Author: Khalil F.

Manipulating the Mind with Ads

Khalil F.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Without a doubt, I think that there will be human augmentations as technology evolves. If there is ever a chance for companies to create things like that, they totally would. There is already the Neuralink company, creating brain chips, and I think that would probably evolve into the sort of chips that we see in cyberpunk stories. 

Initially, I think that brain chips are really cool in concept! In fictional settings, the idea of having a computer in your head to help with tasks, and being able to be conscious in a dream-like state sounds awesome, but the issue is that companies exist. Often seen in cyberpunk media, corporations will over advertise things for the common person. Everything is seen as something they can make money off of, and that is without a doubt happening in the real world. Especially with things like dropshipping, everyone wants to make a quick buck, so having a brain chip just would be seen as a new place to advertise.

“Allen Institute for Brain Science” by Lavender Dreamer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Because of that, I don’t think that I would get something like that if it was available. Even if it helps with small tasks or helps with memory, the thought of being constantly advertised to sounds awful. It makes me think about all of the drama about the election on Facebook a bit ago, where people were posting fake things in order to manipulate people’s thoughts. Putting a chip in someone’s brain would make that even easier, as it could make false thoughts with its ads

I think that technology that helps humans rather than being installed would be cool, like something to control computers without touching them, or even an augmented reality style visor would be pretty cool. It would be kind of scary seeing people with things on their faces in public, like with that Apple is trying to do with its Vision Pro, but something that could still show everyone’s face and expression, while also being a computer that can be accessed for smaller tasks, would be something I would love.

The Cyberpunk Logic of Owning Everything

Khalil F.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
“Create a 4:5 portrait of a futuristic smoke superstore floating at the edge of a cyberpunk cityscape” by 箅è‰Č死焞 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

When it comes to corporations in the real world, a lot of them feel like they are getting close to the level that the scary corporations in cyberpunk stories are. The main theme in cyberpunk, is that there is commodification of everything, and companies are willing to sell anything to make profit. In both cyberpunk worlds and in the real life world, there is advertisement everywhere, and tracking of what people do in order to sell to certain people. For example, in Neuromancer, there is a group called Tessier-Ashpool, who deal with pretty much everything. They are a group that control a lot of the wealth in technology, and deal with cloning an AI, which are things that many people sought for in this cyberpunk world. But what is very interesting about their greed, is that it is not to challenge the systems that they are in, only to keep it going forever. They just sit in their wealth and clone themselves so that they can keep it forever, which helps them but deteriorates everything else around them. 

In the real world, there are not exactly any companies that are at that point yet, but I feel like it is not too crazy to think it could end up that way. When it comes to the tech powerhouses like Google, Apple, and Meta, it seems that they are so focused on creating huge technological things that will make them a lot of money that they seem to lose sight of what the point of technology is. Apple refusing to evolve with other companies, making it so that their devices need to be upgraded in order to stay relevant, reminds me a lot of how greedy some companies are in cyberpunk stories. These companies want to alienate their own audience and market, so that they buy nothing else but their products.

I think that cyberpunk is not too wild for coming up with these greedy companies. It is very realistic to me to see certain corporations get so greedy that they end up owning everything and advertising themselves on everything that they can. It is an exaggeration of course, but as the years keep going they get closer and closer to reality.

A Helper With Wings

Khalil F.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Personally, I am a big fan of hybrid characters. I think that the concept of werewolves are really cool, the idea of having a more bestial form that people deal with is very cool for stories. In real life, I’m not sure if it would be as fun. Having the heightened senses would be cool, but the huge strength and not being able to control a beast inside of you sounds awful for the mental state. Personally, I think that being fused with a bird could be the best option. Having wings and the ability to fly would make a lot of things more convenient, at least for travel. I don’t really think I would want to give up so much of my humanity to be a bird, though. The heightened senses and the wings would be cool to have, although having big human sized wings could end up being a pain. I do think that it would be fun being able to fly with friends, and in a community way it would be fun to see how fashion could evolve with these hybrid attachments. 

“Harpy painting” by Kotomi_ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

I wonder, though, if people having wings would make things weird socially. People will always belittle others for their differences, so would hybrids be seen as something wrong? Or would there be a difference in the societal order when it comes to people that can fly. I think it would be cool if people’s differences could be used to work together. A person with wings would not be very strong due to the weight needed to fly, but they could help others that don’t have the height advantage. Animals have so many cool differences that help out in the ecosystem, and I think that having people that were hybrids with these animals could help the world a little if done right, without sacrificing their humanity.

Feeling loneliness in a city of lights

Khalil F.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

In both the book Neuromancer and the movie Blade Runner, the setting where all of the story takes place are very similar in ways. They are both very monumental works in the Cyberpunk genre, and so have very similar themes. In both works, the story takes place in a big dystopian city. In one of the first iconic shots in the movie Blade Runner, the futuristic city of 2019 Los Angeles is shown. There are huge towers and lights everywhere, giant screens with ads and flying cars. The streets are filled with people who are not as high tech as the towers around them, and everything is not as beautiful and bright as it seems.

In Neuromancer’s Chiba, it is a very similar place. Chiba and its sub city called Night City, is a huge place in Japan filled with new technology and many people from different cultures. Again, it is described with a lot of flashing lights and colors, but the people itself are trying their hardest to make a name for themselves. In Neuromancer’s world of technological innovation, the people living in it are modifying themselves or choosing to live in the shadows.

Blog Post #3: More Human Than Human

Khalil F.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

With Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”, she explored a world where there is a utopian idea that had no need for the labels that gender brought. It dreamed of a concept where cyborgs have no sexual development and don’t need to be organic have the specific identities that people face in real life. I think that the idea is really cool, the thought of no need for certain pressures for how to live and love people, and how to be a person based on what people thought of your own gender. In Janelle Monae’s album “Dirty Computer”, there is a very similar idea when it comes to the conflict. In “Dirty Computer” the idea of being a woman, being queer, being a minority, was seen as something bad, or “dirty”. The main character that was shown throughout the album that was supposed to be “cleaned” of all of those thoughts and ideas. I think that it is very similar to how “A Cyborg Manifesto” was about, but in the opposite sense.

In the film that goes with the album for “Dirty Computer” the android Jane 57821 is seen struggling with her own identity as the society she lives in tries to remove all her ideas of being queer.


While “A Cyborg Manifesto” has the idea of a perfect place that doesn’t have complex ideas on what it means to be a person, “Dirty Computer” punishes people for challenging those beliefs. It is seen as something bad to a lot of people in the real world just to be different, and Haraway thought to challenge those beliefs and the concept of what identity means. I think that Monae also has a similar thought, dreaming of a world where these things do not matter, and people are simply free to be who they are. In “So Afraid”, Monae sings about how she feels scared to even admit the feelings she has. Considering that it is fine for her to stay in her shell and not be proud of who she is. But these fears are presented as a normal thing. It is okay to be scared to challenge peoples beliefs, but as seen in “A Cyborg Manifesto”, it is not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually make everyone feel more comfortable, and not weighed down by certain labels.

The Shifting of my Queer Experience

Khalil F.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

For the longest time, the fact that I was a queer man just did not matter to me. Not even in the way that it was not a big deal in the world, but merely the fact that it was never something that I talked about. I think that as far as I knew I never really had a preference when it came to gender, and it was only later that I found out that it wasn’t normal, and that there was a name for it. But even when I knew these things, it was always something I just wasn’t supposed to talk about. Growing up in a strict Christian household, I sometimes wondered if my queerness was never mentioned simply because it was something that was supposedly “forbidden”. My parents make it seem as though it wasn’t something I ever shared, and for the longest time, I just assumed that would stay the same. My friends knew, but even then it wasn’t really something I would just share with people, really out of that fear that it was a “forbidden” thing. But all of that sort of changed in the last few years. 

As queerness becomes more normalized, more and more queer people will feel comfortable being open with their indentity.

I don’t think I’ve ever really considered the option of being open about that part of my life with people that haven’t known me for a while. But during college and sort of living on my own, it just didn’t really seem like something that I needed to hide anymore. And for some reason, that feels really weird. I think that as time is going on, the idea of queerness is getting more and more normal to everyone. Although it is very slow, I just never thought it would be something I would experience in my life, especially living in a southern place that was generally homophobic. I think that being around people my age in new places has shown me that things are changing. Maybe they’ve already changed, but it is nice to see that in a world that used to think that being queer was a mental illness, more and more people are respectful to the identities and attractions of other people.