Cyber Nomads in a Trash-human Dystopia: A Posthumanist Analysis of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Maciej Czerniakowski

doi:10.18290/rh257311.4

Published : 2025-12-19

Vol. 73 No. 11 (2025)

Cyber Nomads in a Trash-human Dystopia: A Posthumanist Analysis of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Maciej Czerniakowski

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6841-3480

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh257311.4

Abstract

The article discusses how the miniseries Cyberpunk: Edgerunners critiques a world driven by unregulated technological progress and market dominated transhumanist ideals. While a dystopian vision of the future has been a well-established part of cyberpunk universes since the release of Neuromancer by William Gibson in 1986, this anime series introduces a fresh and noteworthy dimension to the cyberpunk’s assessment of the future. It achieves that by depicting the tragic fall of its protagonist, David, whose life stands as an illustrative symbol of the human cost in a world where progress takes priority over people. The article sets to interpret this bleak scenario of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners by placing it in the context of Jaime del Val’s vocal criticism of hyperconsumerism and hyperhumanism, which leads to replacing an unsustainable union between humans and technology with a new figure of the metahuman.

Keywords:

critical posthumanism, transhumanism, hyperhumanism, hyperconsumerism, cyberpunk

Details

References

Statistics

Authors

Download files

pdf

Altmetric indicators

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

AI Tech Academy. “Ameca Robot Vs Sophia Robot | Tesla Optimus Humanoid Robot: 2024 AI Robots.” Posted July 11, 2024, by AI Tech Academy. YouTube, 00:25:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtPfW9y9Zx4.

Alfsvåg, Knut. “Transhumanism, Truth and Equality: Does the Transhumanist Vision Make Sense.” Theofilos 7, no. 2 (2015): 256–67.

Bollinger, Laurel. “Symbiogenesis, Selfhood, and Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies 37, no. 1 (March 2010): 34–53.

Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Oxford: Polity Press, 2013.

Clarke, Bruce. Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.

Ferrando, Francesca. “Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism, Metahumanism, and New Materialisms: Differences and Relations.” Existenz 8, no. 2 (2013): 26–32.

Ferrando, Francesca. The Posthuman: Philosophical Posthumanism and Its Others. PhD diss., Università di Roma Tre. Accessed August 17, 2016. http://dspace-roma3.caspur.it/bitstream/2307/4356/1/TESI_Ferrando_DEF.pdf.

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books, 2000.

Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Hiroyuki Imaishi, dir. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Season 1. Aired September 13, 2022, on Netflix, Studio Trigger.

Kurzweil, Neil. The Singularity Is Near. When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking Penguin, 2005.

Margulis, Lynn. The Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Moravec, Hans. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

“Remember Your Loved Ones – Re;memory2.” AI Studios (blog), September 21, 2022. Accessed May 11, 2025. https://www.aistudios.com/blog/remember-your-loved-ones-deepbrainai.

Whiteside, Jessica Hope, and Dorion Sagan. “Medical Symbiotics.” In Chimeras and Consciousness: Evolution of the Sensory Self, edited by Lynn Margulis, Celeste A. Asikainen, and Wolfgang E. Krumbein, 207–18. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.

Yaeger, Patricia. Dirt and Desire: Reconstructing Southern Women’s Writing, 1930–1990. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Val, Jaime del. “Trash-Human Unhancement and Planetary Health. Undoing the Planetary Holocaust by Reinventing Movement and the Body: A Manifesto for Cosmic Response-Ability and the Future of Life.” Journal of Posthumanism 2, no. 1, Special Issue (2022): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.33182/joph.v2i1.1876.