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Technology and Modernization
Gibson was a man of the 80s, and the 80s were all about technology. The decade popularized the home computer, the VCR, and the video arcade—the grandparents of the tablet, Blu-ray player, and video game console. But while most people were trying to get the high score on Pac-Man, Gibson was wondering how technology like Pac-Man would affect humanity and vice versa. Would new technologies fundamentally alter what it means to be human or is the core to humanity deeper in our being, beyond the world-changing grasp of gadgetry? It's one of the many questions that set Gibson on the path to writing Neuromancer. Good thing, too, because Billy Mitchell's world record Pac-Man score of 3,333,360 would have been difficult to beat.
Gibson is ambiguous on the computer's ultimate role in human development and evolution. His goal was to get his readers to think about the subject, not to hand out easy answers to the question.
The machines in Neuromancer are not fundamentally different than our own tech. It only seems that way because it was imagined on a grander scale.
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