless zones across the former United States in a hyper-capitalist dystopia. A similar concept is explored in Stephenson’s Snow Crash, where citizens live in gated corporate territories in a Big Tech libertarian-dystopian nightmare. How far off are we from experiencing those realities first-hand? If Trump, Elon Musk, and the destabilitizing force that is DOGE9 continue on unimpeded, then we’ll be living in the Sprawl much sooner than later.

The first step toward that reality is already underway through the erosion of the media. Mainstream news outlets have long been under conglomerate influence, but more recently have become more a force of manipulation10 than a channel for informing and educating the public. With the advent of social media and echo chambers, corporate-controlled media empires, biased and partisan outlets, and authoritarian mouth-pieces seeking to frame their own narrative, modern day news and reporting are no longer based on facts, but on storytelling and influence.

The breadth of this media influence is paralleled in the 1988 John Carpenter film They Live, where an alien race has infiltrated the ruling class and manipulates humanity through subliminal messaging in the media. The working class is driven toward consuming and conforming to the greater will of their overseers and led to believe that they are free. Carpenter wrote the film as a commentary on the arguably harmful economic policies11 of President Ronald Reagan, a driver of commercialization and financial deregulation. Though we’re still waiting for the trickle-down effect, the ad-forward, heavily monetized influencer culture12 we see today is likely a result of that neoliberal commercialization.

The main difference between They Live and the real-world United States, however, is that we were not infiltrated by aliens from outer space (that we know of), but notably, a South African alien by the name of Elon Musk. An entrepreneur, industrialist, litigious disruptor, and self-inserted “founder”13 of several companies, Musk has—in a way—infiltrated our federal government and claimed a high-power role for himself as the overlord of DOGE and efficiency-as-a-facade14. It’s an open secret in Silicon Valley that he did not immigrate through legal channels, and was working in the US illegally15 early in his career. And now, he finds himself in a position of unprecedented power, shearing away the stability of our federal infrastructure while using his personal social media platform to control the media narrative16 that frames his exploits as efforts to combat “fraud” and “waste”. His purchase of—and subsequent dismantling of—Twitter (now rebranded as X)17 has allowed him to erect his own propaganda machine, which played a critical role in the success of Trump’s second presidential campaign.

Musk is arguably Patient Zero in this rise of a megacorporate technocracy. Or should I say, MAGA-corporate. He is in an unprecedented position as an unelected public figure who arguably holds more power than any other politician apart from the president himself, and through his DOGE team of trojan horses he has hoovered up more than $38 million18 in contracts and federal aid to enrich himself and his corporations. His pushing of a contract to order $400 million worth in armored Teslas and his attempt to forcibly cancel an established FAA telecom contract with Verizon19 in favor of Starlink shows that he is leveraging his unparalleled overreach to assert his own interests and effectively lay the foundation of the technocracy.

If this foundation continues to be built upon, where will that lead us? Corpo oligarchs in charge of government agencies? Privatization of public services? We’re not far off. Trump lackey Louis de Joy, Postmaster General, has long been a proponent of privatizing the postal service, and Trump may soon make that a reality20. This mirrors 1987’s RoboCop, where the police force and other agencies are under the control by corporations that manipulate and influence the public trust.

The Cyberpunk Lens

For years, I’ve been looking at our reality through the lens of cyberpunk fiction, noting parallels of modern events, political climates, and technological advancements to potential future-states in science fiction narratives. Advancements such as robotics innovations that get us closer to transhumanist cybernetic implants, or autonomous androids indistinguishable from humans as in Blade Runner. Or virtual reality and metaverse prototypes that inch us closer to Gibsonian cyberspace. Or, the ongoing global conflicts that eventually lead to a post-apocalytic dystopia, like in Mad Max, The Matrix, The Terminator, and so many other sci-fi tales. Is it just thought-provoking storytelling, or prescient foresight?

Thirteen years ago I started a community on Reddit called Netrunners21, where I post links to real-world news that aligns with cyberpunk themes and concepts. Drones, robotics, AI and automation, transhuman innovations and cybernetics, hacking and cybersecurity. Any news topic that parallels cyberpunk storytelling.

The Netrunners community is where I draw attention to the dots that I see in the world stage, and connect them. The resulting lines that form highlight the evidence of how our world, notably the United States, is an emergent dystopia. By posting links for others to consume—and hopefully engage around—I’m contributing to the resistance. Education, awareness. Broadcasting a signal over the noise. I’m not an activist, or a protester, or a field agent. I won’t be on the ground, on the scene, in the thick of it. I’ll be remote, on the digital battlefield, observing, reporting, communicating. That’s what I’m best suited for, and that’s how I can serve in the cyberwar against this technocratic kleptocracy.

r/Netrunners

Subvert, or Submit

So, with that being said, we now find ourselves back at that opening question. What does it mean to be cyber-subversive? The gist of it is this:

to subvert the authority of a fascist authoritarian regime through digital sabotage and guerilla cyberwarfare.

So, to be cyber-subversive is to engage in digital resistance. But it’s more than that. It’s taking a stand, it’s shifting your mindset, it’s not taking the government at face value. Because let’s face it—the government is changing, and not for the better. To be honest, it’s been changing ever since the neoliberal rising of Reaganomics.

As the reality of authoritarianism becomes more apparent, it’s more important than ever to not be silent. To stir up good trouble (and occasionally some bad). We must engage in thorough, independent fact-based investigative journalism, because the media can no longer be trusted. We must bolster cryptographic activism to resist mass surveillance tactics and censorship, to protect privacy, personal data, and digital rights. We must also engage in digital sabotage, and mercilessly so, if we, the cyber-subversives, are to disrupt authoritarianism and corporate dominance in this American post-capitalist dystopia.