Ghost in the Shell
All of Shirow Masamune's original The Ghost in the Shell manga in one massive hardcover make this the ultimate collector's edition of the ultimate cyberpunk classic. Contains The Ghost in the Shell 1, 1.5, and 2 for over 800 pages of manga. Featuring a NEW, EXCLUSIVE cover created for this edition by Shirow Masamune! Includes in one large hardcover volume: The Ghost in the Shell (1991) Deep into the twenty-first century, the line between man and machine has been blurred as humans rely on the enhancement of mechanical implants and robots are upgraded with human tissue. In this rapidly converging landscape, cyborg superagent Major Motoko Kusanagi is charged to track down the craftiest and most dangerous terrorists and cybercriminals, including ghost hackers who are capable of exploiting the human/machine interface and reprogramming humans to become puppets to carry out the hackers' criminal ends. The Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor (2003) The lost Ghost in the Shell stories, created by Shirow Masamune after completing work on the original Ghost in the Shell manga and prior to his tour-de-force, Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface. Focusing on Section 9 agents in their daily battle against technocrime, Human-Error Processor. Features the stories Fat Cat, Drive Slave, Mines of Mind, and Lost Past. The Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface (2001) March 6, 2035.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
5mentions
5people
2011–2025years
20% recommend80% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > Does eastern fiction not have this foundation of fictional dystopia from 50-100 years ago woven into societies consciousness?
No.
One Internet personality in China, who is a contrarian thinker and regarded as one of the best expert on information security, once said (after a murder case became national news),
> If you believe the opinions expressed in A Clockwork Orange, Minority Reports, or such, are crucial and something we must defend. Then, under this framework of civilization, regardless of what countermeasures we take, the severity of violent crimes will not reduce to something we are willing to live with. We must accept it, and believe it's the necessary cost of civilization.
> This is why I always think, the only solution we can expect is "Skynet Rising".
I think his take is representative to a large group of people. It can be dangerous.
Also, I see some people have no problems with Clockwork Orange style psychological torture on criminals. If the technology exists, they will welcome its adoption.
As I commented on a previous HN submission, Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
> Recognized "universal" values only came to existence by pure coincidence. The beliefs that the system of representative democracy is just, universal and progressive is only an illusion created by a short period of technological and economic boom. Just like the lack of consciousness in the biosphere, the norm of the human history is empires and authoritarianism, returning back to that state is entirely possible if people stop to believe.
Also,
> Part of western awareness towards, paranoia, fear, and wherewithal to stand against certain government behaviors and the totalitarian state is obviously awoken from and influenced by fiction,
These fictions can only be written in a world when elements of a modern nation prevails, in the west, it's already roughly 100 years after the industry revolution, and we had things like the BBC World Service, a systematic bureaucratic system of state control, and maybe capitalism. These dystopian Western fictions, such as 1984 or Brave New World, are largely a product of a modern world. Others, such as Philip K. Dick's works, are written in a transitional period from modern to a postmodern world.
But in the east, 50-100 years ago, it's still an age of monarchy and colonialism. And in the early 1970s, many people in China just got their first TV, there is no way that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? makes sense.
> what maybe isn't and wont ever be as bad as our stories tell us it will be?
In my opinion, later cyberpunk works in the 1970s is somewhat a counterpart to the classical dystopian works, it describes a postmodern world, not modern world.
My favorite is Ghost in the Shell (original work & TV animation), it's a world of post-WW3 genocide, a world of universal surveillance, a world where the government can hijack your brain and body - many warnings in those classical works came true, but in less brutal forms, and somehow life still goes on, thanks to the domination of mass media entertainment and digital technology, and can even be better for some people in limited cases.
Its author Masamune Shirow said,
> Science fiction can't always describe the burnout world at the end of the century. The future is better to be bright.
- Extremely rarely IMHO.
A nice example of this is Masamune Shirow, of Ghost in the Shell fame. If you go through the interviews, most of his inspiration comes from early scientific research and engineering debates that he internalized and integrated into a coherent and compelling vision of the future.
This is no small feat, he is extremely influential in that he exposed whole generations of people to these ideas and cutting edge research fields, and many researchers today probably chose their fields based on the ideas exposed in his art.
But did he get there before the researchers ? I'd say no. And he doesn't need to, what he did is incredible in other ways already.
PS: too many people assume that scientists or engineers don't have imagination nor project their ideas into the future. That would be misguided.
- Theatre of the Gods by Matt Suddain is an epic read. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is one of the few books I’ll reread every few years. Both are sci-fi.
And, while not technically a book but a manga, Appleseed by Masamune Shirow is another collection I reread every few years (precursor to Ghost in the Shell).
- So of all the possible futures we could have, ones where we use computers to give us crypto, good security and privacy etc, instead we end up with Masamune Shirow's admitted guess of Ghost in the Shell where people can't properly use their arms due to 5 different version of the driver installed and people having 10 different viruses IN THEIR BRAINS and are constantly getting hacked and having their bodies taken over.
- This reminded me of a quote from Shirow Masamune's Ghost In The Shell:
"No matter how powerful we may be fighting-wise, a system where all the parts react the same way is a system with a fatal flaw. Like individual, like organization. Overspecialization leads to death."
