Comment by fao_
> Cyberpunk was essentially a sub-type of counterculture, and counterculture itself has pretty much been dead for a couple decades now. When the hackers are primarily interested in VC funds, the cryptocurrency ethos overtaken by the finance industry, and the goal of every artist to “make it” as a creator, there’s basically no room for culture that explicitly wants to operate outside the system.
Counter-culture still exists. Look to minorities for it to exist, and think independently outside of what you get exposed to through media. The small web, and mastodon, are both built on the backs of queer/bipoc people, and it's possible to find spaces that still are operating outside of the system, you just have to actually leave the system to find it. Nobody's going to put it on your facebook or linkedin feed.
Sadly, the minorities (in the Anglosphere at least) don't deliver at either "think" or "independently". Their counterculture is as countercultural as joining a church. Just another way to fit in. Be be slightly different and they'll chastise you - a high-profile example of this mechanism has just happened again https://archive.is/qeDfU. Unless that's what it's always been.
Hooligan-like countercultures are also excluded as far as "think" or "independently" goes for an obvious reason.
Thus, the only independent thinkers I've encountered are individuals who don't aim to have all the answers, who can accept disagreements, who attempt to know themselves - but those are individuals, not countercultures.
I'm erring on saying that countercultures were never about independent thinking. They were about fitting in with different people.