Cyberpunk 2020

Back in the day, meaning the mid to late 80's, we played a few games of Cyberpunk 2020, I still have a copy sitting on my bookshelf. It is interesting to look at and think about what we thought the future might be at the time and how far away 2020 seemed to be to us. Now of course the idea of virtual reality being streamed directly into our consciousness is kind of far fetched, considering how much processing power we now know we need to render reasonably good graphics. But back then, it seemed like a real possibility. Never mind the ludicrous idea that people would willingly have limbs amputated and replaced with bionic ones. Thankfully the dystopian part of it never really materialized either, but it was easy back then to see how it would come about. I think most people have an idealized vision of what the 80's were really like, all they remember is what a wonderful president Reagan was and how the economy was booming. The reality was, we lived nearly the whole decade on the brink of nuclear war and if you were not a Yuppie, the new economy probably did not benefit you very much. There was a lot of anxiety about the future, I think pretty much everyone I knew had given up on any sort of golden future for humanity. Somehow we managed to live decent lives, in spite of the darkness that surrounded us.