If you're wondering why cyberpunk tends to use the theme of "losing your humanity" as you cyber-up, and why that's not suitable any more, here's a quick little primer from me:

There has always been a fear of change, a simple reactionary fear. People complained about newspapers being too much information, too fast for the human brain to process. Books are more our speed.

Except I'm sure when books were invented, they said the same thing.

In the 80s and 90s, that reactionary fear was focused on the development of computers. "The machine" became a way to refer to the way corporations and governments keep control.

Before, it was called "The Man", like "The Man's keeping us down, not cool."

Now it's "the machine".

This is all vague and imprecise on my part. I'm simply trying to say that, in the 80s and 90s, there was a growing reactionary fear of computers.

They were "inhuman". Like newspapers and, before that, books.

You can see this in all the media that time. Easy example: our racist depictions of Japan in the 90s. They were "a machine" working with "efficient algorithms" to "jump ahead".

You can also see it reflected in how we depicted machines - specifically focusing on their inhumanity.

Countless movies and books about rogue robots, rogue sports cars, rogue nanotech tuxedos -

And, of course, if you put machines under your skin, well... now you were part inhuman.

Hell, you can see it in all the Star Wars and Star Trek produced at the time.

Oh, did you get Borged? That means you're inhuman now. You're part of The Machine.

When games needed a balancing mechanic to make cyberware viable in various cyberpunk games, the answer was obvious:

More metal, less flesh. More plastic, less human.

In reality, having metal or plastic bits in you doesn't make you any less human. Neither does reading a newspaper.

As technology advances, more and more of us are full of techological assists.

Are you saying my niece with an insulin pump is less human than everyone else? My grandfather with his pacemaker?

Does a hip replacement make you less human? Heart replacement? Laser eye surgery?

How about: no. That's unacceptable thinking, you dipshits.

So now it's "oh, well, the problem is when the cyberware gives you *superhuman* capabilities-"

Uh huh. So now someone's capability is tied to whether they're human or not?

So, just as an easy example... steroids make you less human? Because lots of folks need those.

No?

The whole thought process was barely acceptable in the 90s, and it's completely unacceptable now.

People deserve respect and basic humanity regardless of their capabilities, or whether they've got metal and plastic embedded under their skin, or whether they read a newspaper.

Replacing "humanity" as a balancing concept? Well, how about:

A) When you install cyberware, you're tied to the company that made it.

B) Cyberware has ongoing software conflicts with other cyberware you've installed.

C) Hacking cyberware to reduce A and B will glitch it out.

Of course it depends on what the point of your game is.

A big part of the thematic punch of cyberpunk is that cyberware makes you less human because you're *forced* to take it on in service of a corporation.

You need the mining arm or the personality chip just to make money.

It makes you "less human" because it ropes you into a system of exploitation, not because you literally lose chunks of your literal soul.

That's still very valid. Getting forced to obey, forced to permanently change yourself to fit in - those are sharp themes.

There are plenty of modern takes on cyberpunk that attempt to reclaim this kind of message, rather than simply being more flash, more cool fascist tech.

Of course, they don't have the money to compete with studios, so their offerings are smaller, edgier...

cyber PUNK.