The US has elected Beavis and Butt-Head.

Broadly, this is just the sort of thing that can be expected when we allow positions of power to be held by people who are mentally ill.

I’d never thought about it before and my immediate reaction was somewhere between wtf and lol, but thinking about it more, I guess I can sort of see the basis for an argument that they are, since at least some of the expected basic themes are there.

But I don’t think that’s enough. Cyberpunk isn’t just centered around computers and technology - it’s an aesthetic, and WarGames and Sneakers don’t have even the tiniest hint of that aesthetic.

To reach back to the roots of the word “cyberpunk,” I think it’s more accurate to say that WarGames and Sneakers are “cyberpop” or maybe even “cyber-easy-listening.”

Then free speech also means banning, or at least strictly limiting, corporate political contributions.

This anti-distortion rationale for government speech regulation used to be central to the First Amendment, especially in campaign-finance cases, until the Supreme Court rejected it when striking down corporate campaign-contribution limits in Citizens United v. FEC.

But of course that counts for nothing, since the Supreme Court is a wholly owned tool of the plutocratic oligarchy.

I don’t have the foggiest idea.

And really, if I did have a good idea, I wouldn’t post it publicly anyway. That’d just be tipping my hand to the astroturfers.

“The fediverse” really can’t. That’s just the reality of a decentralized system. It’s going to be up to individual instances to sort it out.

But that’s a good thing, because what it means is that different instances can and will try different approaches, and between them, they’ll sooner or later hit on the one(s) that will be most effective.