Motorcycles are not measurably cooler looking than when I was a teenager.
They look the goddamn same…and choppers are gone
Sport bikes continue to insectify themselves, small motorcycles are disappearing (250cc bikes are all but gone and the 300cc era didn’t seem to last long) cruisers are an endangered species, probably because they’re copies of Harley-Davidsons which is a dying brand, turns out making god damn fucking sure you only appeal to Boomers isn’t the best long-term business strategy.
Literary futuristic dystopias have the luxury of clearly defining good vs bad and generally ignoring the horrible plight of the have-nots as anything other than plot points or scene setting.
You’d never read a book that was nothing more than the grind of hopelessness, the self-sabotaging myopic stupidity, greed, and hatreds of the masses that get manipulated by politicians.
What the authors do almost always get right is the bottomless greed of the wealthy willing to set the fictional world on fire and destroy, or at best coldly disregard, the lives of those not in their class to further their wealth and power.
I mean, just from looking at History, we should’ve expected that the Dystopia we would get was one were things are shit for most people but we’re constantly fed fables that “actually it’s all good”, “for you it’s going to be fine (trust me)” or that “it’s all the fault of the poor and foreigners” (or all three, in sequence, as things get more undeniably bad).
That said, at least looking back at teenage me, I don’t think that at that age one is worldly or wise enough (and many people never are) to figure out that the most likely way for us to be screwed would involve some grand scale variant of the “one hand in our pockets whilst the other is waving in front of our faces to distract us” strategy.
… do we actually have “cool looking motorcycles”, especially compared what was already available 20 or even 30 years ago?
The new Honda E Motorcycle is simultaneously design to look like it came from 1980 and 2080.
How does the white one look old-fashioned and yet is exact same design?
Everyone knows the classic CHiPs style police bike from TV and movies. The white front fender and gas tank kind of evokes that memory.
I mean… Yeah, kind of?
That’s a BMW ce 04. I guess it counts more as an electric scooter, but as there’s no empty space between your feet I guess it’s somewhere in between.
All those cycles are OK, but they don’t compare to the light cycles in Tron. Or even Kaneda’s bike in Akira. C’mon corporate dystopia, you can do better…
Pedantic nitpick: TRON light cycles aren’t future bikes. They’re computer bikes that don’t exist in the real world of the movie.
Kinda yeah. Thats a Zero XB
Huh, that’s kinda neat. Though IDK if that really has the visual impact that people associate with cyberpunk …
The sound and absurd acceleration make up for it :)
There is also the Zero SR/S and that thing does 0-100 km/h in 3 seconds and 0-160km/h in 6 seconds. Tops out at almost 200km/h
That thing would be a blast until you had to turn.
I mean here’s a Kawasaki Ninja from 1990, motorcycles have looked cool for a loooong time
Yeah but its not electric and makes a bunch of loud annoying noise.
The noise is one of the best parts about ICE vehicles though.
*worst
are we sure its not a ryobi
Now that is a sick motorcycle sound!
Most ICE sports bike for the last 20-30 years have easily been able to do those acceleration times. Ie 1998 R1 0-60mph (97km/h) 2.96 s. 0-100mph(160k) 5.93s top speed 168/270k {MC Consumer news via wikipedia)
Which is not to say the zero isn’t a cool bike but EV bikes struggle to match ICE, unlike cars where they absolutely toast ICE
Yeah, he should have said mad max looking trucks. Because that’s where we actually are with this nightmare.
Yeah… Haven’t motorcycles always looked cool?
Yeah, but you can’t just roll in on a Harley when it’s a cyberpunk dystopia.
Feel like switching to something lighter than the news? Watch Idiocracy (hopefully rewatch) and try to guess how much is yet to come.
I rewatched Idiocracy last fall. It’s much less enjoyable than watching it as a teen in the late 2000s because its so real now.
It was a really bad movie when it came out. It really needed the real life examples in order to stitch it all together.
Kinda like how WWII docus aren’t as interesting, amirite?
Depends on what you like. I’m not really into WWII docus, though I fully acknowledge the necessity to know about it.
I tend to prefer fantasy (including science fantasy) type stuff, with or without major antagonists, and I think a major part of that is I can see real life tragedies every day. I dislike rape in storytelling as well.
Now that’s my personal desires, but it doesn’t mean I think people who do like real life drama type stuff are weird or anything. There are probably benefits they feel from it.
I also have no desire for bad or downer endings. Bittersweet I can like and be fine with, and sure, some happy endings are too “sweet” or unrealistic, bur I still prefer those ro “everyone dies and it was ultimately pointless” endings.
I laughed so much i cried when watching Idiocracy. Its just that now, we have Trump acting way worse than the characters in the movie, so Im kind of not laughing anymore at where things are going.
Its some large psy-ops where people are supposed to feel like the world is so insane and there is nothing they can do. But outside of this “social” media, there are a lot of decent, intelligent people still around who doesnt buy into all the bullshit.
Unfortunately a lot of young people will believe this is normal, since they dont know how it was before.
Truth, every word, and I feel ya. It’s one of the salient reasons we’ve gotta be kinder to each other: we’re just crabs in the bucket to the ruling class, and the gloved hand comes for us all without bias. Stand together, my carcinous kin!
Absolutely. So many people dont get this. Stay safe friend.
Now, to let our cousin-in-arms “451F” know. Get the band back together.🤘🏼
Time Traveling Me who has been to the farther future: “Neither of you realize how good you both have it.”
Future future future you only says: constant screaming
Presumably because he travelled back the moment he saw the bombs fall and knows he can no longer go back to his future, but you’ll never know, because he won’t stop fucking screaming.
Glad to see future-you apparently survived The Great Purge. …So far.
thought crimes exist in the future. purge would be mercy.
Well, the irrational revolution is happening in front of our eyes…
The ?
People having the power to vote and pretty much voting against their own interest. The irrational revolution. It’s happening word wide.
But the trans kids
Oh ok ty !
Word up
Yeah but daylight still exists
That’s why I like Atom Fall, sun-drenched dystopia, with pretty flowers.
