I’ll admit I’m stealing this question from an r/cyberpunk post but I thought it was an interesting question and wanted to ask it here.

To quote that original post:

On one hand, the CEO being essentially an omnipotent, untouchable king elevates the class differences to their logical extreme, but on the other hand, a corporation that is so large it feeds itself, a company so weighted and full of momentum no human can ever hope to come against it feels almost lovecraftian.

What do you think?

  • nyahlathotep@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    I think in proper cyberpunk, no individual is able to meaningfully change the system/improve world circumstances on their own, including a CEO of a gigantic megacorp. So a CEO can make things worse with their megacorp, but they can’t make them better.

  • nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    6·
    2 months ago

    I feel like the latter is pretty unique to cyberpunk. The powerful, possibly technologicaly immortal CEO controlling a megacorp is not a whole lot different than fuedalism.

    • Hammerjack@lemmy.zipOPMEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      That’s a good point. An evil CEO can appear in various different genres but a megacorp so large nothing can stop it is pretty unique to the cyberpunk genre. That doesn’t mean one is more evil or heartless then the other, but one is more uniquely cyberpunk than the other.

      • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Also It’s the board that have the real control the CEO is just the front man or the fall guy depending on what is needed.

  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    I think my favorite depiction of a megacorp treats it as an entity. A living, breathing god of capitalism, that seems to operate almost of it’s own accord. Like a giant machine, with all the employees acting as cogs in the machine. It makes it seem more immortal and terrifying. You can kill a man, but can you kill a corporation?

  • Maki@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    2·
    2 months ago

    This is me snowballing… The CEO is just another slave to the megacorporation, with no power to even fire themself. Their work day is meticulously planned out, micromanaged, and any misstep severely punished. Whether it’s investors, emergent AI, or whatever horror in control of the corporation behind the scenes, the CEO is only managing to play their role as a figurehead through illegal stimulants while covertly sending out pleas for help. They probably have a (subdermal) implant or other device on them which would kill them if they tried to leave on their own or broke the rules set upon them. Meanwhile the actual owners of the company are far away, faceless, and too big to bring down easily. They would not miss the CEO, but gumming up the works of the corporation would cut into their profit margins and they would probably excise it like one would amputate a limb which is rotting away. They might resort to total destruction of the company, its assets, and workforce if they can’t otherwise get rid of it, so any killswitches deployed on the workforce might be a problem.

    • TheTechyHobbit@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      2 months ago

      As a plot twist, the megacorp, described as an entity, becomes aware of The Owners’ intention of destruction. It covertly puts in place measures to survive when the excise comes.

      A war of megacorps ensues, the freed megacorps against the enslaved ones by The Owners. With the puny humans being doubly screwed over, of course.

  • Yardy Sardley@lemmy.ca
    2·
    2 months ago

    Cory Doctorow had something relevant to this in one of his blog posts a while ago, but I can’t recall if he was quoting someone else. The gist of it was about how corporations already exist as the uncaring, unfeeling, immortal tyrants that everyone is afraid AI will eventually become, and humans (including CEOs) are insignificant gut flora who survive by helping their hosts consume the world’s resources. I’ll add a link later if I have time/remember.

    To answer the question, it’s the second one and we are currently living in that dystopia.