The “low-life” in cyberpunk not merely means material hardship, but more of a spiritual bullying: contempt for human self-esteem. According to Wikipedia, low-life people are those who behave aggressively: beggars, criminals, drug dealers, gangsters, prostitutes, pimps, thieves, and other underprivileged groups. Essentially, it’s a way of life represented by people abandoned by society.
In the cyberpunk world, oligarchs control society’s resources and technology with an absolute monopoly. Since high-tech machinery and artificial intelligence have largely replaced human labor here, human labor is basically worthless, just like those unnamed NPCs in Cyberpunk 2077 who smoked or drank in dark corners. Basically, most people have to live lives they hate. In terms of functionality, we can be little different from, or even worse than, the AI that has replaced us and we even need to suffer more just because we are poor carbon forms.
As a result of the concentration of resources, society has become horribly polarized. While the privileged rely on high technology to gain immortality, the lower class people still have to live in a very undignified way. Because of the advanced information encryption technology, an absolute barrier is formed between the upper class and the lower class, and the vulnerable people can only survive in their own isolated islands: the underclass is completely marginalized and deprived of the opportunity to assert themselves – “ the ubiquitous holographic projections in the sky are marked with inflated desires, while underneath the lens are twisted and dirty pipes that lead to dark places where even the light does not want to reach.”
Of course the general public benefits to some extent from the high level of information technology in the cyberpunk world, such as convenient communications, medical care, and cheap automated devices. In spite of this, people feel endless anxiety over things information technology cannot deal with, such as a clean, spacious, bright, and private home, a sense of security, or to say, the ability to be in control of their own lives without the intervention from coercive power. Ultimately, information technology is just a tool for increasing productivity but not the productivity itself.
We can see as opposed to contributing to peace, information technology enables the privileged to trample over the dignity of others. I’ve imagined myself living the same life as the NPCs in Cyberpunk 2077 – I broke my leg working on a construction site for a few cans of Spam and heinz baked beans, then spent a small fortune on a custom 2000w, nerve conductivity-controlled exoskeleton or prosthesis, and then I went back to the construction site and continued to sweat over my canned luncheon meat and beans.
I chose to make my protagonist in the video game Cyberpunk 2077 the hero who (temporarily) liberated the Night City from the rule of the evil Arasaka Corperation. This is entirely out of my wishful, idealistic fixation on totalitarian hatred. While the protagonist receives congratulations from his friends, I was curious to see if the citizens who once treated him like a reprobate would still see him as a villain who destabilized their poor lives.
Reference
[1] Wikipedia. “Low-life”
[2] Hardware Times. “The Art of Cyberpunk: High Tech Low Life.”
really interesting ! do you know have any theory why cyberpunk narratives often focus on the low-lifes ? is it a class fetish, or an assertion that mess and hardship make humans different from robots ?
ahahah thank you! actually im still not that familiar with this topic yet and havent read any books but according to my seemingly unrealistc guesses i think people focusing more on the low-life is just root from e. it is just like public’s worrry about deteriorating quality of life in the information age. this setting of future must resonate with people’s subconscious otherwise cyberpunk wouldnt have got such a popularity. in short cyberpunk somehow satifies our curiosityy about same fears that have a very high probability (i guess hah) of happening and allows us to experience it in advance. my reply is kinda choatic but hope it helps haha apology in advance